Aliki McElreath's Blog
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Oct.09.2012
I am drowning in grading. The only way to make it go away is to get it done, yet I seem unable to make much progress these days. I have a lot on my mind, and it’s easy to get distracted by a hundred different things, the way I’m doing now by writing this blog post instead of reading through another...
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Sep.13.2012
in this query-letter journey, that is. When I wrote Ficus Way I didn’t have any idea how someone actually went about getting work published. I knew about submitting to calls for papers, and submitting to journals and anthologies, but I didn’t know how you went about submitting a novel....
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Aug.06.2012
My novel sits with an agent now, awaiting judgment. I think about it often, and in my spare time compose little poem-like notes and letters to it. This is the second one, and doing this has proven to be far more useful than checking e-mail compulsively every ten minutes.
***************
Dear book,...
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Aug.05.2012
Right after I graduated college I started a series of temporary jobs. Living so close to Washington, D.C. meant there were endless possibilities for finding temporary work through any number of agencies. Temping appealed to me. If I wasn't certain exactly what I wanted to do after college...
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Jul.25.2012
My daughter is eight, and she is still learning to ride her bicycle. She’s always had developmental issues with her balance, from a young age. I think this has affected her confidence in terms of feeling stable and secure atop a bicycle. She is generally wary of doing anything that makes her feel...
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Feb.22.2012
I woke up today thinking about my book, which I often do.
It's been six months since I sent it off into the wild unknown. A long shot, I know. The silence has been yawning, dreadful.
Dream big! a writer-friend told me.
Be realistic, another said.
I picked the big dream. I can't look back now...
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Feb.14.2012
On Saturday, while T. was at her ice skating lesson, I took L. to run a few errands with me. We took a roundabout way to the stores, because I had to stop for gas and for money. Our route took us through a particular neighborhood—one we used to drive through daily when we lived in our old house. We...
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Feb.14.2012
One Saturday morning a couple of years ago, a spectacular day by all counts: cool like a March day, but with warming sunshine--summer sun, not early spring sun--I sat on the back porch with my dad and watched the kids painting. My dad brought out a few blank “canvases” for them (pieces of flat...
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Jan.15.2012
I've shifted the time I swim laps at the pool from lunchtime (around noon) to 8:00 am. While others might shudder at the thought of jumping into a lukewarm pool at 7:45 or 8:00 on these wintry dark mornings, I like it. I hate feeling groggy, and a brisk swim workout first thing certainly...
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Nov.21.2011
Years ago a teacher-friend advised me to never teach material that I was in love with, or that I was personally invested in. You'll only be broken-hearted and let-down when your students are dismissive or, worse yet--bored, she said. I've never really been sure whether I want to believe in...
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Nov.16.2011
On Monday I got to record a short bit about my grandmother's olive bread--for a segment on food memories that will air on The Story next week. It was fun to do, and even though I didn't get to say everything I wanted to say about my grandmother (it was about food, after all), it meant a lot to me...
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Nov.14.2011
A friend of mine is trying to practice mindfulness--that is, the practice of stopping and reflecting on the moment, what you are feeling now as separate from what came before, and what might come after. You focus on physical and emotional sensations, and on your body's needs and reactions, in order...
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Nov.10.2011
After over a decade of living in this area, and a decade of working within fifteen miles of a year-round aquatic center, I finally got my act together and bought a punch pass so I can swim laps. I've been going two- to three-times a week now, for the past month, and I've been feeling great. The...
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Aug.08.2011
I had some bank problems recently. I have a "writing name" as T. calls it and, after months and months of depositing writing-gig-related checks under that name, my bank decided they they weren't sure who I was exactly, and they sent my checks back. In order to sort the mess out, I had to...
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Aug.08.2011
I was sorting through some bins of old clothes recently, in an attempt to do some summer cleaning. I had already made a big run-through of the bins a few months ago, but there were still a good many clothes to sort through, and I wanted to pass some along to my sister, and maybe our neighbors...
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About Aliki
I'm a writer and college English teacher at a small, private, historically black college in North Carolina. I'm also mama to two great kids. For four years I wrote an almost daily parenting/you-name-it column for The Family Education Network, where I...