Julia Sneden
Articles by Julia Sneden
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Rose Madeline Mula: If You Can’t Stand the Heat
Rose Madeline Mula Writes: “It was with considerable trepidation, therefore, that I entered the kitchen of my hostess, the legendary actress, Joan Fontaine, one long-ago Thanksgiving morning, to offer my assistance. Acting was not Miss Fontaine’s only talent. Not by a long shot. She was also a hole-in-one golfer, a prize-winning fisherwoman, a hot air…
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An Undocumented Childhood by Rose Madeline Mula
Rose Mula Writes: Some people never leave home without their American Express card; I never leave home without a camera. Digitized pictures of the twenty-five countries and forty-plus states of America that I’ve visited since my first tour of exotic New Hampshire constantly flash on my computer monitors and digital frames throughout my home, helping…
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Julia Sneden Wrote: Love Your Library
Julia Sneden Wrote: My mind’s eye can still see the face of the Children’s Librarian, although I have long since forgotten her name. We will be wise to continue to back up our knowledge of history and literature and art and science with hard copy. She kept up with my reading level, suggesting writers and…
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Julia Sneden Wrote: If The Shoe Fits … You Can Bet It’s Not Fashionable
Julia Sneden Wrote: My mother was a mini Imelda Marcos. She kept upwards of 40 pairs of shoes well into her 80’s, and was crushed when she had to give up high heels following a heart attack at the age of 89. Her sole criterion in buying shoes was style, not comfort, and she was…
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Joan L.Cannon Wrote: A Family Inheritance: More Than ‘Things’ … Emblems of Our Lives
Joan Cannon wrote: As one advances in years, one accumulates possessions the way a caddis fly larva accumulates grit. The glue that makes us carry it all along with us is in a way self-secreted as well. However, it’s psychic rather than physical — emotional rather than material. Perhaps the most obvious example is a…
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Julia Sneden Wrote: Old Dogs, New Tricks
Julia Sneden wrote: At the age of 37, I started a new career as a kindergarten teacher. My first day on the job, the lead teacher, who was in her 70’s and scared me every bit as much as she scared the children, watched me writing a note. “You’ll have to change the way you…
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Joan Cannon Writes: Finding the Right Excuse; Committing Words to Paper Because …
Joan Cannon Writes: Think of the poets and novelists and playwrights whose words sink into the consciousness of thousands and even millions and remain there, as emblems, guides, beacons of hope or warnings of disasters, and the excuse (as if one is needed) presents itself. Maybe there’s information or a revelation for some unknown viewer…
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Joan Cannon Asked: What is a Book Club? An Old-Fashioned Book Report? A Program Given By an Author? What Is the Accepted Practice?
Joan L. Cannnon wrote: A year or so ago, I was invited to attend a tea given by the combined membership of all the book clubs in the town where I now live. A presentation was scheduled for the proprietor of the much-loved local independent book store cum gift shop. She is a legend in…
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Improv Improves and Alleviates Anxiety
Lacy Schley writes: “Laughter is the best medicine — at least that’s the case for some anxiety sufferers trying improvisation training at The Second City. The Panic/Anxiety/Recovery Center in Chicago is partnering with a well-known theater troup to use improv to help people overcome their fears.”
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Homeland Security Respect for Life Act, Child Protection and Employment Bills Introduced; Title X Family Planning
“Title X–supported family planning centers served 4.7 million women in 2008 … contraceptive services … helped women and couples avoid 973,000 unintended pregnancies, which would have resulted in 433,000 unplanned births and 406,000 abortions. Without these services, unintended pregnancy and abortion in the United States would be one-third higher”
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Relationship Satisfaction: Do You Empathize With Me … or Not?
Men like to know when their wife or girlfriend is happy while women really want the man in their life to know when they are upset. “It could be that for women, seeing that their male partner is upset reflects some degree of the man’s investment and emotional engagement in the relationship, even during difficult…
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STEM Women All-Stars Hit the Road
Lauren Andersen writes: :Over the past few months, students from Santa Barbara, California to Miami, Florida have played hosts to some unusual substitute teachers, as senior women scientists and engineers from the highest levels of the Obama Administration hit the road as part of the Women in STEM Speakers Bureau roundtable series.”
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Pen to Publisher: The Life of Three Sendak Picture Books
Outside Over There features a powerful Sendakian heroine, but the adventure here is more perilous, the style of artwork more inventive; the story is full of allusions to Romantic-era painters and musicians. This book also tapped into dark memories from Sendak’s childhood and proved to be one of his most labor-intensive books to write and conceptualize.
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Dear Doctor: Patients’ Voices
The letters are deeply descriptive and reveal familiar emotions. A father in 1820 pleads for his sick daughter, “Pray send out Dr. Carmichael to me immediately — as I consider her to be in great danger. Delay not a moment, for her life and my happiness depend on it.”
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Women: Underrepresented in Film but Twice As Likely in Explicit Sexual Scenes
“It’s disheartening to see that unbalanced portrayals of men and women persist in popular films,” noted Amy Bleakley, the lead author of the paper. “Movie-going youth – the largest consumers of movies per capita – who are repeatedly exposed to portrayals of women as sexual and men as violent may internalize these portrayals.”
