Nadine Feldman, Author

celebrating strong female characters and whatever else strikes my fancy

Great blogs

New City, New Friends #newyork #adventures

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Tree at Rockefeller Center
Tree at Rockefeller Center

After bellyaching the other day about the downside of the Internet and social media, I thought I’d write about the plus side of it today.

Over the years, I’ve “met” many authors and bloggers online, and I consider several of them my friends. When I have the opportunity to meet one in person, I will take it if at all possible.

This week I met Carol of Buttercup Counts Her Blessings. Carol initiated a get-together, and I’m so glad she did! She’s warm, funny, and intelligent…of course you know that if you read her blog, but it’s always fun to meet the person behind the blog. If you’re not reading her blog, you’re missing out!

We stood near the skating rink at Rockefeller Center for a while, watching the skaters as we got to know each other better. Later we got coffee and talked some more, and she generously shared some money-saving tips for plays and other cultural events.

I’m a shy person, and sometimes it takes me a while to warm up to someone. I had no such trouble with Carol…our conversation was relaxed and comfortable, as though I had known her for a long time.

Thanks, Carol, for your hospitality and generous spirit! It’s always great to make new friends. For that reason, I am on balance grateful for the Internet.

Next week I’m going to write about Gilbert, Rhimes, and Strayed: The Badass Trinity. Stay tuned! This will be a fun post.

Nadine Galinsky Feldman is the author of The Foreign Language of Friends and the upcoming What She Knew, available March 2016. If you enjoy this blog, please consider purchasing a book or signing up for the newsletter to be kept informed of upcoming promotions and giveaways.

Random Five Friday

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Thanks to my friend Tina Fariss Barbour of Bringing Along OCD, I have hooked up with Nancy’s A Rural Journal for Random Five Friday. Don’t know what I’m getting into yet, but I’ll see how it goes! I invite you to visit these blogs and participate in Nancy’s Random 5 if you so choose.

My Random Five for the week:

  1. It’s been a great harvest week for the garden. Blueberries, onions, artichokes, and lots of tomatoes! I’ve had a bumper crop of peas and have frozen several batches, but they’re just about done for the year. The pumpkins are blooming and zucchinis are forming. 
  2. I volunteer at the office of our local public theatre, Key City Public Theatre. We’ve had a hectic week, selling lots of tickets to a musical history of the world, The Big Bang, and getting ready for Shakespeare in the Park. My husband is an actor who will be performing in Much Ado About Nothing.
  3. I didn’t write a regular blog post this week. Well, actually I wrote several, but nothing feels ready for prime time. Bear with me. I’m hoping that by doing this Random 5, I’ll get back to a regular routine, including book reviews and blog recommendations.
  4. My latest novel concerns a Manhattan-based financial planner who gets unwittingly swept up in the Madoff scandal. At the same time, her estranged aunt has died and left her a house on *cough* the Olympic Peninsula. Soon I plan to start sharing my draft with you.
  5. I’ve learned that it’s impossible to predict the weather here on the Peninsula. When we lived in Houston, we would not only know that a storm was headed our way, but we would know when it would  arrive. Here, the forecasts are useless. The other day we had a predicted high of 81, but it hit 63. There was no rain in the forecast, but my deck was wet this morning. Go figure.

Have a great weekend! See you next week!

Blog of the Week: The Faces We Live

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Every now and then I run across a blog that demonstrates the genuine union of head and heart. Counselor, cancer “thriver,” author, wife, and mother are some of the many aspects of Dawn Novotny’s life. Her posts on The Faces We Live are meaty with experience and wisdom; she is a woman who has been there and done that.  She’s not only lived to tell the tale, but does so in a way that inspires all of us to dip more deeply into our own inner wells. In exploring her own shadow with compassion, she teaches us by example to do the same.

Dawn has written a memoir, Ragdoll Redeemed: Growing Up in the Shadow of Marilyn Monroe. I haven’t read it yet, having only recently discovered her blog, but it looks interesting. Given the quality of her blog, I suspect it’s a fascinating read.

