New Article on Swiss Travel Writer Ella Maillart

March 9th, 2010

My article on Ella Maillart, who was an amazing and inspirational Geneva-born travel writer and photojournalist, is up at MSN’s new site “Womanity.”

The site is pretty high-concept and, um, not that easy to navigate. I’ll be interested to see how it does.

Here are the first three paragraphs of the piece:

In the early 1930s a young white woman traveled through the vast and uncharted lands of central Asia, sometimes attaching herself to a nomad caravan but often traveling alone. The woman rode a camel across the shifting sun-bleached sands of the Kyzyl Kum, the red desert, emerging in Tourtkol, where the astonished locals rubbed their eyes in disbelief.

Though the Soviet Union had set up tourism bureaus in this remote region of what was then Turkestan, no one in Tourtkol had ever seen a tourist.

“Cost what it may,” the young traveler— Geneva-born Ella Katherine Maillart—writes at the beginning of her book chronicling her adventures among Central Asia’s nomads, “I am determined to go East. The nomad’s life enthralls me. Its restlessness pursues me…”

To read the rest of the article, click over to MSN’s Womanity Site.

My Article Won An Award!

March 4th, 2010

Last year when I went to the ASJA (the American Society of Journalists and Authors) annual meeting in April I was a bit of a sourpuss at the awards ceremony.

I was proud of all of those award winners but jealous too.

I’ve watched writers go to the podium to receive awards for years now and I wanted to be one of them! The story I submitted last year was on the cover of Smithsonian Magazine and also chosen to be in BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE WRITING but somehow that didn’t seem as impressive as winning an ASJA award.

“I think I want recognition from my peers,” I explained in a small voice to Andrea Cooper, an amazing writer I know through ASJA who ALWAYS wins awards (and totally deserves them). “Even honorable mention…”

This morning I got a phone call from ASJA. Linda Marsa told me that I won an award for Best Article in the category of Lifestyle Narrative Nonfiction for a story I did for More Magazine about Denise Cerreta, an entrepreneur who is fighting waste in the restaurant business and started a restaurant with no menus and no prices in Salt Lake City. You can read the article on-line here.

So I’ve been doing a happy dance instead of working.

Professionally this has been a hard quarter. I took time off after Leone was born in November without enough money in the bank to finance my self-given maternity. Last week the maternity leave and the dry spell ended with a big assignment (the one I should be working on right now) but it is going to take awhile to climb out of the hole we fell in with no safety net.

So it’s especially good timing for me to get a small feather for my tattered cap.

ASJA’s conference is the weekend of April 24th. See you there?!

Should Your Husband Have a Vasectomy?

February 26th, 2010

I was talking to my friend Anna at my son’s preschool the other day. She and her husband have three little kids and they both feel ready to put their childbearing years behind them. Anna’s husband wants to get a vasectomy but his insurance has a high deductible and they can’t afford it right now.

It seems particularly short-sighted of the insurance company not to pay for a vasectomy since if Anna and her husband have another child, the cost of her pregnancy and labor to the insurance company would be so much higher.

Here’s an article I wrote several years ago about vasectomies for “Healthy Life,” a division of the Greenfield Recorder.

Getting Snipped

By JENNIFER MARGULIS

Special to Healthy Life

GREENFIELD —When 36-year-old Bill Denneen first considered getting a vasectomy two years ago he wanted to make sure it was the right option for him and his family. Denneen, who now lives in Greenfield, Massachusetts and works in marketing at Channing Bete in Deerfield, went to an initial consultation with his urologist and then waited six months. During that time he read everything he could about the procedure.

“I had to piece information together from all these different sources . . . I even went through the mental exercise, what if tragedy struck and I were left childless, could I live with not having more children? and I decided that I could,” says Denneen who came to the conclusion that a vasectomy was the right choice for him. “It was a pretty reasonable thing to do, the consequences something I could handle,” he says.

Denneen, the father of three (Henry, age 7; Maeve, age 5; and Ruby, age 2 1/2), learned so much about vasectomies that now he is in the process of writing a book. Despite all the information about vasectomies that’s out there, Denneen felt like something was missing. “What I thought was missing was really just advice from somebody that you trust. It’s not the kind of thing where I could go around and ask, ‘hey dad, have you ever had a vasectomy?’ That’s when I thought of doing a book.”

