Editor's Picks--Week of October 6

This week's highlights from The Community Blog.

Thanks to SheWrites, my little ole' blog is about to hit a milestone by Jessica Keenan Smith
Last year, I dipped my toe in the bloggosphere when I created http://jessicaksmith.blogspot.com. The experience was initially frustrating and confusing but now my blog has begun to pick up steam. The site was initially named The Light Daughter. A title which needed to be explained and was not commonly searched.

At the advice of SheWriter Courtney Martin, I changed the name to include the word epilepsy since that is the focus of the blog. With the initial title I had to struggle to get 1-3 visitors each day. My new title Living Well With Epilepsy now brings 10-20 visitors to the site each day.
Read more here.

Reflections on She Writes' Extraordinary Heroines Event by Zoe Zolbrod
This past Thursday, at the invitation of SheWrites co-creator Deborah Siegel, I appeared at Women and Children First bookstore along with Teri Coyne, Audrey Niffenegger, Amina Gautier, and Emily Gray Tedrowe as part of a panel exploring modern-day heroines. I could diagram that sentence to show about twenty different sources of personal gratification: Women and Children First, where I spent many longing hours in the first years of my life in Chicago; SheWrites, a powerhouse site with an international membership; “at the invitation of,” which means I’m acknowledged as a real author by real authors, etcetera. (It seems a little uncool to be geeking out about my excitement, but one of the good things about publishing a novel in my forties after years of aspiring to it is that, although I have a lingering need to acknowledge my awareness of the uncoolness, I’m pretty genuinely OK with it.) To top it all off, the question the panel posed was Why Can’t Our Heroes Be Heroines?, a query that’s resonated with me for seemingly ever.
Read more here.

Poet Timothy Black: Male Medusas, Beautiful Lies, and Cancer Sex by Tania Pryputniewicz
The first male poet to publish at The Fertile Source, Timothy Black speaks to us about adoption, racism, and the roots of his poetic inspirations. Missing an Umbilical and Cancer Sex.
Read more here.

This Gal is Living Proof That You're Never Too Old! by Pamela Ferris-Olson
When they say: You’re never too old, here’s proof they really mean it! Sally Gordon was recently honored as the female exemplar of Outstanding Oldest Worker 2010. Sally is 101! The daughter of Russian immigrants, Sally is one of Nebraska’s treasures. She became the first female assistant sergeant-at-arms for the State of Nebraska, and has served members of the legislature since 1984.
Read more here.

Care to Dance? by Heather Harris-Brady
It’s fall here, and I find I have reason to consider junior high dances. It is a rather macabre evaluation, akin to discovering a long dark hair under the cheese on your purchased pizza slice when you’re already half finished. You feel sick because the damage has been done but there’s no going back.

My own experience was similar to many, I suspect. Another wallflower growing along the cracks, shielded from the sun of popularity by thick glasses, formidable test scores and unfashionable clothes. Even now, Can’t Fight This Feelin’ will send me running for the door while everyone else pairs up for the slow dance.

With each story, chapter and blog post I find I am again back in junior high.
Read more here.

A Series of Firsts... by Layla Maghribi
This is the first time I have written on a blog. I am sat in a cafe in Bahrain at the end of my first week on this desert island. Its far too hot right now to do much else other than sit were there is AC and internet and while I wait for the temperature to cool enough for me to be able to explore my new temporary place of residence I'm doing a different kind of creative online exploring and with that I am posting my first ever poem online.
Read more here.

It's Almost NaNoWriMo Time! by Kim Koning
It is October. In exactly 4 weeks time NaNoWriMo 2010 officially begins. If you have not yet heard of NaNoWriMo, then let me tell you all about it. It is a challenge set up for writers to become novelists. The goal is to write a minimum of 50 000 words in a month. Writers, both published novelists and wanna-be novelists, from all around the world count down the weeks and months until NaNoWriMo. The event has become so popular that there are all sorts of spin-offs from it. Now not only do novelists have an event but young writers and scriptwriters too.
Read more here.

Crazeee Bees by Maryam Henein
“You got a pallet or what,” David Hackenberg shouts to his son Davie from across the bee yard where the two are consolidating hives, getting rid of bad equipment in preparation for the almond bloom in California.

“Make sure you’re wiping the pallets off before you set ‘em down,”
he adds in that indelible accent of his.
Read more here.

The Undersung Love of Friendship: Let's Take the Long Way Home by Randy Susan Meyers
When we were younger (in our twenties) my best friend and I talked about the unimaginable horror of being without each other. Now that we’re older, and the idea of folks our age dying is no longer as unthinkably shocking as it was back then, we barely talk about it—it’s too frightening, too awful, and too possible a thought.

Nevertheless, when we did talk about it, we’d wonder why there wasn’t a name for having your closest friend die. Who was the one left behind?
Read more here.

Blessed are those who grieve...The Ballerina by Susan Pohlman
I boarded my connecting flight late on purpose. It had already been a long travel day, and I dreaded another two hours on a crowded plane. As I made my way toward the one vacant seat in back of the aircraft, I could see a frazzled, older woman standing in the aisle. She clutched a maroon tweed carry-on bag that was not going to fit under the seat no matter how hard she wrestled with it.

“Oh dear. I thought this would work. What was I thinking?” Mumble, mumble. “No room in the overhead.” More mumbling. “Gosh darn it.”
Read more here.

Accordion Crimes by Molly Campbell
A felony was committed in our garage last Sunday night. This is a moral tale, and I encourage those of you reading this to share it with any youths in your spheres that you feel may be heading for lives of lawlessness. This is a tale of the id conquering the ego. This is a tale of youth gone terribly wrong. This is a tale of crime not paying.

My spouse has spent the better part of his adult life choosing pastimes that take him so far off the beaten path that I have often wondered why he doesn’t carry a small machete. He ponders the universe, signs up for lectures about how to thatch a roof, how to make picture frames, how to detail cars, and he is a card carrying member of the “Handyman Club of America.” He has tried his hand at corning his own beef, making beer, and perfecting a family recipe for almond toffee. So his sudden acquisition of three accordions fifteen years ago did not surprise me. His devotion to practice, his formation of an accordion band with thirty members, and his ability to get paying gigs did.
Read more here.

Thinkful Wishing by Michelle McGee
Red birds. Birthday candles. Dandelion puffs. All things that I have been known to make wishes on, though my wishes are usually more like prayers.
When I was little I wished for new dolls, or coloring books – things that would make me happy. Today isn’t much different, I still wish for things that make me happy, it’s just that those things have taken on a different form. But sometimes those things aren’t things at all. They’re deeper than that.
Read more here.

We're always looking for new, fresh ideas and strong writing to inspire and indulge. Keep writing!

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