Have a great weekend! The construction here at the house drags on, but progress is being made. Next week I’m going to explain my latest obsessions (figs and labyrinths) and review a book that I can’t wait to share with you! It’s so good that it’s making anything else I pick up seem dull and lifeless in comparison. I hope you’ll stop by and visit!

Do you have a favorite blog that you’d like to see featured in the Thursday post? It could be yours! Go ahead and promote yourself or someone else in the comments, and I’ll be happy to take a look at them.

Blog of the Week: The Neurosis Files

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I know a thing or two about neurosis, having started therapy at age 26 and continuing, from then on, a quest to find a place of quiet, calm wisdom. When that never happened, I dropped self-improvement and took up self-acceptance instead. It’s been freeing for me. I stopped trying to get well and just let myself be happy, warts and all. Turns out that neurosis is good for blogging, anyway.

Anyway, I’ve met a number of therapists in my lifetime, and some are better than others. My last therapist, Marilyn, was a warm, 60-something woman with great therapeutic skill and a lively, even bawdy, sense of humor. With Marilyn, healing was not such lofty, serious business, and she shared her own humanity openly without violating the precious patient-therapist boundaries. That doesn’t mean I never cried, but somehow we had a great time as we poked and prodded into my anxious life.

Years later, when I found June O’Hara‘s blog The Neurosis Files, I found a voice equally compelling. Though a therapist, O’Hara embraces her own midlife crisis with humor and irreverence. She’s even working on a book she calls, Your Therapist Isn’t Well, Either. When that gets published, I’ll be the first in line! In the meantime, whether writing about cell phones, life as a therapist (including a certain little girl who cured herself), or everyday irritations, you’ll feel a little lighter if you keep up with June. And maybe, the next time your therapist studies you with a knowing look over the top of his reading glasses, stroking his beard, you’ll know that deep down inside, Mr. Know It All doesn’t have all the answers, either.

Blog Recommendation of the Week

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I would like to thank Tina Fariss Barbour of Bringing Along OCD for nominating me for the Sunshine Blogger Award. Thanks, Tina! I had hoped to post the required elements this week (answering some questions and recommending other blogs for the award), but I have run out of time. So, for this week anyway, I will stick with the usual Thursday format by recommending one blog. I will try to get my act together for next week.

This week, I’m offering one of my favorites. I’ve recommended it before, but Zencherry’s The Zen Corner has upped her game in the humor department. Plus, (hopefully) I have a few more readers than when I last recommended it. Some things bear repeating!

Maureen Hovermale, the Zencherry herself, can find the silliness in everyday life, and her posts often make me laugh out loud. There is a consistent quality in her posts that make me look forward to them day after day. If I had an Erma Bombeck award to give, I would give it to Zencherry.

So, have a laugh!  Have a great weekend, and I’ll see you next week!

Blog Recommendation: In the Writing Groove

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Before I did my weekly search for a blog to recommend, I read some of the blogs I subscribe to. One in particular caught my eye because it reflected the writer’s frustration that she’s working hard trying to promote her book, and she can’t get people to buy it.

On the one hand, I feel her pain. When we write novels, we hope that people will want to read them. We work hard to build our audiences and try to come up with fresh material that will excite a reader enough to say, “I must have her book!”

However, smart authors know that we can’t just hit people over the heads to get them to buy our books. There was nothing in the blog post that made me want to buy the book. You catch more flies, as they say, with honey than with vinegar.

So today I chose a blogger because, darn it, her Twitter photo made me smile. There’s something about a woman snuggled in bed with head resting comfortably on the pillow, grinning widely, that makes me want to get to know her better.

Yep, the photo did it. Kathy L. Hall, former journalist-turned-blogger (In the Writing Groove) and novelist, won me over with charm — or, I guess in the flavor of my Tuesday blog post, La Seduction.

Kathy writes in a clear, straightforward manner about writing, publishing, and books. She’s written several herself, and her female-centered novels may be of interest to my readers. Given that I’m still smiling, I expect I’ll read a few of them myself. I and my fellow writing buds can learn a thing or two from her.