In America at least half a million men each year are deciding to have vasectomies so that they will not have more children.

During the procedure, a urologist or other practitioner makes a small incision in each side of the scrotum and then locates the two vas deferens. The vas deferens are the tubes that carry sperm to other glands where it mixes with seminal fluids to form semen. The vas deferens are then tied off or cauterized or blocked with surgical clips which keeps sperm out of the seminal fluid. Instead of being ejaculated, the sperm (which are made in the testicles and comprise only two to five percent of seminal fluid) are reabsorbed into the body. Although the amount of the man’s ejaculate remains almost the same, since it contains no live sperm it cannot cause pregnancy.

The procedure, which is done on an outpatient basis with local anesthesia, is considered straightforward by most health care practitioners.

“It was the easiest thing I ever did. It was easier than going to the dentist,” says Greg of Vernon, Vermont who asked his last name not be used. Greg drove himself to the doctor’s office and returned several hours later with two bags of frozen peas to help keep his scrotum cold. “This doesn’t hurt.”

Greg, 48, decided to have a vasectomy last fall after he and his wife adopted a child and had one of their own in a little over a year.

“I went through four years of infertility treatment,” explains his wife Kelli, “after being injected with all those drugs and hormones I decided I can’t do anymore. We decided we didn’t want to risk bringing another child into the world.”

Like the Denneens, Greg and Kelli were sure they did not want to have more children.“The world doesn’t need a whole lot of children right now,” Kelli says.“We love the children that we do have and we want to dedicate every ounce of our energy towards them and not worry about what we don’t have.”

In most cases, recovering from a vasectomy is straightforward.

“If you pay attention to your doctor, you’re going to be in good shape,” says Greg. “I did exactly what he told me to do, which was nothing. I had a stack of magazines, a remote control, and I lay on the couch . . . The next day I mowed the lawn and I felt great.”

Unlike Greg, Denneen took several days to recover from his operation. “Afterwards it was definitely painful,” he remembers. “For a good three days, I was in bed with ice packs and with a jock strap to keep it completely immobile. The jock strap is key. You don’t want anything moving down there.”

Because there is no longer concern about unwanted pregnancy, many men who have undergone vasectomies report enjoying sexual intimacy more. Having a vasectomy has helped reduce the stress in Kelli’s family.

“We don’t have to worry, ‘oh my god, am I pregnant or not?’” she says.

Vasectomy is an option that many of their friends are choosing as well. Greg says that he knows at least ten other men who have had vasectomies recently.

“Many of my friends have told me, ‘hey I can’t do anything this weekend because I’m going down.’ My brother just had one last weekend. I think it’s a good thing for society to be open about it. The more openness . . . the more that people are less fearful,” he says.

According to Planned Parenthood, fewer than two operations in 1,000 fail. However, doctors also caution that a man is still potentially fertile after having a vasectomy. It takes between 15 and 20 ejaculations to clear live sperm from the system.

Although the operation is reversible, reversals are not always possible and are very costly. While most insurance companies will pay for a vasectomy, they usually will not pay for a reversal.

Like with any operation, there are sometimes complications including bleeding and bruising as a result of the operation itself.

While the exact number of cases is not known, there is also a recognizable disorder referred to by doctors as the “post vasectomy pain syndrome” or PVPS. Men who experience this report lingering discomfort in the scrotum, which can start immediately following surgery or several years afterwards. Up to a quarter of men who have undergone vasectomy report feeling pain that lasts more than three months.

Denneen jokes, “I can tell you when a storm’s on the way,” and reports feeling “an occasional very minor hardly noticeable little ache.” However, for him the ache has not been a problem.

Other complications include auto-immune disorders thought to be caused by the body making antibodies to reabsorbed sperm. Of the several vasectomy methods currently in use the no-scalpel method (which involves making only one very small puncture in the scrotum) is thought to be the least invasive.

For men considering having a vasectomy, Denneen suggests researching the procedure thoroughly.

“I would recommend learning everything you can about it,” he says. “The more you can talk to people, the better . . . A really good source of leads to find guys who have done it is to ask your wife to ask her friends.”

