Sunday, July 28, 2013

Links Round-Up, BlogHer13 Edition

I normally post a links round-up every week, but this week has been a little different. First, I was finishing up the final grades for my summer class so that I could be free to travel on Friday. I spent the weekend at BlogHer 13. It was a phenomenal conference, and I was impressed by the organization, quality and quantity of the content, and overall presentation. The thing I was most impressed by, though, had nothing to do with the conference organizers and everything to do with the people who attended. I met so many fellow writers. Some of them I already follow and read, but many of them were completely new to me.

Since I've been checking out all of these new (to me) blogs, I thought I'd use this weeks round-up to share some of them with you.

BlogHer '13

Discovering the New


BonBon Break is an online magazine that curates blog content from across the web and situates it in an easy-to-follow format for busy parents. You can browse the "rooms" to get content in different topics and submit your own work for inclusion. I also love the way that the site redirects readers back to the respective blogs, ensuring new readers for bloggers. Here are some of the links I found through BonBon Break that I loved:

  • CragMama's post on why you should let your kids go barefoot (full disclosure, I am barefoot as often as society will let me be, so I am a bit biased).
  • Awesomely Awake has a post on biting our tongues to make sure we don't say things to kids that will have a lasting impact we didn't intend. 
I had read much of Rita Arens work on BlogHer, but I had never been to her personal blog, Surrender, Dorothy. I was particularly inspired by her post on how following her writing instincts (despite advice to the contrary) led to her position as an editor at BlogHer. 

I saw Nicole Blades speak on a fantastic panel, and then I went to her blog Ms. Mary Mack and was further impressed by her voice and intelligence. I especially connected with this post about strangers insisting that having an only child is "unfair":
It’s those close relationships that were the main pull towards possibly having more kids. I wanted my son to experience what I have with my siblings.
But my life is not his life. And there are other factors — important ones — that needed to be weighed in this longstanding, internal debate.
Sarah at Toddler Summer does a beautiful job of capturing the little moments in parenting and turning them into thoughtful reflection. I especially like this post about the evolution of children calling their mothers' names.

Kludgy Mom is funny. Need proof? Read this hilarious piece about writing and promoting blog posts

Busy Since Birth (a name I have a lot of empathy for) is run by Cheryl Pollock Stober. I especially like her series of guest interviews on "having it all." You can find all the links here. I enjoyed this one from Allison Berry, a rabbi and mother of two.

Veronica Arreola is another blogger I had the chance to see on an excellent panel. She writes at Viva La Feminista about the intersections of parenthood, feminism, and race. I was looking through her site and was impressed by a lot of the issues she tackles. I know this is an old post, but this discussion of the responsibility people in the spotlight have to use their own stories for change is really intriguing.

Meeting the Familiar


I also got to meet some bloggers that I was already reading, and they were all just as kind and funny and smart as I imagined them to be.

PhD in Parenting is a fantastic site that looks at issues of feminism, humanism, parenting, and ethical consumption. I love the way it combines statistical analysis, stories full of heart, and in-depth questioning. For example, check out this 50 Reasons for Breastfeeding Anytime, Anywhere.

Ellie from Musing Momma writes about multiracial parenting. Here's one of her posts that I love about talking to her children when they notice racial differences.

Kristen at Birthing Beautiful Ideas is a feminist mother and a doula. She is a great storyteller who takes an informed, scholarly-but-accessible look at the world around her. She recently had a great post about talking to her sons about their privilege.

Finally, I didn't get to "meet" her in any real sense of the word, but I did see her once from a distance and since I'm such a fan of her writing I am going to include her here. Erika from Black Girl's Guide to Weight Loss writes about weight loss from a socially-conscious and feminist perspective. One of my favorites posts is this one about how losing weight made her a feminist. (She also just had an article in Salon about the lack of diverse voices--and thus diverse perspectives--in America's debates about food.)

Hopefully you'll find someone new to read that you like. I know that my reading list just got a longer, and I am so excited to find people who are doing such inspiring work. 

2 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for the shout out!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great suggestions! Hope you had fun at BlogHer.

    ReplyDelete