Jessie Voigts's Blog, page 57
October 3, 2022
Through the Eyes of an Educator: Messy is normal
Growing up, I wanted to have that perfect penmanship. Taking notes in high school found me pressing hard enough with my pen to ensure I could feel the ink on the back of the paper, have evenly spaced letters and words, and quite literally rip out a page if I had to scribble out a letter. Needless to say, I had no idea then how much pressure and anxiety I caused myself in the process of seeking that perfect penmanship.
Perhaps we all put unreasonable expectations on our...
October 1, 2022
Shipwrecks of the Great Lakes: The Lake Michigan Triangle
The approximate 6,000 ships that have succumbed to raging storms attest to the power of the Great Lakes. As I traveled, writing and compiling information for my three-volume travel series that explores Michigan's coasts, I heard or read the tales left behind by those ill-fated ships. They add a somber, but compelling backdrop to Michigan’s waterways. This week’s article isn’t about a specific ship. It’s about a place where many doomed vessels disappeared.
In 1950, the t...
September 28, 2022
A Moment of Zen in Haven Jacobs Saves the Planet
It’s hard to be objective about your own writing. Sometimes you hate a chapter simply because it was a struggle to write. Or you fall in love with it because it reminds you of something personal. Or because you’re proud of a joke. Or a single word.
All that said, I think my favorite scene in HAVEN JACOBS SAVES THE PLANET is one near the end. Haven has already made two semi-disastrous efforts to stage a meaningful protest about the presence of toxic chemicals in t...
Hope for refugees: Where are the displaced?
Imagine yourself pushed out from the place you have called home all your life—with only a bag containing everything you have managed to save, not knowing the next place you will lay your head, having to move to another state, country, or continent to begin to piece your life back together again. This is a reality for people all around the world, in circumstances much worse than we can ever imagine.
When a terrible disaster occurs, such as...
September 26, 2022
Travel with Awe and Wonder: Getting to Newfoundland Part Three: On Command
This summer, my husband and I undertook a move. A relocation from Massachusetts to Arizona has been undertaken by others, no doubt. We decided to make things a little more interesting than a direct route. We headed north. Our circuitous route is winding us through Newfoundland, Portugal, and North Carolina. When one would think to take the southerly route from the Carolina’s to Arizona in the winter months, we will make Bugs Bunny’s famous right turn at Albuquerque to g...
September 24, 2022
Shipwrecks of the Great Lakes: The J.H. Hartzell
The approximate 6,000 ships that have succumbed to raging storms attest to the power of the Great Lakes. As I traveled, writing and compiling information for my three-volume travel series, Exploring Michigan’s Coasts, I heard or read the tales left behind by those ill-fated ships. They add a somber, but compelling backdrop to Michigan’s waterways.
The J.H. Hartzell shipwreck wasn’t extraordinary when compared to the thousands of her sister ships that have succumbed to t...
September 20, 2022
Policing Bodies is a Human Rights Violation: The Barriers and Policies of Reproductive Rights
Today, three months after the United States Government overturned Roe V Wade (which simultaneously overturned 50 years of legal protection for the right to an abortion in America), the global conversation surrounding reproductive rights remains both important and divisive.
Americans now join a staggering 1,070 million people worldwide who face national institutionalised barriers to their reproductive rights.
This article will focus on an...
September 19, 2022
Music for Early Autumn's Changes
Late summer into early autumn is often a gentle season of change. There can be storms and other drastic events as well, of course.
At this writing, there seems to be a full slate of unsettling events on the political and social fronts, as well as atmospheric ones.
Take a step, maybe a few steps back, if you can, and find time to reflect.
Whether you are able to do that just now or not, remember, too that it is possible to look for stillness, to find goodness, to look fo...
September 17, 2022
Shipwrecks of the Great Lakes: The Milwaukee
The approximate 6,000 ships that have succumbed to raging storms attest to the power of the Great Lakes. As I traveled, writing and compiling information for my three-volume travel series, Exploring Michigan's Coasts, I heard or read the tales left behind by those ill-fated ships. They add a somber, but compelling backdrop to Michigan’s waterways.
The train ferry Manistique-Marquette & Northern No. 1 was a train ferry built in 1903; in 1909 she was renamed Milwaukee
...
September 15, 2022
Starting From The Cradle, Consistency Is The Key To Creating A Lifelong Love Of Literature
Reading is a pastime now hundreds of years old, and it has firmly cemented its place as one of the most all-round beneficial hobbies to have. Research profiled by the Reader’s Digest shows how reading can make you happy and enhance cognitive ability, but make you live longer, too—people who read for just 30 minutes a day lived up to 2 years longer than their peers.
However, Americans are reading less, and that’s not a very surprising thing—the hubbub of modern li...