“It worked for me,” Denneen continues. “I would definitely tell people my story. Count me among the successes. But everyone’s own situation is different. You really have to have the certainty that you’re not going to change your mind.”

Two New Travel Articles: Everything you want to know about kids and airport security

February 10th, 2010

I have two new articles up at family.com:

Security Savvy for Moms and Dads

and

How to keep up with airport security rules and regulations when you’re traveling with small children.

With the winter storms in Washington D.C. and in the wake of the foiled Christmas Day attack, it’s a pretty stressful time to get on an airplane in America. Especially when you’re taking the kids. But a little planning, some practice with stuffed animals, and an early arrival at the airport can all go a long way to making your trip more enjoyable.

And then there’s the attitude factor, which Alisa Bowman talks about in hilarious detail in this post, “Life is a Struggle, a Wonderful Struggle,” up at Project Happily Ever After.

I have two six airplane rides to take in the near future, and my teeny tiny baby will be coming along.

The one problem with these new articles is that I don’t give any advice for how to get the spit-up stains off your work clothes before you give a talk about writing to an auditorium full of people.

I haven’t figured that one out yet…

BlogHer Conference August 6th and 7th in New York City

February 4th, 2010

Baby Leone is not the only one drooling.

When I read through this agenda for the 2010 BlogHer conference, I really want to be there.

The conference is supposed to be a lot of fun and an incredible chance to learn about social media and to do some In Real Life Networking. My friend Meagan went last year and had a fabulous time. What’s more, I’m told a lot of bloggers bring their babies.

But Baby Leone, who is three months old today, and I are going to be traveling twice in April for work: once to Chicago, where I’ve been invited to give a talk about writing at Rock Valley College, and the following weekend to New York City, where I’ll be moderating a panel on travel writing. The idea of going back East again feels a bit overwhelming.

That said, I’ve applied for one of the coveted volunteer positions. Getting it is a huge long shot — I’m sure they have hundreds of others who have applied — but if that comes through and the $300 in conference fees, etc. is waived, Leone and I are on that airplane.

Cornell For High School Students

February 3rd, 2010

I’m part of the Cornell Alumni Ambassadors Network, which interviews high school students who are applying to Cornell to give them information about the school.

I attended Cornell from 1986-1990. I heart Cornell.

They have a summer program for interested high school students.

Here’s what they say about it:

Cornell’s Summer College, now in its forty-ninth year, is one of the nation’s longest running and most highly regarded precollege academic programs. It brings more than 800 academically talented high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors from around the world to Cornell each summer for three- and six-week programs.

Summer College students have the unparalleled opportunity to:

  • experience what it’s like to live and learn at a great Ivy League university,
  • take real university courses,
  • work closely with Cornell’s world-renowned faculty,
  • learn three to six college credits,
  • explore majors and career options,
  • get a jump on successful college applications,
  • make friends from around the world—and much, much more.

For more information: email: summer_college@cornell.edu or call: 607.255.6203 or visit the summer program homepage.

Spread the word to high schoolers you know.

PBS “Frontline” Will Focus on Ashland

January 28th, 2010

A film crew from PBS was in Ashland this past weekend through Tuesday. They were shooting footage of Ashland for a “Frontline” documentary on the whole debate about childhood vaccines.

I spent three hours Saturday morning being interviewed by the producer, Kate McMahon, who asked a lot of difficult and very smart questions.

Sunday Baby Leone and I participated in a discussion about vaccines led by James Shames, M.D., who is the person responsible for Jackson County’s public health.

Monday the team came to the YMCA to get footage of my oldest daughter doing gymnastics and my son swimming in the pool.

Tuesday they came over again to get some B-roll of me working in my office.

They are featuring Ashland in the documentary because so many parents here have chosen not to vaccinate, to selectively vaccinate, or to vaccinate on a schedule alternative to what is recommended by the CDC.

They’ve also interviewed a slew of other people, including Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carey, J.B. Hanley, Barbara Loe Fisher, Paul Offit, James Shames, Bob Sears, and many more. They must have hundreds of hours of footage by now. It will be fascinating to see how they put it all together.

