Blogs I Love
Although blogs are not yet taken seriously by many in the mainstream media, they are important. I believe they now host some of the best and most original writing and ideas in our culture. They are vastly more creative than most big magazines, newspapers or TV shows. Blogs have a sorry and clunky name, but their roots date back to Thomas Jefferson's dream of a democratic media that comes from the bottom up, rather than from big conglomerates down. I want to find some of the most interesting blogs, link up with them and share them with you. A digital river of ideas, is the idea, each blog sending readers and ideas to the others and back.
Here lives the sacred spark, I think, affirmations of creativity. I hope you enjoy them.
Rebecca Fedler is a young poet, her blog is as young and feisty and bright as she is. Her poetry is fresh, edgy, surprising, it accessible and relevant, it is about the life of a young woman who grew up on a dairy farm and is finding her voice in her wonderful poetry.
Elizabeth Ross is a scholar of both ends of life, she marries people and buries them. She is a thoughtful and caring undertaker who writes about life and death poignantly and honestly on her new blog, and she has a wonderful perspective on both.
George Forss is one of the most skilled and respected photographers in the world. His urban landscapes of New York City are among the most powerful photographs ever taken. Henry Cartier-Bresson tried repeatedly to learn Forss's brilliant techniques involving lenses and optics. George lives nearby, and is a good friend, and he is not only blogging and showing and selling his old photographs but also exploring "Found Worlds." It is a pleasure to know him and take some photos with him and to add his to the Blogs I Love.
Megan Mayhew Bergman is a young writer whose literary career begins in earnest with publication of her much-praised short story collection "Birds Of A Lesser Paradise," a gorgeous and touching work. She has just put up a blog that will focus on her life – as a mother, wife, writer and lover of animals. I am a great admirer of her and her work and I am very happy that she is joining "Blogs I Love," a celebration of individuality, connection and creativity on the Web. And in our lives. Thoreau lives on the Internet. I expect you will enjoy watching this very gifted writer grow and create, and thanks to her blog, you can follow the journey.
Pam White is a close and cherished friend. She is also a brilliant artist, a painter, photographer, videologist, a person whose soul is one creative spark after another. She has struggled with technology and given birth to a beautiful thing: a blog of affirmation, a coming out, a choice to live her life in the open and to share her creativity with all of us. This is where the Internet, for all of its awful dislocations, can be a beautiful thing. Come and see for yourself.
I call Rachel Barlow, an artist and writer in Vermont, the "sustainable Erma Bombeck." She writes with candor, humor and great skill about the challenge of raising a family in our world, and of her commitment to helping the earth and living the creative life. Her sketches are as compelling as her sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking daily posts.
The Hospice Journal was perhaps the most profound experience of my writing life, and my life with animals. Izzy and I traveled all over the Lower Adirondacks visiting people at the edge of life. It was the birth of my photography in many ways, and the experience helped me to understand that hospice work was sometimes sad, but never only sad. It was beautiful, uplifting, rewarding beyond my imagination. Come and see.
John Greenwood is a heroic man as well as a creative one. He is on the Hero's Journey seeking every day to unleash the creative spark and brave enough to share his powerful spirit with the world. An ex-milkman and truck driver, John started his wonderful blog recently and it is pure joy to watch him grow, to evolve as a writer, photogorapher, videographer, father, husband and human being. I am very happy to add his site, Raining Iguanas to the "Blogs I Love" page. It is an inspiration to me, and hopefully, to you.
The Rev. Mary Muncil is one of the most remarkable people I have ever know. She married Maria and me, she has been my spiritual counselor for more than two years, and she has changed my life in so many positive ways I could not begin to list them. Mary's White Feather Farm blog, which she started a year ago, has rapidly become very popular, it is as essential and as powerful as a morning prayer. I love Mary and I love her blog, and I am happy to share it with you.
Every day, Mary scours the world of spirituality, philosophy and literature for ideas and combines them with experiences in her own life that help us to a spiritual life in a world gone mad with technology, greed and insecurity. She is a natural writer.
When I first heard of Jenna Woginrich, I resolved to stay away from her. She seemed much too much like me, one of those crazy people who get to a farm and sort of run amok with it. As I got to know her, I couldn't wait to be her friend. How many crazy writers with farms and blogs are there, after all? Jenna is passionate in everything she does. Not yet 30, she decided to get a farm and a mortgage, something that is nearly impossible to do these days. But she did it. She is also a wonderful and ascending writer. Her voice is powerful and original and very political. She has so many things to say and she says all of them brilliantly.
Full Moon Fiber Art is the blog of my love and wife, Maria Wulf. This is a gentle blog, an artist's blog. Maria posts daily, but softly. She has sold every single thing she has ever posted on her blog, a very potent testament to its effectiveness and unique voice. Somebody told me that reading Maria's blog is like reading a poem. I am not unbiased, but I think that is so. Maria is a poem to me, every one of her works a verse.
Battenkill Books is an independent bookstore, my local bookstore, operated by Connie Brooks in Cambridge, N.Y. I buy any my books here, and you can purchase any of my books through Battenkill and I will sign them and personalize them any way you wish (within reason.) You can call 518 677-2515 or email Connie at [email protected]. I support independence, creativity and individuality and one of the best ways I know to do that is to support independent bookstores. We desperately need these institutions in our community, and Connie runs a great store, seeks no charity and is worthy of support. I am happy for Battenkill Books to be on my "I Love Blogs" page. You can buy any books through Connie, not just mine. She ships anywhere in the country, takes PayPal and is a pleasure to deal with.
Paula Josa-Jones came to the farm a while back because she was drawn to the photographs I was taking of Maria and the donkeys. She is an artist, writer and an equestrian choreographer. Her blog is beautiful, strange and different. It is a beautifully designed expression of what I love about blogs – you wouldn't see it in any newspaper or magazine, yet is eerily beautiful and enchanting, a brilliant use of a blog to capture the deep passion many of us have for animals.