Goodreads Choice Awards 2025

Kelli Russell Agodon's Blog, page 33

May 8, 2013

May 6, 2013

May 3, 2013

May 2, 2013

WINNERS of the BIG POETRY GIVEAWAY ~~




First, thank you all who entered!  I appreciate "meeting" new folks, learning names, and just hearing your comments.



I love to give things away, so after I chose the winners, I decided to choose a couple more for some door prizes just for fun.  So if you left me a comment on my original post, your name was entered in all the drawings.



Here are the winners and what they will receive (by the way, if you see your name on the list, email your mailing address to me at  kelli (at) agodon. com  --otherwise, I'll be contacting you in the next week.)













1) My book: Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room 



WINNER(S):

Cathy Warner

Ron Lewis





















2)  Postage Due by Julie Marie Wade:



WINNER:

Renee (at this quiet hour)





















3)  One Year Subscription to Crab Creek Review:



WINNER:

Adriana Grant













SURPRISE Shut-the-front-DOOR PRIZES!:





Limited Edition Broadside of my poem "Speech Lessons":



WINNERS:

Patrick Dixon

R. Wilder Jr.

Erin Borchik

Mary Stebbins Taitt













Typewriter Postcards

(from my series "Have Typewriter, Will Travel):



WINNER:

Ann Marie







Thank you ALL who entered as well as those who didn't but visit here to stay connected with poetry, writing, and creativity.



Hope to have more giveaways before our next Big Poetry Giveaway April 2014... Thanks for playing.  You're all winners (in my book).



Cheers!



~ Kells



 

~ Don't Miss a Post ~ Subscribe to Book of Kells by EmailKelli Russell Agodon
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Published on May 02, 2013 10:19

Salvador Dali Telling it Like it Is -

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Now that you don't have this to worry about this, just create!



~ Kells



 

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Published on May 02, 2013 09:14

May 1, 2013

Confession Tuesday: The Respect Our Girls Edition






Dear Reader,



I confess I'm not thinking about writing or creativity today, but the mixed messages we send our girls.



Here's something I don't write about much because I like to keep my family life separate from from writing life, but I'm the mother of an incredible daughter who constantly amazes me in all she does.



Recently, she's been having a lot of questions about being a girl, a middle-school girl, which honestly, maybe be one of the hardest times in a girl's life because they're at that "mid" point--not women, but not children either.



So I've been thinking a lot about the mixed messages our societies gives girls--of all ages, we so want them to grow up into smart, kind, strong women, but right now, as kids, we're kind of messing with their heads.



We tell them to love themselves for who they are, while grown women complain about their thighs, wrinkles, tummy fat, or gray hairs.  Some women go out and get plastic surgery, botox. Some women diet constantly, skip dessert.



Then Dove comes out with a huge campaign about loving ourselves and our natural beauty, while selling us anti-aging cream on the side.



We tell our girls "don't dress sexy," then sell them padded bras and padded bikinis.



We say "it's important to be smart," then make a snide comment about another woman while browsing a tabloid magazine in the checkout line.



We tell them "be empowered and be yourself," but if "yourself" includes something that doesn't fit our definition of beauty, sometimes we freak out a bit.



We tell the girls not to "dress provocatively," instead of telling boys not to rape.



We tell them not to be bossy, then tell them to stick up for themselves & be assertive (though we rarely tell the boys not to be bossy).



We say "it doesn't matter what other people think," then live a lifestyle above our means to fit in or impress people ourselves.



We make dress codes for the girls so they don't "distract" the boys, instead of teaching boys that you respect a girl whether she's in a scoop neck t-shirt & short skirt or a button-up polo shirt & long pants.



And we don't do all of this all the time, but we do it enough that I can see in the faces of these girls, the what-the-heck-is-going-on? look, the who-are-we-supposed-to-be?



And I know, this middle-place is hard for girls, their bodies feel as if they are part of some sort of hormonal experiment, but their bodies are theirs, their styles are theirs, and really, our girls are trying to figure out who they are.



Just as each of us at times in life, re-evaluate our life and values.



So in this time of change and crazy hormones, ease up on the girls, especially the ones in the middle, they are just muddling through this time as did we.  And help them support other girls who are also just doing the best they can and making the best choices they know how to at this very moment.



Love them for their baggy t-shirts or skinny jeans.  Their long crazy-colored hair or their short, this-will-do cropped style.  Their raccoon-eye make-up or their struggle with forehead acne.  Love them for their good and bad choices, their mistakes and what they learn from them.



Thank them when do something kind, no matter how small.  Girlworld folds in on itself and it can be hard to realize life is going on throughout the world and not just on your corner of the universe.



Let them know that no, they aren't crazy, our culture is giving them mixed messages constantly.



Remind them how much they are loved and valued for who they are not how they look.  And that we as grown women will continue to try to make the world a better place for them by what we do and say.  In certain ways, these girls are a compact mirror of our who we are and the struggles we still have as women, so we need to love them and love ourselves, while constantly trying to make things better for generations of both girls and boys to come.



