Jo Maeder's Blog
RSS
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...
Continue Reading »
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...
Continue Reading »
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...
Continue Reading »
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...
Continue Reading »
May.06.2011
The moment Easter is over the push for Mother's Day begins. When your mother is no longer alive - or she may not be in the near future - Mother's Day takes on a new meaning. And new sadness. Read how I handle it on AOL Parentdish http://www.parentdish.com/2011/05/06/motherhood-moments-coping-with-...
Continue Reading »
Mar.30.2011
It started as an early morning tweet. I cast into the twitterverse: When was the last time you went through a day without using the word google? Then I thought, why not try a google-free day? Not only would I not say "google," I would not indulge in the act itself. There was something...
Continue Reading »
2 comments
Nov.14.2010
In the movie When Harry Met Sally, Billy Crystal's character makes a passionate case that a man can't be friends with a woman because he's always thinking about having sex with her. In 2003, when I became friends with Ted, a transplanted Yankee radio engineer who set up my NC recording studio,...
Continue Reading »
Sep.21.2010
For those who have never taken a family vacation outside the US, a trip to Québec's city of Montréal with tweens will feel like a visit to a truly foreign country. Signs and websites are bilingual in French and English, and when you stop at a gas station even the men who look like lumberjacks speak...
Continue Reading »
Aug.12.2010
Today I realized I’d used up half of my allotted gmail space. A panic hit me, not unlike the panic that used to set in when I thought about having to one day empty my mother’s stuffed-to-the-gills house. That “day” turned out to last six weeks. So once a year, I go through my own house and do a...
Continue Reading »
Aug.10.2010
My mother once referred to a North Carolina friend of mine who had been raised Jewish and Christian as “spiritually bi-lingual.” After "Mama Jo"'s passing in 2006, I now live in Greensboro and New York. I guess that makes me "geographically bi-lingual." It also gives me a...
Continue Reading »
Jul.28.2010
As the Bachelorette nears its “most dramatic final rose ceremony ever” I find myself thinking back to the Bachelor debut in 2002. Twenty-five beautiful young women vied for the heart of one alpha male. Many weeks later, he whittled it down to one. Kind of like a harem in reverse. I was...
Continue Reading »
4 comments
Jul.24.2009
Of course I didn't do this on purpose, but it just goes to show how you never know what might get your book press..
Continue Reading »
May.02.2009
15 years, 7 other books, 4 literary agents. And now I finally have a book out there I can hold in my hands, personally inscribe, have people read and tell me how it affected them. The reactions I'm hearing leave me humbled. It's an incredible feeling. The only downside is I'm afraid I'll turn into...
Continue Reading »
This book is important to every mother and daughter, and to every woman who wants to be one.”
—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...
Connections
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...