Jo Maeder's Blog
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May.08.2013
Ten years ago, when my mother was in the throes of dementia, I left New York, bought a home in North Carolina near my brother, and moved her in with me.
Mama Jo, as she was known, was a hoarder who had been living in Virginia with a collection of more than 700 dolls that she referred...
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Apr.07.2013
Photos of me by Mama Jo
To commemorate the anniversary of my mother's heavenly ascent, I thought I'd introduce a Forever Home Photo Contest using photos sent to me by new “moms” and "dads" of her dolls. Mama Jo loved to take photos. Many were of her/our dolls. Whimsy was never in short...
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Mar.24.2013
Part 1 of my interview with New York rock DJ and Led Zeppelin expert Carol Miller ran in the New York Times. Click here to read it and listen to the accompanying audio clip. Behind Carol’s glamorous life is more than forty years of dealing with familial cancer. 5 % of...
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Mar.05.2013
Rock DJ goddess Carol Miller winding up another segment of "Get the Led Out" on her weeknight show on Q-104.3FM in New York City.
I've known of Carol Miller since the day she spoke her first word on the New York airwaves in the 1970s. I was an aspiring DJ myself then. There were so few...
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Feb.25.2013
I've been a fan of Janis Owens since we met at the Bookmarks Book Festival in 2009 -- and that was before I knew of the accolades Pat Conroy had bestowed upon her. Her new novel AMERICAN GHOST (Scribner, hardcover) is a must-read. Without giving away too much, it's about...
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Oct.25.2012
Two trips to Paris, ten years apart. Two different men, both named Peter. They even shared the same initials. Peter #2 unknowingly booked the same flight over. The similarities ended there.
Peter #1 was a rich rascal who took me to Paris for a first (and last) date. It was the best of times...
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Oct.11.2012
I wanted to spend a month but couldn't swing it. So I boarded a flight from New York City to Nice, France, and enrolled in a French total-immersion school in Hyeres (ELFCA), two hours south of Nice, for two weeks.
I entered speaking like a one-year old and left speaking like I was two. Still, it...
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Sep.13.2012
Photo by Mike Smith/At Home Gallery
He almost went into the freebie pile. He stands 7 1/2 inches tall. I should say he measures that tall because he can't stand on his own. His clothes are moth-eaten. His feet look too wide and big for his short legs. Yet there was something about him...
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Sep.13.2012
I took the long, scenic route to getting published. Fifteen years, seven other books, and four literary agents preceded the publication of When I Married My Mother. Whatever success my writing brings me is the result of working with great editors and agents, taking criticism extremely well,...
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Sep.13.2012
Martin Sheen, age 21, with son Emilio EstevezCo-author Hope Edelman
Ever since I read Shirley MacLaine's 2001 book The Camino about her walking the Camino de Santiago - a 500-mile pilgrimage in northern Spain - alone when she was in her sixties, I've been fascinated...
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Sep.13.2012
June Gardens
Oh, no. Bye Bye, Pie! is going buh-bye.
In the past, I wasn’t much of a blog reader. I drifted in the internet tide, momentarily attaching myself to a social media site then floating wherever Google took me. One day my friend Kit Rodenbough told me about Bye...
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Mar.01.2012
Randy Poe is a Grammy-nominated record producer who has also produced, compiled, and/or written the liner notes for more than 100 albums. He’s won many awards and authored Squeeze My Lemon: A Collection of Classic Blues Lyrics and Skydog: The Duane Allman Story. Since 1985, he’s...
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Mar.01.2012
I recently had the pleasure of hearing the vivacious Eleanor Brown speak to her Triad-based fans courtesy of the Bookmarks Book Festival (FYI: They have great literary events year-round, not just when the fest happens in September).
Her present tour to support the paperback release of...
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Oct.30.2011
After viewing an MRI of my lower back, I prayed New York neurosurgeon Dr. Ezriel Kornel wouldn't utter the dreaded word “surgery.” He said, “You have a cyst in the ligaments around your L4 that has to come out.” I visualized a laparoscopic number with a tiny scar and I'd be back home the same day...
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Aug.31.2011
I’ve just finished John Water’s latest funhouse of memories and musings, Role Models. There’s a spray of pink slips of paper sprouting from the top of it now – markers of captivating passages. I know, I know. With an e-reader you can highlight, search for keywords and deodorize a room at the...
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This book is important to every mother and daughter, and to every woman who wants to be one. (WHEN I MARRIED MY MOTHER)”
—Maya Angelou
About Jo
WHEN I MARRIED MY MOTHER is the true story of leaving my life as a New York City radio DJ to move to the Bible Belt to care for my estranged, eccentric mother. What I thought would be some of the worst years of my life were, in fact, some of the best. This is...
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Jo’s Favorite Books
I read all kinds of books but I'm partial to memoir and autobiographical fiction. There are so many great books (and new ones every week), it's hard to narrow...