Amen.





~ Kells



 

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Published on May 01, 2013 10:46

April 30, 2013

On Turning 40: Advice from Someone Who's Already in the Club For @webbish6





Portrait of Alva Erskine Smith Vanderbilt Belmont hangs in Marble House the Newport, RI, "Cottage" her then-husband William K. Vanderbilt had built (1888-1892) for her as a Fortieth Birthday Gift. After divorcing Vanderbilt and widowed by O.H.P. Belmont, Alva dedicated herself to equality and women's suffrage.





On Turning Forty:  Advice from Someone Who's Already in the Club

My friend Jeannine Hall Gailey is turning forty today.



Turning forty is like most things you've never done before--it seems harder and scarier before you do it.  Like learning London's Tube or the Electric Slide, growing older gets easier with practice.



First let me say, Forty is not old.



Okay, young people who are in their 20's and 30's are saying: Um, 40 is totally old.



I know this because I said it too.  And I said it about people who were thirty as well.  But really, it's not and there are *huge* perks to being forty that no one knows about until they are forty.  Much of it is about freedom.  And some of it is about strength.



So in honor of Jeannine turning 40 today, here are my favorite things about turning forty...and I'm good at forty, I've been doing it for four years.



1)  You no longer care what people think.  This is a greatest reward of being forty or older because there is a huge freedom in not caring.  I spend my days writing poetry and wearing nerdy glasses. If I want to wear Crocs or socks with sandals to the store (I live in the Northwest, btw) I do.  If I feel like wearing a tiara in my driver's license photo, I do.



I don't care what others think about my quirks, my life, my views, my family, my home, my world...because it's mine.  I lived forty-plus years to create this funky world I live in and I love it.  If you do not, that's okay.



2)  You no longer have to worry about good looks.  Okay, I know a few people are saying, "Whaaaa?"  But there is a truth to this.  No longer are you judged on your body or how pretty you are (and if you are, you return to favorite thing #1).  But there's less pressure to look fantastic.



For example, when you go to your thirtieth high school reunion, there will be people who look like they are in their fifties (sometimes sixties!) and there are people who look in their thirties.  Some of the boys you once dated are bald.  Bald and fat.  In your twenties and thirties, most people look the same--young.  But when you hit your forties, people can look twenty years older.    If you can look your age, you are rewarded. You're forty?!  Why you look 38! (It's so easy to get compliments these days!) And if you don't look your age, but older, it doesn't matter because people like you because of how you act and who you are, not what you look like.



Being in your forties, if you just look decent, you get compliments.  The bar has been lowered so we can all jump over it.  (Note: I look forward to how much being 50, 60 and 70 will lower the bar.)



3)  You mellow.  All those things you were freaking out about in your twenties, have passed.  All that micromanaging stuff from your thirties, those control issues you had with your partner, kids, parents... they go away or become less.  Why?  Because you're forty and it's easier just to relax into your life than fight windmills, imagined or not.



Forty is the time you say: Wow, I guess I'm doing this...I'm living my life.  This is good.



4)  You get to reevaluate your life.  Of course, you can do this anytime in your life, but forty is kind of the halfway mark for many of us.  The number we've been hearing since we were kids as "over the hill."



We look at our lives and think-- Days and years are not going to be added on from this point.  We are no longer aching to achieve something, be important, impress people we don't care about, but we want to live a good life and make good use of our time.



Sometimes this means people get divorced.  Sometimes they find a new job or passion.  Sometimes they find their own old passion and rediscover it. Sometimes they do what they've been afraid to do. Sometimes they travel more (insert my name under this one).  Sometimes they begin to live the life they've always wanted to.



Forty is a reminder that we are aging and not getting younger.  We are not over the hill, but on top of it looking out to our future in front of us and trying to make the most of it.



5) You get to be young in a new group.  For the last three or four years you've been "late thirties," now you're "early forties!"  You are the new kid in an old school.  You are the youngster of the decade.  You are young again!  People will say, "I remember when I was forty" or "Forty was a great year."  And it's your year, enjoy it.



6)  You have better conversations.  None of my forty-something friends talk about Kardashians.  Enough said.





Turning forty will be a gift and it's hugely better than the alternative of not turning forty.



My twenty or thirty year old self would have never believed that it just gets better, that at forty I'd be loving my life more. I wouldn't have believed I'd be so much better at making decisions, trusting my own instincts, and following whatever path I wanted without care who was cheering me on or not.



My young self would have never believed that in my forties I'd still feel young, still *am* young. In my forties, I really felt I came into myself, even more than my thirties which had that sort of feeling as well.  It would not believe how many of my fears and anxieties slipped away because I am thankful just for being here, thankful to be typing this to you.



So may your forties continue to offer you good things, freedom, and strength.



Happy Birthday Forty Year Olds.  May you realize how lucky you are.



~ Kells



 

~ Don't Miss a Post ~ Subscribe to Book of Kells by EmailKelli Russell Agodon
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Published on April 30, 2013 09:37