writing – kj naum dot com

NYC reading Monday 3/2/15

It’s Sunday night, and I’m making chicken broth and nursing a hot toddy while the snow (and/or freezing rain) continues to fall in New York. (Lousy Smarch weather.) Tomorrow, though, I’ll be out at Niagara Bar to read my writing at the Miss Manhattan non-fiction reading series! I’m excited to share some of my work along with…
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What would you write about if you weren’t afraid

Happy New Year, one and all. This isn’t so much a post as an appreciation of the following 2009 interview between Mary Karr and The Paris Review. I’ve been reading (in some cases, re-reading) a great deal of memoir over the past few weeks, to get a better sense of the kind of structure that…
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Motherless by Choice at Christmas

“Perhaps I’m not asking whether estrangement is right or wrong, but instead: how can I truly celebrate togetherness and kinship and love without a mother in my life?” This isn’t an easy time of year to be estranged from someone, even if you’ve made that decision purposefully. I write about the complicated feelings that come…
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Reblogs and Q&A!

Hello, HuffPost and Freshly Pressed readers! I’m very honored by the attention I’ve received after publishing Why did this happen? – it was selected as an editor’s pick by Freshly Pressed, and is now reblogged over at HuffPost Women. I’m even more floored by all the feedback I’m getting directly from you guys. Your comments…
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Why did this happen? Estranging myself from my mother.

Why did this happen? There is no answer to that question. There are too many answers to that question. If your childhood was unhappy, if there was someone who hurt you when their role was to protect you, you may never know why it was that way. It may not be possible to reconstruct how…
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How to Predict the Future

How to Predict the Future I’ve got a new piece up over on The Toast’s Gal Science column this morning about climate change, which aims to unpack some of the jargon you see around this topic. It’s an intimidating topic! It can seem overwhelming to consider the cascading effects our activity is having on the…
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Contact form, translations, and some thoughts on forgiveness

Hello all! I had a wonderful and extremely busy weekend, with both a favorite cousin and a dear friend in town, and am just now getting back into the swing of things here. First and foremost, I wanted to note that I have added a contact form on the About page of this site. Inquiries sent…
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My Interview About Being Motherless By Choice On HuffPost Live

Yesterday morning I spoke with Caitlyn Becker on HuffPost Live’s “What’s Trending” segment about being motherless by choice. You can watch the interview in the video embedded at the bottom of the original HP post here. “What’s Trending” covers the stories capturing their readers’ attention. Thank you so much to everyone at HuffPost for giving…
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“Motherless by Choice” up at HuffPost!

“Motherless by Choice” up at HuffPost! HuffPost Women asked recently to share my piece “Motherless by Choice” with their readership, and I was more than happy to do so. The post went live this morning, and my phone has been buzzing nonstop with notifications since then! Welcome, new readers, and thank you so much for…
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A little more personal…

“Motherless by Choice” at The Archipelago Of course this isn’t easy to write about, but there’s a surprising lack of writing on a topic like this that affects so many people. I wanted to tackle it the best I could, unresolved ambiguity and all. Hearing from those it resonates with means a lot to me!…
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Tag: writing