Here are some scenes from the first interview:

Producer Kate McMahon reviews her notes

Producer Kate McMahon reviews her notes

Camera man Mark Rublee sets up the equipment

Camera man Mark Rublee sets up the equipment

Me trying not to be nervous before the cameras start rolling

Me trying not to be nervous before the cameras start rolling

Peter Ferry Came to Ashland

January 28th, 2010
Author Peter Ferry chats with students and community members and signs books at Southern Oregon University

Author Peter Ferry chats with students and community members and signs books at Southern Oregon University

We had a jam-packed fascinating day with author Peter Ferry last Tuesday when he came to Ashland.

About 15 people came to my house to drink coffee, eat pastries, and talk about writing.

There were more than 20 people at SOU who showed up for Peter Ferry’s afternoon workshop.

The next morning he was interviewed on the Jefferson Exchange.

The book was a lot of fun to read, though I didn’t finish it until after Pete left.

His next stop (he’s traveling with his wife): Mexico, to write, read, soak up the sun, and learn Spanish.

My next stop: The computer to write, research, and obsess about the feature I’m STILL writing about cloth diapers. After that on the agenda is: the new safety restrictions and how they apply to parents traveling with small children and tips on getting through security with small children.

I’m also doing the FLX query challenge this month, which was exactly the kick-in-the-pants I needed right now. If you are a writer and you’re not a member of FLX (FREELANCE SUCCESS), it’s an organization I highly recommend.

Plus, I update my MOTHERING OUTSIDE THE LINES blog three times a week, so click over if you’re in the mood to read about politics, elimination communication, family life, pregnancy, and juggling work and family with a not-yet-three-month-old baby.

Baby Leone and James pose with author Peter Ferry. You're never too young to start schmoozing with famous people

Baby Leone and James pose with author Peter Ferry. You're never too young to start schmoozing with famous people

Don’t Say Yes Too Quickly

January 20th, 2010

I made a rookie writing mistake a few weeks ago that I’m still mad at myself for making.

An editor wrote to me with an assignment.

Every writer’s dream is for editors to suggest assignments. Especially on a topic of interest. Especially when it’s to write an essay.

The sluggish economy and the changing face of the print world has really put a strain on the writing business and I’ve been feeling it.

So I said yes to the assignment immediately.

That was my mistake.

When I re-read the e-mail I realized that the magazine was offering me a lower rate than I have been paid for two previous articles for them.

It would have been simple and easy for me to say, “I’d like to do it but you need to pay me my regular rate.”

I love working for this magazine. I loved writing the essay. The editors were happy with the essay I wrote and the back-and-forth with them has been great. Bottom line: I’m delighted to be doing this assignment.

But I’m still kicking myself for not asking for more money, which I have no doubt they would have happily agreed to.

Moral of the story: Be happy when assignments come to you but don’t say yes too quickly.

Photo Shoot With Christopher Briscoe

January 13th, 2010

My mother came to Ashland for a visit. Though the rapist at large has everyone in town on high alert and high worry, I always appreciate Ashland when we have visitors. We all enjoyed the mild weather, walking in the mountains above town, an outing to Jacksonville where we hiked on the trails behind the Britt festival grounds and ate Mexican food at La Fiesta, and swimming with the kids at the Stratford Inn.

On Monday we did something I’ve wanted to do for a long time: a family photo session with Christopher Briscoe.

Christopher Briscoe is a well-known photographer. I met him when my publisher hired him to do the photos for my most recent book, THE BABY BONDING BOOK FOR DADS, co-written by my husband, James di Properzio.

This cover shot was taken by Christopher Briscoe, who did all the artwork for this book

This cover shot was taken by Christopher Briscoe, who did all the artwork for this book

The shoot took about an hour and fifteen minutes from start to finish and even the baby cooperated. Chris is an amazing photographer. He has a way with children and was able to get some gorgeous images.

He’s also a good businessman. As we were leaving he said, “give me a week to get these on the Web.” Then he called me back in the afternoon to tell me the pictures were ready to view, and that he knew my mom was leaving town and wanted us to have a chance to look at them together.

It’s brilliant to underpromise and overdeliver, which is what Chris was doing. It impresses the hell out of your clients.

Here’s a sneak preview of some of the photos Chris took on Monday of our family: