Podcasts about Good Bones

"The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that's a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children," writes Maggie Smith in her viral poem Good Bones. Today, Maggie joins Ryan to talk about what it means to shield children from the world's harsh realities while still acknowledging its beauty and potential. They discuss how parents can balance hope with realism, the importance of instilling strong values, and the courage it takes to remain earnest and sincere in a cynical world.In 2016, Maggie Smith's poem Good Bones became a viral sensation. It was named the “Official Poem of 2016” by the Public Radio International. Maggie Smith is the New York Times bestselling author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful; My Thoughts Have Wings, a picture book illustrated by SCBWI Portfolio grand prize winner Leanne Hatch; the national bestsellers Goldenrod and Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change; as well as Good Bones, named one of the Best Five Poetry Books of 2017 by the Washington Post and winner of the 2018 Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medal in Poetry.  Maggie's latest book, Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life just released! You can grab signed copies of Dear Writer at The Painted Porch in addition to her books You Could Make This Place Beautiful and Keep MovingFollow Maggie Smith on Instagram @ MaggieSmithPoet 

As we put the finishing touches to the Spring season of The Shift, I thought we'd raid the archives for a few of my favourite episodes. First up, "the other" Maggie Smith (as she says she will always be), who I first spoke to when her memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful was just creeping into the world. Little did we know back then that it would be the leading wave in a tsunami of divorce memoirs written by midlife women. Also look out for Maggie's new book, Dear Writer, a collection of "pep talks and practical advice for the creative life". Here are the original show notes: Like most of the rest of the world, I first discovered today's guest Maggie Smith (no, not the legendary British actress, the American poet) when her poem, Good Bones went viral on social media thrusting her into the news on both sides of the Atlantic, featured on primetime TV and was read at an event by Meryl Streep.  It's the kind of exposure people dream of, but in Maggie's own words “my marriage was never the same after that”. And I know that sentiment is something that will resonate with so many of you. Maggie's new book, her debut memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful is about the collapse of that marriage, but it's also about the start of something new, how in losing their shared history and knowledge of the future, she began to build a new story - her own.  Maggie joined me from Ohio to talk about putting herself back together after sudden success destroyed her marriage, being a service provider in your own home, how she got herself back after years of bargaining herself away and why we keep having the same conversation about women and ambition. We also compared our Strong First Daughter Energy and she introduced me to the concept of an emotional alchemist. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including You Can Make This Place Beautiful and Dear Writer and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Does telling your story mean revealing everything? Bestselling author and viral poet Maggie Smith returns for part two of her conversation with Ryan, discussing how writers decide what to share and what to keep sacred. They debunk the myth that memoirs must be exposés, talk about the role of empathy in both storytelling and activism, and explore the challenges of staying true to one's work while navigating success.In 2016, Maggie Smith's poem Good Bones became a viral sensation. It was named the “Official Poem of 2016” by the Public Radio International. Maggie Smith is the New York Times bestselling author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful; My Thoughts Have Wings, a picture book illustrated by SCBWI Portfolio grand prize winner Leanne Hatch; the national bestsellers Goldenrod and Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change; as well as Good Bones, named one of the Best Five Poetry Books of 2017 by the Washington Post and winner of the 2018 Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medal in Poetry.

It's Maggie Smith Day on the podcast! Maggie Smith is the New York Times bestselling author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful; My Thoughts Have Wings, a picture book illustrated by SCBWI Portfolio grand prize winner Leanne Hatch; the national bestsellers Goldenrod and Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change; as well as Good Bones, named one of the Best Five Poetry Books of 2017 by the Washington Post and winner of the 2018 Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medal in Poetry; The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison, winner of the 2012 Dorset Prize and the 2016 Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medal in Poetry; and Lamp of the Body, winner of the 2003 Benjamin Saltman Award.In 2016 Maggie Smith's poem “Good Bones” went viral internationally, receiving coverage in the Washington Post, theGuardian, the Telegraph, Slate, Huffington Post Italia, and elsewhere. To date it has been translated into nearly a dozen languages; interpreted by a dance troupe in Chennai, India; and set to music by multiple composers. PRI (Public Radio International) called it “the official poem of 2016.” In 2017 the poem was featured on an episode of the CBS primetime drama Madam Secretary, also called “Good Bones,” and was read by Meryl Streep at Lincoln Center.In this conversation, we talk about how she became the incredible writer and poet that she is, why we must continue making art in the face of genocide, fascism, and climate change, and we talk about her brand new book, Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life. ✅ Buy a copy (or two) of her new book.✅ Subscribe to her Substack, For Dear Life. ✅ Follow Maggie on Instagram.✊

The best writing, like the best life, thrives not on the absence of rules but on the right ones. In today's episode, Ryan sits down with viral poet and bestselling author Maggie Smith to explore the power of restraint, the fine line between hope and cynicism, and why caring deeply is a bold act of courage.In 2016, Maggie Smith's poem Good Bones became a viral sensation. It was named the “Official Poem of 2016” by the Public Radio International. Maggie Smith is the New York Times bestselling author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful; My Thoughts Have Wings, a picture book illustrated by SCBWI Portfolio grand prize winner Leanne Hatch; the national bestsellers Goldenrod and Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change; as well as Good Bones, named one of the Best Five Poetry Books of 2017 by the Washington Post and winner of the 2018 Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medal in Poetry. Maggie's latest book, Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life just released on April 1! You can grab signed copies of Dear Writer at The Painted Porch in addition to her books You Could Make This Place Beautiful and Keep Moving. Follow Maggie Smith on Instagram @MaggieSmithPoet

192 To celebrate the release of Maggie Smith's new guidebook for writers called Dear Writer: Pep Talks and Practical Advice for a Creative Life, we're bringing back this beloved chat with Maggie about writing, self-trust, and life in the ellipsis! ---What do we do when the future we thought we'd have is wiped clean, and we're stuck in uncertainty? Bestselling author Maggie Smith joins us to talk about life in the in-between and how, even when we're at a loss, we can still trust ourselves. She also explores the writerly decisions she made in her most recent bestseller (and one of Nadine's favorite books of all time), You Could Make This Place Beautiful. She closes the conversation with incredible writing advice that will make you want to grab a pen and start writing. Covered in this episode:How to find beauty, even when our lives change in unexpected waysThe difference between a midlife crisis and midlife recoveryHow to turn up the volume of our inner voice and act on itThe wise women who've inspired Maggie & Nadine in life and in writingWhy writing hard things is actually enjoyable Why Maggie wrote her story in real-time rather than waitingWhat has and hasn't changed since the publication of You Could Make This Place Beautiful Maggie's favorite small pleasure–how she's treating herself well Want more Maggie? Grab a copy of You Could Make This Place Beautiful (now out in paperback), subscribe to her popular Substack For Dear Life, and preorder her forthcoming book, Dear Writer (April, 2025).Maggie Smith is the award-winning author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful, Good Bones, The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison, Lamp of the Body, and the national bestsellers Goldenrod and Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change. A 2011 recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, Smith has also received several Individual Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council, two Academy of American Poets Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from the Sustainable Arts Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has been widely published, appearing in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Nation, The Best American Poetry, and more. You can follow her on social media @MaggieSmithPoet.About Nadine:Nadine Kenney Johnstone is a holistic writing coach who helps women develop and publish their stories. She is the proud founder of WriteWELL, an online community that helps women reclaim their writing time, put pen to page, and get published. The authors in her community have published countless books and hundreds of essays in places like The New York Times, Vogue, The Sun, The Boston Globe, Longreads, and more. Her infertility memoir, Of This Much I'm Sure, was named book of the year by the...

Maggie Smith returns to Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about letting imposter syndrome go, fiercely guarding your interior life, getting back to the core place where creativity thrives, rewriting a book from scratch, how writing feels in the body, swerving out of your creative lane, battling the sophomore slump, what it feels like to be watched, when ego gets in the way, fears of paralyzing failure, playing the long game, the best advice she ever got, staying agile and awake in the creative process, and her new book Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life.   Ronit's first interview with Maggie Smith: https://ronitplank.com/2023/04/11/lets-talk-memoir-episode-38-ft-maggie-smith/   Also in this episode: -the inner critic -assembling a book freestyle -tenacity and grit     Books mentioned in this episode: Meander, Spiral, Explode by Jane Allison The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr Truth is the Arrow, Mercy is the Bow by Steve Almond Greywolf Press series “The Art of…” books   Maggie Smith is the New York Times bestselling author of eight books of poetry and prose, including You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir (One Signal/Atria, 2023); My Thoughts Have Wings, illustrated by Leanne Hatch (Balzer+Bray/Harperkids, 2024); Goldenrod: Poems (One Signal/Atria, 2021); Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change (One Signal/Atria, 2020); and Good Bones (Tupelo Press, 2017). Smith's next book is Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life, forthcoming from One Signal/Atria in April 2025. Her poems and essays have appeared in the New York Times, The New Yorker, Poetry, The Nation, The Best American Poetry, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, AGNI, Ploughshares, Image, the Washington Post, Virginia Quarterly Review, American Poetry Review, The Southern Review, and many other journals and anthologies. In 2016 her poem "Good Bones" went viral internationally; since then it has been translated into nearly a dozen languages and featured on the CBS primetime drama Madam Secretary. Smith has received fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Academy of American Poets, the Ohio Arts Council, the Sustainable Arts Foundation, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.   – Ronit's writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writer's Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.  She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book. More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Subscribe to Ronit's Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank Follow Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social   Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Maggie Smith is NY Times bestselling (her memoir “You Could Make This Place Beautiful”), numerous award-winning poet and author who has been considered one of the first viral poets after her 2016 poem "Good Bones" was read in the hit CBS show 'Madam President', as well as by Meryl Streep at the Academy of American Poets gala. As our first non-musical guest, we seize the opportunity to go deep with Maggie on the creative process in general - a very apt topic with her latest book "Dear Writer: Pep Talks and Practical Advice for the Creative Life" hitting shelves on April 1. We talk about keeping the purity of your creativity, being integrated as a human, trusting yourself to do what's needed to keep this career going and being your own safety net, being open to completely revamping work, and a whole lot more.Get more access and support this show by subscribing to our Patreon, right here.Links:Maggie Smith“Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life”“My Thoughts Have Wings”Maggie's SubstackLucinda WilliamsJoan Didion doc "The Center Will Not Hold"Jane Goodall“Good Bones”Jim Carey commencement speechTara BrachStan PlumlyClick here to watch this conversation on YouTube.Social Media:The Other 22 Hours InstagramThe Other 22 Hours TikTokMichaela Anne InstagramAaron Shafer-Haiss InstagramAll music written, performed, and produced by Aaron Shafer-Haiss. Become a subscribing member on our Patreon to gain more inside access including exclusive content, workshops, the chance to have your questions answered by our upcoming guests, and more.

Mina Starsiak Hawk, host of Good Bones on HGTV, gets us excited for her appearance at this weekends Johnson County Hone + Garden Show.

Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button. You can find Meg Shaffer at www.megshaffer.com or on IG at meg_shaffer.   This week we officially begin Season 12 so we have both a guest and book recommendations on a particular theme. Our guest this week is Meg Shaffer, NYT best-selling author of The Wishing Game and The Lost Story. She talks to us about shifting gears to write books for adults that read a lot like the cool fantasy books we read as kids (think The Chronicles of Narnia in The Lost Story). And for our book recs, we will each be sharing 3 books related to libraries.    Books mentioned— 1- The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer   2- The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer   3- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl   4- The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis   5- Lord of the Flies by William Golding   6- Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero   7- Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb   8- The Genius Under the Table: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Eugene Yelchin   9- The Hollow Places T. Kingfisher   10- The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher   11- The Willows by Algernon Blackwood   12- Carter and Lovecraft by Jonathan L. Howard   13- A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher   14- We are Experiencing a Slight Delay by Gary Janneti   15- Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs   16-Magical Thinking: True Stories by Augusten Burroughs   17- A Five Star Read Recommended by Fellow Book Lover Marisa Zane @Marisa_reads_books - The Reformatory by Tananarive Due   18- The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami   19- Nightbooks by JA White   20- The Library of Borrowed Hearts by Lucy Gilmore   21- The Nightmare Man by JH Markert 22- The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai 23- The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai 24- I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai 25- Here Lies the Librarian by Richard Peck 26- A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck 27- A Long Way From Chicago by Richard Peck 28- Reading Behind Bars: A True Story of Literature, Law, and Life as a Prison Librarian by Jill Grunenwald 29- Lonely Planet Hidden Libraries: The World's Most Unusual Book Depositories by DC Helmuth 30- The Godwick series by Tiffany Reisz Media mentioned— Perks episode with Lily Raiti https://www.perksofbeingabooklover.com/episodes/cxkpp8gtbmn5gf7-8mb73-52ylr-gs3nl-82m49-xr9s4-z4hhh-pm7gw-skgey-bjmtw-4dl76-hn7yl-we4y4-cfzjz-5f9x8-y93dj-7l4je-8667a   Pacific Palisades Fire—Will Rogers ranch — https://www.parks.ca.gov/NewsRelease/1346   Squid Games (Netflix, 2021 - present) Cunk on Life (Netflix, 2024) Black Doves (Netflix, 2024) Night of the Hunter (Tubi, 1955)    

A US study found that when a group of people were asked to read poetry by famous authors and poetry written by Chat GPT, they preferred the Chat GPT poems. Jules and Jez put Chat GPT to the test, plus more of your favourite poems.Buy tickets to our Adelaide show here: https://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/events/2025-writers-week/podfest-not-stupid/Poems discussed:"Good Bones" by Maggie Smith"A May Night On The Mountains" by Henry Lawson"Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver"Still I rise" by Maya Angelou

Kristi and Dr. Rob sits down with special guests Mina and Steve Hawk. Mina, known for her role on HGTV's Good Bones, discusses her life after the show, balancing family duties, and her evolving career. The couple shares personal anecdotes, the challenges of fame, the dynamics of reality TV, and their experiences with social media. Steve, a well-known personal trainer, joins the conversation about their family's future plans, managing public attention, and the impact of their work on their personal lives. Tune in for a heartfelt and engaging discussion about life, work, and family.

In a virtual panel hosted by Literary Cleveland during the 2024 Inkubator writing conference, Ohio poets Ruth Awad and Maggie Smith consider how poetry can awaken us to new possibilities of being. Throughout their wide-ranging conversation, Awad and Smith discuss inspiration, hyphenated identities, poems as time capsules, poetic supervillain origin stories, and finding language for grief and rage as well as peace and liberation. What words keep us moving? How can poetry help us not just survive but find joy?   The event, titled “Outside the Joy: Poetry and Possibility,” was held September 18, 2024. Page Count thanks Literary Cleveland for making this episode possible.   Ruth Awad is a Lebanese-American poet, a 2021 NEA Poetry fellow, and the author of Outside the Joy (Third Man Books, 2024) and Set to Music a Wildfire (Southern Indiana Review Press, 2017), winner of the 2016 Michael Waters Poetry Prize and the 2018 Ohioana Book Award for Poetry. She is the co-editor of The Familiar Wild: On Dogs and Poetry (Sundress Publications, 2020). She lives and writes in Columbus, Ohio.   Maggie Smith is the New York Times bestselling author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful; My Thoughts Have Wings, a picture book illustrated by Leanne Hatch; the national bestsellers Goldenrod and Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change; as well as Good Bones, named one of the Best Five Poetry Books of 2017 by the Washington Post; The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison; and Lamp of the Body. Her next book, Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life, is forthcoming in April 2025.   Page Count is produced by Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library. For full show notes and an edited transcript of this episode, visit the episode page. To get in touch, email ohiocenterforthebook@cpl.org (put “podcast” in the subject line) or follow us on Instagram or Facebook.

ONE BAD RERUN - Episode 498: The House Is Trashed But The Bones Are Good, with Maggie SmithHome and life feeling like a wreck? Slap some paint on that fixer-upper. Author and poet Maggie Smith joins Biz to talk whittling words, Good Bones, and her new memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful. Plus, Biz is in purgatory.Get your copy of Maggie Smith's memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, wherever books are sold. Learn more about Maggie and her work by visiting her website, www.MaggieSmithPoet.com.Go to MaximumFun.org/join to support One Bad Mother in its final year!Share a personal or commercial message on the show! Details at MaximumFun.org/Jumbotron.Visit our Linktree for our website, merch, and more! https://linktr.ee/onebadmotherYou can suggest a topic or a guest for an upcoming show by sending an email to onebadmother@maximumfun.org.Show MusicSummon the Rawk, Kevin MacLeod (www.incompetech.com)Ones and Zeros, Awesome, Beehive SessionsMom Song, Adira Amram, Hot Jams For TeensTelephone, Awesome, Beehive SessionsMama Blues, Cornbread Ted and the ButterbeansMental Health Resources:Therapy for Black Girls – Therapyforblackgirls.comDr. Jessica Clemmens – https://www.askdrjess.comBLH Foundation – borislhensonfoundation.orgThe Postpartum Support International Warmline – 1-800-944-4773 (1-800-944-4PPD)The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Helpline – 1-800-662-4357 (1-800-662-HELP)Suicide Prevention Hotline: Call or chat. They are here to help anyone in crisis. Dial 988 for https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org and there is a chat option on the website.Crisis Text Line: Text from anywhere in the USA (also Canada and the UK) to text with a trained counselor. A real human being.USA text 741741Canada text 686868UK text 85258Website: https://www.crisistextline.orgNational Sexual Assault: Call 800.656.HOPE (4673) to be connected with a trained staff member from a sexual assault service provider in your area.https://www.rainn.orgNational Domestic Violence Hotline:https://www.thehotline.org/help/Our advocates are available 24/7 at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) in more than 200 languages. All calls are free and confidential.They suggest that if you are a victim and cannot seek help, ask a friend or family member to call for you.Teletherapy Search: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/online-counseling

This week, as Gladiator II hits the theaters to repeat the same beats of its predecessor and prove that what we do in life truly does echo in eternity, we circle back to the original to cross a movie off of Hayley's list and get her hyped to see some hunks on the IMAX screen. It's 2000's Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, and starring Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Oliver Reed, Richard Harris, Derek Jacobi, Djimon Hounsou, Tommy Flanagan and Spencer Treat Clark. A somewhat controversial Best Picture winner at the time, it has remained one of Scott's most celebrated pictures despite hardly being his best. While it may not match the heights of his sci-fi output, it is unquestionably the high-water mark of his Medieval Mode, very much in line with subsequent efforts like Kingdom of Heaven, Robin Hood and The Last Duel, and is still a hugely entertaining sword-and-sandal revenge epic that lifted its two lead actors to another level of stardom. Plus: We get pissed off about the Coca-Cola AI Christmas commercial. If you'd like to watch the movie before listening along to our discussion, Gladiator is currently streaming (in Canada at least) on both Netflix and Paramount+ at the time of publication. Other works discussed on this episode include Past Lives, Stop Making Sense, Mission: Impossible - Fallout, Alien, Blade Runner, Prometheus, Alien: Covenant, Aliens, In Cold Water: The Shelter Bay Mystery, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, The X-Files (S5E04 "Detour"), Good Bones, Super Mario Party Jamboree, The Holdovers, The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Red One, The Brave Little Toaster, Traffic, Erin Brockovich, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Shadow of the Vampire and Crash, among others. We'll be back next week to wrap up No-Theme-ber with our monthly canon consideration, as Hayley's got the keys to the vault this month and is using them to induct the Coen Brothers' 2007 crime classic No Country For Old Men, which is currently streaming north of the border on both Netflix and Amazon Prime. Until then, we'll see you at the movies!!

Your bones are the foundation that keeps you active and vibrant as you age, so making sure they're strong is essential not only for living a life you love but also for staying healthy and resilient for years to come! After losing my mom at 76 from complications from vertebrae fractures, I committed myself to empowering women like you to maintain strong, healthy bones at every stage of life.In this episode, I dive into the science and research on bone health and break down the top ways to help prevent osteoporosis. I also share tips on how to adjust your workouts to support bone density and reveal the surprising truth between your nutrition and bone health. Whether you're managing osteopenia, have a family history of osteoporosis, or simply want to age with strength and confidence, this episode is for you!Want FREE access to my brand new four-week strength training plan, Strength Without Stress? Head over to hollyperkins.com/review where you can upload a screenshot of your review and gain immediate access. This is a limited-time offer before it sells for $197, so be sure to grab it now!Topics Covered:What is osteopenia?Why progressive resistance is the key to bone health How to determine if your workout is effective for getting good bonesThree tips for bone-building strength trainingAdding an impact exercise practice to your weekThe truth about nutrition for your bone health Foods with high naturally occurring calciumResources Mentioned:Listen to the first 43 episodes of Holly Perkins Health Podcast HEREEpisode 25: What Happened When I Got a DEXA ScanSee the research on the management of osteoporosis HERESee the research on the effects of one year of resistance training on muscular strength and bone density in elderly women HERESee the research on the effects of progressive resistance training on bone density HERESee the research on the role of vigorous exercise in osteoporosis prevention HERESee the research on Osteopenia HERESee the research on osteoblast-osteoclast interactions HERETranscripts can be found on the official blog page for this episode at hollyperkins.com/blogFollow Me: Find me on Instagram: @hollyperkinsLearn more on my website: hollyperkins.comConnect with me on Facebook:

[18+] In his new home, the ghosts of the past lurk in the space behind mirrors, but Eren isn't sure that they're willing to stay there...Tonight's story is the second and final part of “Good Bones” by Galen LK. This is his debut fiction in the furry fandom. Like all coyotes, he is elusive and mysterious, but you can often find him on Discord, Telegram, and Bluesky.Read by Icefang, in the Cozy Corner of the Cafe.thevoice.dog | Apple podcasts | Spotify | Google PodcastsIf you have a story you think would be a good fit, you can check out the requirements, fill out the submission template and get in touch with us.https://thevoice.dog/episode/18-good-bones-by-galen-lk-part-2-of-2

[18+] In this macabre haunted house tale, two recent homeowners take a look in the mirror, but they may not like everything they see…Tonight's story is the first of two parts of “Good Bones” by Galen LK. This is his debut fiction in the furry fandom. Like all coyotes, he is elusive and mysterious, but you can often find him on Discord, Telegram, and Bluesky.Read by Icefang, in the Cozy Corner of the Cafe.thevoice.dog | Apple podcasts | Spotify | Google PodcastsIf you have a story you think would be a good fit, you can check out the requirements, fill out the submission template and get in touch with us.https://thevoice.dog/episode/18-good-bones-by-galen-lk-part-1-of-2

172 What do we do when the future we thought we'd have gets wiped clean, and we're stuck in uncertainty? Bestselling author Maggie Smith joins us to talk about life in the in-between and how, even when we're at a loss, we can still trust ourselves. She also explores the writerly decisions she made in her most recent bestseller (and one of Nadine's favorite books of all time), You Could Make This Place Beautiful. She closes the conversation with incredible writing advice that will make you want to grab a pen and start writing. Covered in this episode:How to find beauty, even when our lives change in unexpected waysThe difference between a midlife crisis and midlife recoveryHow to turn up the volume of our inner voice and act on itThe wise women who've inspired Maggie & Nadine in life and in writingWhy writing hard things is actually enjoyable Why Maggie wrote her story in real-time rather than waitingWhat has and hasn't changed since the publication of You Could Make This Place Beautiful Maggie's favorite small pleasure–how she's treating herself well Want more Maggie? Grab a copy of You Could Make This Place Beautiful (now out in paperback), subscribe to her popular Substack For Dear Life, and preorder her forthcoming book, Dear Writer (April, 2025).Maggie Smith is the award-winning author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful, Good Bones, The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison, Lamp of the Body, and the national bestsellers Goldenrod and Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change. A 2011 recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, Smith has also received several Individual Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council, two Academy of American Poets Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from the Sustainable Arts Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has been widely published, appearing in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Nation, The Best American Poetry, and more. You can follow her on social media @MaggieSmithPoet.About Nadine:Try a WriteWELL class for free on Nov 18!Nadine Kenney Johnstone is a holistic writing coach who helps women develop and publish their stories. She is the proud founder of WriteWELL, an online community that helps women reclaim their writing time, put pen to page, and get published. The authors in her community have published countless books and hundreds of essays in places like The New York Times, Vogue, The Sun, The Boston Globe, Longreads, and more. Her infertility memoir, Of This Much I'm Sure, was named book of the year by the Chicago Writer's Association. Her latest book,

Poet and author Maggie Smith shares two poems about caregiving for young children, and the complicated calculus around exposing them to the darkness (and sweetness) of the world. Dr. Chrissy Salley from the Courageous Parents Network talks about her research on caregiving for young children. And jazz chanteuse Kat Edmonson shares a brand new song called “Fear, Fear”A broadside of "Good Bones" is available, as is the pre-order for Maggie's upcoming book, "Dear Writer"SongWriterPodcast.comInstagram.com/SongWriterPodcastFacebook.com/SongWriterPodcastTikTok.com/@SongWriterPodcastX.com/SnogWriterSeason six is made possible by a grant from Templeton World Charity Foundation

On this episode, Angie fills us in on what she's been doing now that she's moved to Arizona and her new work helping people after facing a catastrophic loss. We also explore what we'd like to do for the coming fall season.Please, share our work widely, give us a review or a drop us a few stars. If you have comments or questions, please send them to meanderingswithtrudy@gmail.com.Episode links:Chapman Coaching Inc.Donor Network of Arizona, where Angie now worksThe Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, by Charlie MackesyThe poem Angie read was “Good Bones,” by Maggie SmithRoyalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

The latest production from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright James Ijames ("Fat Ham") stars Susan Kelechi Watson in the role of Aisha, who decides to move to the struggling neighborhood she grew up in with her husband, and they renovate their new house. What unfolds is a story of gentrification, class divides, and an intense debate with her young contractor, Earl. "Good Bones"  is running at The Public now through October 27, and we're joined by Ijames, Watson, and director Saheem Ali.

Hoda and Jenna give their opinions on some listeners' tricky social situations. Also, Questlove talks about his new children's book The Idea in You. Plus, Susan Kelechi Watson joins to discuss taking her talents to the off-Broadway play ‘Good Bones.' And, chef Elizabeth Heiskell shares her viral chicken salad recipe. 

It's a quad crew this week as Jason is somewhere exploring the world. We open up talking about the weekend and the perfect music albums. Florida Man takes us to Clermont involving a man with a gun (you will never guess it). The guys talk about the new fad “Rawdoggin” and why it's stupid. Jose has the latest WWFU to remind us where we messed up and includes some fan callouts! Chris has the latest Would You Rather involving a tough choice to give up something. Random X Finds is actually not a bracket this time but it does involve a Mount Rushmore and Kevin rounds it out with his weekly Dad Tip. Grab a High Noon or a shot and enjoy! Cheers!     

The poetry of healing, the healing of poetry.  Poetry has long been recognized for its therapeutic and healing qualities, both for the writer and the reader. The act of creating or engaging with poetry can be a powerful tool for processing emotions, finding meaning, and fostering personal growth. Poetry offers a unique language that can express complex emotions and experiences that may be difficult to articulate in everyday speech. It can provide solace during times of grief, trauma, or illness by offering words that resonate with one's inner experiences. For those struggling to find language for their pain, poetry can serve as a bridge, helping to connect thoughts, feelings, and memories. Many medical professionals, including Dr. Rafael Campo, have recognized the value of poetry in healthcare settings. Campo, a poet and physician, incorporates poetry into his medical practice and teaching, using it to foster empathy and understanding among healthcare providers. He believes that poetry can help doctors better connect with their patients and understand the human experience of illness. The healing power of poetry extends beyond individual experiences to community healing as well. Poems can offer comfort, inspiration, and a sense of shared humanity. Collections like "Poems of Healing" anthologize works that address illness, recovery, and spiritual healing, providing readers with a diverse array of voices and perspectives on the healing journey. Ultimately, the relationship between poetry and healing is reciprocal. As poetry aids in healing, the process of healing itself often inspires new poetry, creating a continuous cycle of expression, understanding, and growth. Poetry can be a powerful tool for processing traumatic experiences in several ways: 1. Expression of complex emotions: Poetry provides a unique language to articulate complex emotions and experiences that may be difficult to express in everyday speech. This can help individuals give voice to feelings that might otherwise remain bottled up. 2. Gentle approach to difficult topics: Poetry allows for the use of metaphor and imagery to address trauma indirectly, providing a gentler way to approach painful memories. This can make the process of confronting trauma less overwhelming. 3. Creation of meaning: Writing poetry about traumatic experiences can help individuals make sense of what happened and find meaning in their suffering. This meaning-making process is crucial for healing and growth after trauma. 4. Bilateral brain activation: The act of constructing a poem engages both emotional and cognitive processes, activating different parts of the brain. This integration can help in processing and reframing traumatic memories. 5. Safe exploration: Poetry offers a safe space to explore and process trauma at one's own pace. The use of persona or metaphor allows for some emotional distance while still addressing the core issues. 6. Coping mechanism: Writing poetry can serve as a coping strategy, providing an outlet for difficult emotions and a way to manage trauma-related symptoms. 7. Connection and validation: Sharing poetry about trauma can help individuals feel less alone in their experiences and can foster a sense of connection with others who have gone through similar ordeals. By offering a unique blend of emotional expression, cognitive processing, and creative exploration, poetry can be a valuable tool in the journey of healing from trauma. Counselors can integrate poetry into the healing process for trauma through several methods: 1. Receptive/Prescriptive Approach: Read poems aloud to clients and encourage them to react, either verbally or non-verbally. This can help clients connect with their emotions and start processing their trauma. 2. Expressive/Creative Writing: Encourage clients to write their own poetry. This can help them discover and articulate blocked emotions and memories. Prompts can be used to facilitate this process. 3. Symbolic/Ceremonial Techniques: Use metaphors and similes to help clients express emotions that are difficult to describe literally. Ceremonial acts, like writing and then burning a letter, can also be therapeutic. 4. Meaning-Making: Poetry helps clients create meaning from their experiences, which is crucial for healing. This can involve constructing narratives around their trauma, which aids in cognitive and emotional integration. 5. Gentle Exploration: Use metaphor and persona to allow clients to address trauma indirectly, providing a safer way to explore painful memories. These methods can be tailored to the client's readiness and comfort level, ensuring a supportive and effective therapeutic experience. Here are some examples of healing poetry from the search results: 1. "The Uses of Sorrow" by Mary Oliver - This short poem conveys how even painful experiences can be gifts, offering a perspective shift on suffering. 2. "Love after Love" by Derek Walcott - Explores healing through the passage of time and learning to love oneself again. 3. "Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou - An inspirational poem about resilience and rising above adversity. 4. "Kindness" by Naomi Shihab Nye - Reflects on how experiencing loss allows us to understand and practice true kindness. 5. "The Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver - Offers reassurance about one's place in the world and connection to nature. 6. "The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry - Evokes finding peace and healing in nature. 7. "The Guest House" by Rumi - Uses the metaphor of welcoming all emotions as guests to encourage acceptance. 8. "The Journey" by Mary Oliver - Depicts the quest of following one's own path despite obstacles. These poems use vivid imagery, metaphor, and reflective language to offer comfort, perspective, and encouragement in times of difficulty. They touch on themes like resilience, self-acceptance, connection to nature, and finding meaning in hardship - all of which can contribute to emotional and psychological healing. Several contemporary poets are known for their healing poetry. Here are some notable examples: 1. Mary Oliver - Her nature-inspired poems like "The Journey" and "Wild Geese" offer solace and perspective, encouraging readers to find healing in the natural world. 2. Naomi Shihab Nye - Known for poems like "Kindness" that explore empathy and human connection as paths to healing. 3. Joy Harjo - The current U.S. Poet Laureate often addresses themes of healing, particularly in relation to Native American experiences and spirituality. 4. Gregory Orr - His work frequently deals with trauma and healing, drawing from his own experiences of loss and grief. 5. Maggie Smith - Her poem "Good Bones" went viral for its hopeful message in difficult times, and much of her work touches on resilience and healing. 6. Rupi Kaur - While controversial in some circles, her accessible poetry on trauma, femininity, and self-love has resonated with many readers seeking healing. 7. Ocean Vuong - His poetry often explores themes of identity, trauma, and resilience, particularly in the context of immigrant experiences 8. Trapeta B. Mayson - As the founder of the Healing Verse Poetry Line, she uses poetry to promote mental health and well-being. These poets approach healing from various perspectives, addressing personal, societal, and environmental wounds through their work. Sources [1] Poet Healer: Contemporary poems for health and healing - ProQuest https://search.proquest.com/openview/1d45ad3cf273ef6d89fb314f25da139b/1?cbl=18750&diss=y&pq-origsite=gscholar [2] Healing Verse Poetry Line | Philadelphia Contemporary https://philadelphiacontemporary.org/projects/healing-verse-poetry-line [3] Poet Healer: Contemporary Poems for Health and Healing https://www.amazon.com/Poet-Healer-Contemporary-Health-Healing/dp/0975442104 [4] Healing Poems - Modern Award-winning Healing Poetry https://allpoetry.com/poems/about/healing [5] THE HEALING POEMS - HOME https://www.thehealingpoems.com [1] Famous Healing Poems - PoetrySoup.com https://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poems/healing [2] Short Poems About Healing https://poemsworld.net/short-poems-about-healing/ [3] THE HEALING POEMS - HOME https://www.thehealingpoems.com [4] Poems That Heal - Poetry Is Pretentious - https://poetryispretentious.com/poems-that-heal/ [5] Healing Poetry: Healing Poems at One Year of Writing and Healing https://writingandhealing.org/healing-poetry síocháin, and solidarity,Jack --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/socialyetdistanced/support

Diana Ochoa is our guest once again, but this time she's competing against resident jokers, Bob and Jeremiah! However, battle lines are drawn elsewhere in this episode featuring drugged fish, bones under a house, and a reality show for virgins.   Music in this episode is provided by Aaron Kraft. Find Aaron's music HERE.   Like the show? Consider joining our PATREON to receive access to new, old, and bonus content for just $3 a month.

I'm Not Dead talks to Maggie Smith and these are her credits: Professional Experience: Her book You Could Make This Place Beautiful was an instant bestseller along with her poem Good Bones which went viral. Awards: An Academy of American Poets and  Pushcart Prize winner and fellowship from the National Endowment for the arts. Expertise: In her own words, she writes and she helps other people write. Relevant Skills: When not creating Oprah's favorite memoir she is hanging with her two favorite people, her daughter and son.    I'm Not Dead is hosted by Sarah Clary and Christina Glickman.  Executive Producers: Julia Cassidy, Sarah Clary and Christina Glickman. Producer: Aceel Kibbi.  Audio editing and mixing: Daniel William Gonzalez. Music: Zach Lounsbury.   Follow I'm Not Dead @imnotdead.x  Subscribe for more imnotdeadx.com  

This week on Here's What We Know Podcast, our guest is Mina Starsiak Hawk, the HGTV star best known for her hit show "Good Bones" and podcast host of "Mina AF." Join us as Mina shares her life behind reality TV fame, sharing insights from her journey as a woman in construction, a public figure, and a family-oriented person.Tune in now to catch all these revelations and more from one woman who truly knows how to build something great!In This Episode:Mina's transition from TV to podcasting and why she values candid monologues offering a raw and unfiltered look at her life behind the scenes.Discover how Mina maintains her authenticity while respecting boundaries in navigating her privacy vs. public life.Real Talk on Renovation and Reality TV, from mommy makeovers to marriage challenges and sobriety.Insights on how to navigate negative comments online, particularly among women criticizing each other rather than offering support.Mina's plans as "Good Bones" wraps up its final season. Hear what's next for this dynamic personality who isn't afraid of getting her hands dirty (or tackling new adventures).Behind-the-scenes stories about filming "Good Bones," including adjusting to constant camera presence and candid moments that never made it on air.Learn Mina's perspective as a construction leader facing industry challenges head-on as a female entrepreneur in a male-dominated field.This episode is sponsored by:Reed Animal Hospital (Be sure to tell them Gary sent you!)Mike Counsil Plumbing and Rooter (Use code “Gary” to get $89 off any service!)GymGuyz (#1 In-Home Personal Training)Bio:Mina Starsiak Hawk is an American reality television show star and host. She is dedicated to the art and the business of saving old homes — and to an overarching mission of revitalizing entire city neighborhoods, one house at a time. She got a degree in Business and Sociology from Indiana University. After graduating, Hawk worked as a waitress before buying her first house and conducting repairs. That's when she found her true calling.She renovated houses and started a company called Two Chicks and a Hammer with her mother. In 2016, she appeared on the H.G.T.V. reality television series Good Bones. She was the show's host and has appeared in over 101 episodes and eight seasons from 2016 to 2023. She appeared in four episodes of Building Brady between 2018 and 2019 and has featured in countless other shows like Rachael Ray in 2017, Brother vs. Brother (2017 to 2018), A Very Brady Renovation (2019), Rock the Block (2019), and Martha Knows Best (2020), e.t.c. In 2020, Hawk and her mother opened a storefront for their business, Two Chicks District Co., selling home decor and furniture. In 2021, she appeared on Battle on the Beach as a judge for six episodes.In 2013, she met Steve Hawk, and they dated for two years before getting married in 2016. They have two kids together.Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mina_starsiak_hawk/Connect with Gary: Gary's Website Follow Gary on Instagram Gary's Tiktok Gary's Facebook Watch the episodes on YouTube Advertise on the Podcast Thank you for listening. Let us know what you think about this episode. Leave us a review!

In this episode we talk with Mina Starziak Hawk, who's speaking at the 2024 IREM Global Summit in Indianapolis in October. Mina's a home renovation expert, real estate agent, co-founder and owner of Two Chicks and a Hammer and star of HGTV hit series, Good Bones. Find knowledge for the dynamic world of real estate management at irem.org.

Poet Maggie Smith candidly unpacks the lightning strike success of her viral 2016 poem "Good Bones" and how it strained her marriage, ultimately unraveling - an upheaval she unflinchingly explores in her vulnerable memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful.Smith discusses metabolizing life's "unanswerable mysteries" through writing, going viral as an introvert, modeling authenticity for her kids, and our struggle to embrace life's "andness." With radiant honesty, she pursues the uncomplicated truth of simply being herself through stillness and creativity.This profound dialogue is a masterclass on upheaval, art, and what it means to truly live a good life from one of today's vital literary voices.You can find Maggie at: Website | Instagram | Episode TranscriptIf you LOVED this episode you'll also love the conversations we had with Liz Gilbert about writing yourself letters from love.Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Maggie Smith wrote a poem that went viral, but that wasn't the cause of her divorce. It was just one moment in a much bigger story about infidelity, raising children, and learning to live in a haunted house. Need some divorce catharsis? Join us.  Maggie Smith is the best-selling award-winning author of the memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful. She also wrote Good Bones and Keep Moving. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, New Yorker, The Nation, The Paris Review, and The Best American Poetry. Her awards include the Academy of American Poets Prize, Pushcart Prize, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.  Transcript MAGGIE SMITH: It's like the Instagram fail where you try to make the cake based on the beautiful unicorn cake you see, and then it's like, "Nailed it!"—and it looks like it's melting off to the side. You know, no one wants to make something that doesn't become the shining image in your mind you think you're making. BLAIR HODGES: That's Maggie Smith talking about her national best-selling book You Could Make This Place Beautiful. Her cake metaphor gets at some of the anxieties any author might feel, but it also works as a description of the marriage she wrote about in that book. Things started off well, with high hopes and visions of a shared future, but it turned into a Nailed It scenario when she discovered her husband's affair. Maggie Smith joins us to get real about divorce, family, patriarchy, raising kids, and more.     WHAT SOME PEOPLE ASK (01:21)   BLAIR HODGES: Maggie Smith, welcome to Family Proclamations. MAGGIE SMITH: Thanks for having me. BLAIR HODGES: I thought we'd start off by having you read one of the pieces in your book, it's called "Some People Ask," because it's short but it gives a nice overview of a lot of the things you talk about in this memoir about divorce and family, about your career, and about all kinds of things. Let's have you read that on page ten. "Some People Ask." MAGGIE SMITH: These were my attempts at—people won't ask me these questions if I put the questions and answers in the book. Alas, that did not actually deter the questions. So this is one of them. Some People Ask “So, how would you describe your marriage? What happened?” Every time someone asks me a question like this, every time someone asks about my marriage, or about my divorce experience, I pause for a moment. Inside that imperceptible pause I'm thinking about the cost of answering fully. I'm weighing it against the cost of silence. I could tell the story about the pinecone, the postcard, the notebook, the face attached to the name I googled, the name I googled written in the handwriting I'd seen my name in, and the names of our children, for years and years. I could tell them how much I've spent on lawyers, or how much I've spent on therapy, or how much I've spent on dental work from grinding my teeth in my sleep, and how many hours I sleep, which is not many, but at least if I'm only sleeping a few hours at night, then I'm only grinding my teeth a few hours a night. I could talk about how a lie is worse than whatever the lie is draped over to conceal. I could talk about what a complete mindf*ck it is to lose the shelter of your marriage, but also how expansive the view is without that shelter, how big the sky is. “Sometimes people just grow apart,” I say. I smile, take a sip of water. Next question. BLAIR HODGES: I love the "Some People Ask" sections. They're scattered throughout the book, and they get at questions I think a lot of divorced people run into. I think this is why folks who have been through divorce can relate so much to the book is these questions that are so familiar. What strikes me is, all that thinking in the italic text that you read, that happens in a split second. All of that calculus is so fast. MAGGIE SMITH: It does. I mean, it has to happen fast. Because when you're on the spot—whether you're on stage at an event, or doing a podcast, or someone catches you at the farmers market, like a neighbor—you have to do that quick mental math. What do I really want to get myself into right now? BLAIR HODGES: There's something else behind the question of “what happened,” which is like, what really happened? People kind of want like—there's probably something that's not public, or they want the tea. The question can be asked out of sincere regard for you, but there's also, most of the time probably a little bit of that human impulse to just want to know the dirt. MAGGIE SMITH: I think that's true, but I also think particularly with divorce, the wanting to know—that curiosity is a self-protective impulse. People don't even recognize that impulse when they are asking, but what they're really asking is, how does this not happen to me?   GROWING APART (04:44)   BLAIR HODGES: Oof. That resonates with people. Throughout the book my mind kept going back to this pinecone. You mentioned the story about the pinecone. Basically this is part of how you found out your husband was cheating on you. He had given your child this pinecone, and then later on you discovered this is a pinecone he picked up on a walk with a woman he was seeing in another state. I can hardly wrap my head around him giving that to your child. It's connected to this whole other thing he was doing. MAGGIE SMITH: That was why I threw it away. [laughter] BLAIR HODGES: That's right. The line I kept thinking of too from this one is, "sometimes people just grow apart." Now that the book's out, does that line still work? Do you find yourself still in conversations like this? People can know more, a lot more, about the situations you went through. Do you still find yourself sometimes having to say, "You know, sometimes things just don't work out?" MAGGIE SMITH: You know, the deep irony of that is when I wrote that section of the book, I thought the truth was in all of that italicized internal monologue text. The sort of, not really lie, but the "let's just get this over with” quick and easy answer was “Sometimes people just grow apart,” and the longer I've been sitting with this, the more I realized that's true. Everything in the paragraph is true, too. But “sometimes people just grow apart,” as sort of toss off an answer as that is, it actually is not inaccurate, and it's not not what happened. I mean, that happened also. BLAIR HODGES: The thing is, the growing apart could be incredibly painful or the growing apart could be incremental over years and people diverge in interests or mature into different people. The growth apart can be really painful, so it can be a true answer, and at the same time what's behind that answer could be really different depending on who you're talking to. MAGGIE SMITH: I just had friends who celebrated twenty years together, and they're posting photos of their younger selves, and you swipe to see the current version, or how it started, how it's going—that kind of meme. It feels like a miracle to me now that there are so many people who grow together over twenty, forty, sixty years instead of growing apart. I think it's a beautiful miracle that some people manage to do that. I did not. BLAIR HODGES: We see you grieve that. There are several times in the book where you talk about grieving the loss of that kind of connected relationship over the years. At this point in your life you can't ever have that. You can't have a relationship you shared when you were in your twenties and are now in your forties. That person is connected to the person you were with and it's not possible to recover it. MAGGIE SMITH: I get a little envious of seeing pictures of people from the nineties and they're still with that person. I don't get to do that. I don't get to carry forward that human being with another human being. I suppose if I met someone and got married this year and live to be ninety-seven, I could still have a golden anniversary, if they also live to be ninety-seven. I think it's unlikely that's going to happen. That was actually a fair amount of the grieving process. It wasn't just my specific marriage. I think everybody gets this. It's all the things in the future you think are guaranteed you when you "settle down" with someone, and then all those things go up in smoke when it doesn't work out.   REGRETS (08:38)   BLAIR HODGES: Did you wrestle a lot with feeling like those years were lost? A lot happened. You had kids during those years. You grew professionally. You struck out on your own in bold professional moves. You became a successful and very known writer. I'm wondering if there's a sense of lost years, because even some people that have a lot of things to look back on fondly still might feel like, "Dang it, I wish those years were spent differently." Do you live with a sense of regret about it? MAGGIE SMITH: No, not necessarily. I think at the beginning I did. Like, "Really, now I'm in my forties and I have to start over? Now?" It would have been easier ten years ago, for sure. It would have been easier fifteen years ago, for sure. But when I look at my kids and the life we've built here it's impossible to imagine it happening any other way. Because to rewind the film far enough to get a different result, I would be erasing them from the story and I can't. BLAIR HODGES: I wanted to ask you about this. How long—to preface this question—how long was it from beginning to end of writing the book? Do you remember? MAGGIE SMITH: Some pieces of the book existed before I knew I was writing a book. I pulled some poems in. I pulled some previous essays in, but I wrote the book for a year. BLAIR HODGES: The reason I ask is because we get to see you grow during that year. This is one of my "gasp out loud" moments. There are a few of them in the book where I literally gasped. It usually involved something your ex had done. But this one, one of the biggest for me, was something you said. When people would ask you a question, "Wasn't it all worth it because you got the kids out of it?" Earlier in the book your internal voice says, "Actually, I might undo it all, even knowing that would entail the kids." What you verbally say to the person is, "Well, I can't imagine life without my kids." The thing you're not seeing in italics is, "Maybe,” or “maybe even probably." But we see you grow from that. Talk about that growth over the course of the book, because that was a huge admission to be like, "You know what? Maybe not. Maybe it wasn't worth all that pain." MAGGIE SMITH: Not just for me, but for them. A lot of what I wish for them is a different kind of childhood and a different kind of family. I remember thinking about if I never had my children I wouldn't miss them, because I wouldn't have known them and they wouldn't miss me because they wouldn't have known me, and so it's not hurting anyone to say I would rewind the tape and completely do this all over again. Throughout the course of writing the book and living that year and sitting with everything and really thinking about it, I got to a place where I was like, "No, actually, I'll take the heat." I think it's worth taking the heat myself. I think they can take the heat enough so we get to have each other and in the end that has to be worth it. I did a lot of that in the book. A lot of my thinking at the beginning of the book is not my thinking at the end. That's an accurate reflection of life. Not necessarily a convenient narrative arc. "Oh, on second thought, I changed my mind, reader, from what I told you thirty pages ago." But that's how we live. I don't know how we live without that.   ON SECOND THOUGHT (12:04)   BLAIR HODGES: It didn't feel like a setup. I felt like I was experiencing you process that in real time and that when you wrote that original piece you hadn't set out thinking, "How is this going to fit into my book overall?" You were writing the pieces as they came and we get to experience that growth with you. Here's the piece "On Second Thought." It's short. I'll just read it. It says: I've been thinking about what I said before about wanting to undo it all. The more that time passes, the less I feel that way. Rilke comes to me in these moments—this is a poet—whispering no feeling is final. I don't just want to have kids, I want these kids, though dammit, I wish they had an easier path to travel. I wish we all had an easier path. Here's what I think about the most. In some parallel universe I can save the children and jettison the marriage. This is magical thinking, as in some Greek myth we're yet to discover. A son and daughter spring from me whole. No feeling is final. It strikes me, that can turn in on itself when it comes to joy too. That quote usually we think about if you're depressed or something, no feeling is final, but there's also a sense in which the best joys can be fleeting. MAGGIE SMITH: That is the last part of a quote I actually have—I'm looking at it right now on a sticky note on my office window. It's been living there for so many years, which tells you I don't wash my windows. "Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final." I feel so much of life is toggling between beauty and terror. Sometimes in the same three-minute stretch. BLAIR HODGES: It's great to see your relationship with your kids throughout the book. There's a beautiful piece about Violet, your daughter, and mixtapes. You both have bonded over music. MAGGIE SMITH: That's one of the coolest things as they get older. I feel like I set a music syllabus pretty early with my kids. We had a “no kids music” rule in our house, like no Kidz Bop, no music for children. We just tried to choose clean-ish music so we could enjoy it. One of the coolest things is seeing what from my music syllabus they're carrying forward and what they like of early to mid-nineties indie rock, and then what they strike out and find on their own. That's pretty much a metaphor for living with children. BLAIR HODGES: That's exactly why I brought it up. Then also the reciprocal love, the love your children showed for you. There's a piece called "Hidden Valentines," where your son Rhett had gone out of town. I think he went to his dad's— MAGGIE SMITH: I have one right here! It says, "You are nice and you make me laugh." BLAIR HODGES: He put these all around the house for you. It's so sweet. So I see romance happening in the book even when your partner was gone after the divorce. A certain kind of romance. MAGGIE SMITH: It's funny. It's the end of a love story, but not the end of all the love stories. I really think so much of this book is a love letter to writers and writing, but it's also a love letter to parents and kids, and a love letter to my kids in particular. The real love story is a self-love story, and finding yourself in the mess, but we have each other.   DIVISION OF LABOR (15:26)   BLAIR HODGES: That's Maggie Smith, and we're talking about her memoir, You Could Make this Place Beautiful. Her writings appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Nation, the Paris Review, and the Best American Poetry. She's a best-selling, award winning author of the books Good Bones and Keep Moving. Those books are also available. Maggie, you write a lot in this book about a common problem in marriage. This podcast has other episodes that will touch more on this, but I liked how you explore it, and that's how professional success and a division of labor in marriage can make a big impact. You wrote a poem that went viral. This was a landmark moment in your journey toward divorce, because your partner had started out as a writer as well and then had diverged from that path to become a lawyer. And it seemed like because you persisted with writing your partner couldn't fully embrace your professional success and he'd even downplay and sometimes even ridicule your career as maybe a hobby or a little indulgence. He also wanted you to step into the traditional mother role, despite the fact you're both progressive-minded folks. There was one time when he called you on a work trip to come home because your son had a fever. That, again, was another one of these gasp out loud moments. MAGGIE SMITH: I think this happens in all kinds of families, whether one of the partners is an artist or a writer or not. It doesn't necessarily keep itself to families where one person has a more traditional job and one person has a creative job. Frankly, it doesn't only happen in families in cis-het marriages where the man out-earns the woman. I know women who earn more than their husbands who are still packing every lunch and doing every pediatrician appointment and having a hard time getting away for professional obligations. I know lots of women who, when they go to conferences, someone comes up to them and says, "Oh, who's got the kids?" BLAIR HODGES: I've never heard that. MAGGIE SMITH: Exactly. And I don't think men get that, "Oh, who's got the kids?" Everyone assumes your partner has the kids. It's a real issue, and it's not a poetry versus law issue. It's not a creative versus traditional issue. I don't even think it's about earning—although I do think it can make the power dynamic more pronounced when one person significantly out-earns the other. BLAIR HODGES: It's in the data. MAGGIE SMITH: It's in the data. And there is a sense of feeling somewhat exempt from some of the domestic responsibilities if you are the person who's paying most of the bills via your income. That sets up couples for a lot of resentment, frankly. I don't think there's anything that kills a relationship faster than resentment, feeling like you can't be your full self. BLAIR HODGES: I think that's right. You talk a lot about it in the book, but you also pull back somewhat, because you mention at one point there's this spreadsheet of the cognitive labor that you're doing in the relationship, the day-to-day schedule keeping. One example that comes to mind for me is when a dad feels like he really succeeded because he showed up to Junior's ballgame, but he didn't take them to practices. But he didn't sign Junior up for ball. He's not washing Junior's uniform. He's not bringing treats, blah, blah, blah. But he feels like a really involved dad because he shows up for the game. You talk about this spreadsheet of labor and then you say, "I thought about including it here, but I'm not going to." So you didn't include the actual spreadsheet. But really, you know it's peppered throughout the book, right? The spreadsheet is pretty much in the book. MAGGIE SMITH: It's pretty much in the book. Anyone reading this knows what's on the spreadsheet. We all know—or maybe if you don't know what's on your spreadsheet— BLAIR HODGES: Thank you. MAGGIE SMITH: —take some time and write it down. Sometimes I'll get done with a day, and I'll think I feel like “I didn't accomplish much today,” meaning I only wrote five hundred words or something. Then if I think about what I accomplished, I've done three loads of laundry, I took the dog to the vet, I signed up someone for a camp or soccer, I emailed a teacher about a project my child had a question on, I looked at something, I planned a vacation, I did this, I did this. It's so much of that domestic stuff that doesn't count as "work" that takes up so much time and doesn't really feel like accomplishment or achievement. It's not performative. It's invisible labor. The one thing I realized about my invisible labor is when I was gone to teach or give a reading or visit a university, the invisible labor your partner does becomes very, very visible to you when they are not there. You realize the dishes don't do themselves and the laundry doesn't just arrive folded in the dresser drawer and the play dates don't get scheduled without this human being. BLAIR HODGES: This reminds me of your "Google Maps" essay where you wrote this beautiful piece about tracing your divorce through Google Maps, because you can go back and see pictures of the house. You sent it to your partner after the divorce to say, "Hey, take a look at this. I'm going to be publishing this and it involves you so I thought you should take a look before it goes out." He sent you notes back and one of them was like, "Oh, see the recycle bin? I took that out." [laughter] MAGGIE SMITH: It was illuminating. His edits were like, all of my crying was deleted. Anytime I mentioned crying was deleted. BLAIR HODGES: That's too on the nose, Maggie. Isn't that too on the nose? [laughs] MAGGIE SMITH: I mean, that's why I said it was psychologically revealing. Wanting credit for household chores and wanting to not acknowledge the pain you've caused another person. I found that interesting. I published that piece in the Times. I didn't think I was going to write a memoir, so I thought that was it. But when I went to write the memoir, I thought, I don't know how to tell the story without offering these edits as a kind of shorthand. I mean, I'm not going to offer the annotated version in this document, but it said so much in so little space. You know how if you know someone well, you look at them across the room at a party and their expression tells you “It's time to go,” or “Get a load of this.” That's kind of how I received those edits. It was a lot of data in a very small space.   MOTIVATION(S) (22:11)   BLAIR HODGES: I imagine there were probably legal considerations or some interpersonal considerations about sending it to him first. As you were writing that piece and then the book more in depth, did you worry at all about his reputation? Maybe the lesson here is, don't ever marry an author. But at the time, he was one. MAGGIE SMITH: It's tricky. We have responsibility to other people when we write about them. I was careful and people who know me, very considerate. The people who know more about the situation are like, "Oh, yeah, you were really considerate." [laughter] And I was. And not just because of the legal considerations. That's always something, but also because I didn't write this book to hurt other people. I certainly didn't write this book to expose other people. For people who might be thinking about writing about their lives, whether in a memoir or an essay or something, if they think they're going to share it with other people, the piece of advice I have is to always think about your motivations. If your motivation is anger or revenge or “they thought they could do this, well now I'll show them,” then put your pen down. Or pick your pen up, but that's for your journal or something you can share with a therapist or a friend. That's like Happy Hour venting. If your desire is to know yourself better because you're curious about a situation, because you think unpacking this might be useful for you or for someone else, I think those are safer, healthier motivations for writing about your life, and will probably, if you keep true to those motivations, will keep you out of the weeds. BLAIR HODGES: I want to go back to motivations in a second, but also want to point out you don't name him. You call him “Redacted” sometimes. This is the age of Google though. MAGGIE SMITH: If people want to do the legwork, anybody can find anything. BLAIR HODGES: Is it weird to you that people do? I did. [laughs] MAGGIE SMITH: It's a little strange, but I think it's a human impulse. Have I read stories where someone was unnamed and have I tried to figure out who they are? Of course. We've all done that. I don't think there's any shame in it. We live in an age where if you can find Trump's taxes, you can find anything. BLAIR HODGES: It's true. I also wanted to point out too, here's a piece called "An Offering," where you say: I feel like I need to reiterate something. This isn't the story of a good wife and a bad husband. Was I easy to live with? Probably not. I crave time to myself. I thought I knew best what the children needed. I was stubborn. I disliked, dislike confrontation. So I could be, can be avoidant or passive aggressive. We see this confessional mode a few times throughout the book, too. MAGGIE SMITH: Gina Frangello, who's a terrific writer, said something really smart about memoir, which is there are two essential ingredients. One is self-assessment and the other is societal interrogation. I think this book has both, which I'm grateful for because I didn't know the two ingredients from Gina until after I was done writing it and had already turned it in. But that goes back to motivations. If you are writing a book in which you are going to be the hero of your story? No. That's the wrong motivation. Not only did I not want to write that book, I don't want to read that book. I don't want to read that book. That's too easy. BLAIR HODGES: That's right. It's wonderful to see you wrestling with motivations throughout the book. This book is very meta. You talk about the creation of the book throughout the book, and what we learn is you didn't have one single pure motive. There were times when you talk about being led by curiosity and writing was an exercise in trying to figure out what you thought about something. When you're trying to make sense of everything. Another reason why you would publish it is so you could share pain and share discovery with other people. This is where memoir becomes a sort of curation. Why we read memoirs is because we get to try on other people's lives. Or why we ask someone what really happened, in that question is, “I want to see how this fits on me.”   MY TEACHER, MY PAIN (25:57)   There's one particular lesson you're trying to draw out. This comes out in this piece I just read from called, "An Offering." You're quoting from a Buddhist teacher about how—and this is the Amazon highlighted quote by the way. If you go to your Amazon page, this is the top highlighted part of your book. MAGGIE SMITH: Oh, wow. BLAIR HODGES: Here it is. It says: Thank you for the pain you caused me because that pain woke me up. It hurt enough to make me change. “Wish for more pain,” a friend's therapist once told her, “because that's how you'll change.” That really resonated with people. Pain teaches us. There's a utility to pain. There can be an underside to that, of celebrating pain or of having a privileged pain when other people have worse pains. It can be easier for me to talk about pain when the pain could be worse. I wanted to explore that with you, about the limits of the idea that pain can teach us. Because I agree it can, but there's limits to that. MAGGIE SMITH: Of course. I would like to learn lessons any other way, frankly. I don't want pain to be my teacher. But I think the bottom line is we don't get to choose our teachers. And so I've learned a lot in my life through joy. I've learned a lot in my life through, frankly, confusion, and not knowing things and having to figure it out for myself. In the case of the end of my marriage, experiencing that pain and grief and loss taught me a lot about myself. I don't know if I would have learned those lessons another way. That doesn't mean the scales are balanced. I'm not at all saying the lessons I learned about myself through my divorce made all this suffering for myself and my family worthwhile because they got me this lesson. No. I would always choose not to have the pain any day of the week. I would rather know less about myself and feel better. Absent that choice, which I did not have, I'm glad to have at least made some progress with myself and my life via this unpleasant experience. I do think that's part of why we go to memoir, it's also to feel seen and feel understood. When we share our pain with someone else, whether it's a big pain or a small pain, I think we're telling other people, “This happened to me, maybe something similar happened to you.” You pick up the book, you read it, and maybe you've been through a very similar experience, and it makes you feel less alone. Maybe you've been through a completely different experience that rocked your world in a similar way. You see how someone else kind of got to the "other side of it" and it gives you a sense of solidarity and like, "Oh, yes, this is the human experience." That's what I'm hoping for in sharing it.   READING MEMOIR (29:53)   BLAIR HODGES: My partner joked with me when I started this podcast, like, "Oh, you're going to include memoir?" In the past, I've just done academic stuff—sociology, psychology, Religious Studies, and all these things. I was a little snooty about memoir, dismissive of it, skeptical of it. But I decided to lean into it for this show. Two things happen when I'm reading a memoir. The two things I love the most. First, when an author says something I already knew in a way I never would have been able to articulate or didn't even realize I knew. The other one is when they tell me something I'd never considered before, but suddenly it snaps into place in the clearest of ways. These revelations that happen when I'm reading. MAGGIE SMITH: That happens to me, too. That's why it's a genre I turn to a lot. I get that from poetry also. I think that's probably why I read primarily nonfiction and poetry because those are places I go to be changed. I can't pick up a book of poems or a memoir and not be a slightly rearranged, slightly different person when I close the book. I don't think we exit good books as the same person we enter them, and that is a gift. BLAIR HODGES: We carry pieces of it with us too. We're changed. I should point out as we're talking about pain and all the suffering you write about, and the grief, and there's anger, there's frustration, there's some joy, there's some love. But you say you're a lot funnier than your book is. There's a footnote that's so funny. It's like, "I wanted twenty percent more wit and twenty percent less pain in here, but this is what we got." [laughter] MAGGIE SMITH: I think my gallows humor comes out in this book because I feel like I meet people all the time, and they're like, "Oh, you're a lot funnier than your writing." That's probably true of a lot of people unless you're maybe David Sedaris. I'm not a humorist. I tend to write through things I'm puzzling over or grappling with, and that's not necessarily a space where I feel free to be funny, but in every other aspect of my life it's part of my life. BLAIR HODGES: It made me think about the function of humor, too. Because sometimes humor can be an escape hatch out of difficult emotions. It felt like you resisted that. You could have—you're a funny person and I'm sure you could have said lots of quips and witty things. But it seems like you resisted them because you're like, "No, I need to stay in this moment and I'm not going to take the escape hatch." MAGGIE SMITH: It's just not that kind of book. I think I could have maybe written a funny book. Well, maybe not that year. I was not in a place to have written a funny book. Maybe I could write the funny book now. But it's something even, and I write about this, it's something even my therapist notices, that whenever I'm telling a particularly painful story or talking about something painful, I laugh. It's so bad, I have to laugh. Like, can you believe that happened? It is that sort of emotional escape hatch, where you can't let yourself look it straight in the eye and go there. It was important for me to do that. BLAIR HODGES: Well, I'm looking forward to your sequel to this book, You Can Make this Place Hilarious. [laughter] MAGGIE SMITH: I know! I wrote a book called Keep Moving. Then after that I thought maybe the next book is just like, Sit Down, or Rest Up, you know? [laughter]   BLAIR HODGES: That's Maggie Smith. We're talking about the book, You Could Make this Place Beautiful. She's an incredible author, and as she mentioned, also wrote a book called Keep Moving, which is a lot more like, keep moving. It's got your happy aphorisms and more motivational stuff. I think pairing these books is a good idea.   BEING HAUNTED (33:18)   BLAIR HODGES: I wanted to talk briefly about being haunted. You kept the house you lived with your family and your partner there, you wanted to keep the house so badly. But it means you live in a haunted house of sorts, in a haunted city. You drive places and see where you went out to eat, or you see where this thing happened, or that thing happened. Then in your house, all the things that happened there. You mention how—you don't put it in this way, but this is what came to mind, that divorce is kind of marriage by another means, especially if you have kids. I mean the relationship has to continue logistically, also in your memory, so divorce is a hard kind of marriage by other means in this hauntedness you describe throughout the book. MAGGIE SMITH: I still live basically in my hometown. It's always been that way. I see people from different stages of my life all the time. I see places that meant things to me all the time. I live in the house I lived in when I was married. My kids are still here. That was never going to change. One of the commitments I've made is keeping my kids' life as untouched by all of this as humanly possible, which is laughable because it's not untouched at all. I mean, it sort of napalmed everything, but the house is still here, and we're still here, and our neighbors are still the same, and they're still in their schools, and they still see the same people all the time, and we still walk to the farmers market. It's important to me to provide as much stability as possible for them. What that means for me is not being able to get that "fresh start" so many people want after a relationship ends, where you want to leave that part of your life behind and move onto something else. When you've lived in the same place for forty years you don't get to do that. You're taking one for the team, but that's what being a parent is. It's taking one for the team over and over and over. To be honest, on one hand it's difficult because there are a lot of memories. On the other hand, I don't think I would have thrived through this challenging time without my community. I don't think that would have been possible if we'd been living someplace else. BLAIR HODGES: Right, like your first lonely solo Christmas when neighbors were coming by and dropping stuff off on Christmas morning. MAGGIE SMITH: It's ridiculous how kind people are to me. People look out for me so much. My family is here. We have Sunday dinners every week. People have asked if it's weird publishing a memoir and having so many people know about your life and then you're walking the streets knowing people are looking at you, maybe knowing more about you than you know about them. It doesn't actually feel that strange. I feel very held here. I feel really supported here. BLAIR HODGES: You could make “this place” beautiful. “This place” means so many things, but I feel like in the book it also means the literal place—that house, which it's so kickass that you bought it. It's yours. It felt really empowering that you were able to do that. Reclaim it as yours. MAGGIE SMITH: The most terrifying part of the divorce other than being on my own was, where are we going to go? Being able to stay in this house, and that was thanks to the book Keep Moving, being able to stay in this house, and being able to provide that for my kids was something I didn't think I was going to be able to do as a poet. It has been really empowering. It's a good way to think of it. It's a double-edged sword. Yes. On one hand, it's a haunted house. Yes, my ex-husband's handwriting is in some of the cookbooks. But on the other hand, we're here and we're still standing.   AFTERLIFE OF A BOOK (37:39)   BLAIR HODGES: I love that. Do you have any favorite criticisms of the book? Something where you're like, "Oh, that's really interesting," or have you tried to ignore any of that kind of stuff? MAGGIE SMITH: I don't think people really ignore it. If fifty people say something nice about your book and one person says something mean, that mean thing will live rent free in your head forever. I think that's just what it is to be human. I try not to tune in too much or put too much stock into either criticism or praise because both can be dangerous. Too much praise can make you complacent and not make you challenge yourself to do better. You're competing against yourself when you're a writer more than you're competing against other people. Most of the criticisms of the book I anticipated. I anticipated people would say, "Why are you airing your dirty laundry?" Which is why that's a question I posed to myself in the book. I anticipated that people would say, "Oh my gosh, aren't you worried about your kids reading this someday?" I anticipated some people not liking the meta aspect of the book or the direct address to the reader. I made those decisions anyway because it's my book. Those people can do things their way if they want to. BLAIR HODGES: I imagine when people meet with you who have read the book—Most of the time if you're going to a reading or something, people enjoy the book. You get to see a lot of different positive reactions. There's so much in the book that a lot of different things could resonate with a lot of different people. There were so many pages I marked, like, I want to ask her about this, I want to ask her about this. But time is limited. There was way more than I could possibly cover, but I saw on Instagram you're celebrating the year anniversary of this book coming out. It's heading into paperback now. You said this book has sparked meaningful life-changing conversations. Maybe before we go, talk about the afterlife of the book as it continues in your conversations. Maybe an example of a meaningful life-changing discussions you've been able to have because of the book. MAGGIE SMITH: Book tour is always an opportunity to do that because I get to go to different cities and sit down with different writers and hear their questions and have a conversation about big life stuff with them. We end up talking about not just divorce, but all kinds of things. We end up talking about patriarchy. We end up talking about parenting. We end up talking about memory and hometowns, and family and secrets, and silence and all kinds of things. Depending on who I'm talking to, that conversation takes a different shape and different texture and different color. If someone wanted to follow me like the Grateful Dead on book tour and come to all of my events for the paperback, they would be witnessing five or six different conversations because they're all so personal. Some of the most meaningful moments I get to have around this book are talking to readers. It's sitting at the signing table and having people come up and hand me a card, or hand me a crystal, or hand warmers they knitted me, a little something, or just to say “I gave this to my mom,” or “my best friend really needed this,” or “I wish I had this when I was going through my divorce twenty years ago.” Something that happens with memoirs when you share a lot of yourself, it inspires or encourages other people to share a little bit about their stories with you too. That's been a beautiful point of connection with readers.   FORGIVENESS (41:48)   BLAIR HODGES: I really hope people who haven't had a chance to check out this book, check it out. It's called You Could Make this Place Beautiful. There's so much we didn't mention, like the fact your husband wound up with Pinecone. I don't know if he's still with Pinecone or not, but that at least happened. He moved out of state, which was earth shattering for you, and how that disconnected him from the kids. There's a ton of stuff we didn't cover, but I thought we would close with having you read a piece on page 302. We started off with a "Some People Will Ask" piece and I thought it would be good to cap it off with a "Some People Will Ask" piece. MAGGIE SMITH: Some people will ask, “You say you want to forgive. Have you?” Someone will ask that, I'm sure, because I ask myself all the time. How do I answer? I could say it's difficult to forgive someone who hasn't expressed remorse. I could counter with questions. Why do I need to forgive someone who doesn't seem to be sorry? What if forgiveness doesn't need to be the goal? The goal is the wish, peace. Can there be peace without forgiveness? How do you heal when there is an open wound that is being kept open, a scab always being picked until it bleeds again. I could say this is my task, seeking peace, knowing the wound may never fully close. “Forgiveness is complicated. To be at peace I think what I need is acceptance. I accept it."   REGRETS, CHALLENGES, & SURPRISES! (43:04)   BLAIR HODGES: That's Maggie Smith, reading from the book You Could Make this Place Beautiful. There's always a segment at the end of these episodes called “Regrets, Challenges, & Surprises.” It's where I ask people about anything they would change about the book now that it's out, what the hardest part about writing it was, or what the most surprising thing was. You've touched on some of these already, but before we go if you have anything to say about regrets, challenges, and surprises, we'll close there. MAGGIE SMITH: I don't think I have any regrets about the way I wrote the book. Surprises? Honestly, I think the reception has been surprising. I did not expect it to be a New York Times bestseller. It's an Ohio poet's memoir. No one was more surprised about that than me. I think I was folding laundry—literally—when my agent called to tell me I made the list. So that was certainly surprising. BLAIR HODGES: And you had two of your favorite songwriters write songs based on your book, too! MAGGIE SMITH: Crazy! Challenges? Fear. I think that's probably whether it's a named challenge or an unnamed challenge, I think that's one of the challenges for all of us. Fear of failure, fear of exposure, fear of litigation, fear of falling short, fear of not making the thing you think you want to build in your mind. It's like the Instagram fail where you try to make the cake based on the beautiful unicorn cake you see, and then it's like, "Nailed it!" And it looks like it's melting off to the side. No one wants to make something that doesn't become the shining image in your mind you think you're making. Fear is always the challenge, and the goal is to overcome that. BLAIR HODGES: The goal is to “keep moving,” as a wise person once said in a book you can also pick up at your favorite local retailer! [laughter] Thanks a ton, Maggie. This has been great. I loved your book. I truly, truly did. I hope people check it out. Thanks for taking time to be on this little show. MAGGIE SMITH: It's my pleasure. Thank you. BLAIR HODGES: Thanks for listening. Special thanks to Camille Messick, my wonderful transcript editor. Thanks to David Ostler, who sponsored this first group of transcripts. I'm looking for more transcript sponsors, these aren't free so help me out! My email address is blair at firesidepod dot org. You can also contact me with questions or feedback about any episode. There's a lot more to come on Family Proclamations. And here's the moment where I do the thing you hear on so many podcasts: Ask you to rate and review the show in Apple Podcasts of in Spotify! Let me know what you think about it so far. Here's a new 5-star review from "Fan of the Sun," and check out the detail here: "I have really enjoyed the variety of books and subjects that have been covered so far. I have been able to incorporate some valuable aspect from each episode into my personal life. Blair is a fantastic interviewer who knows the material and asks engaging questions. He digs deep, yet is able to give the listeners a well-rounded overview." Love that. It's my goal: to go wide but also dig down deep. Thanks fan of the sun, and I imagine that you've already recommended the show to a friend too because you know that's the number one way that people hear about podcasts is through a friend. Thanks to Mates of State for providing our theme song. Family Proclamations is part of the Dialogue Podcast Network. I'm Blair Hodges, and we'll see you next time.

Rebecca and Tara share their latest reads and links to their new feature on YouTube: Reading From Our Shelves! Rebecca (@canadareadsamericanstyle):  Somehow by Anne Lamott Imagining Imagining: Essays on Language, Identity & Infinity by Gary Barwin Autokrator by Emily A. Weedon I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity by Izzeldin Abuelaish James by Percival Everett The Last Slave Ship: The True Story of How Clotilda Was Found, Her Descendants, and an Extraordinary Reckoning by Ben Raines Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by Zora Neale Hurston Eleanor Courtown; The Brickworks; Stella's Carpet; The Marzipan Fruit Basket by Lucy E.M. Black Making Up the Gods by Marion Agnew Tara (@onabranchreads):  Cold; Chasing Painted Horses by Drew Hayden Taylor Coexistence: Stories; A Minor Chorus by Billy-Ray Belcourt A Sweet Sting of Salt by Rose Sutherland Nosy Parker; The Spoon Stealer by Lesley Crewe Followed by the Lark by Helen Humphreys Walden by Henry David Thoreau A House with Good Bones; Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher Reading From Our Shelves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObgtKpEdnRE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lek38hy8jCA&t=93s    

Today I am recommending books with HGTV Renovation Vibes. If you're a fan of shows like Down Home Fab, Good Bones & Fixer to Fabulous then this is the episode for you

In episode two of the Gen X Taste podcast, Christy and I have a very special guest, !!! (The poet, not the dame!)Maggie Smith is the New York Times bestselling author of seven books of poetry and prose, including You Could Make This Place Beautiful, Good Bones, Goldenrod, Lamp of the Body, The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison, and Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change. Her newest book is My Thoughts Have Wings, a picture book for children, illustrated by Leanne Hatch. Smith's poems and essays have appeared in the New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, TIME, The Nation, The Atlantic, and The Best American Poetry. I first mentioned Maggie (and how we met) in My Favorite Reads of 2023 post. This was our first time talking IRL and I was thrilled to chat about everything from her writing process to the benefits of bangs.And of course… This season's topic: Movies from Our ChildhoodYou can subscribe via Apple, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts; please leave us a kind rating/review you do!Show Notes:* Episode 1: Adult Friendships* Reusable metal toothpicks* Rideback Rise Circle rewrite class (and my own online writing course)* The Goonies, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Sixteen Candles, Better Off Dead, Ghostbusters, Twins, Junior, Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken* Stridex, Sea Breeze, Cover Girl Pressed Powder* Dr. Elsa Jungman Cleansing Oil* The People I've Slept With aka the movie where Lynn had bangs* Actor Michael Earl Schoeffling* Lives Less Ordinary podcast* Raiders of the Lost Ark shot-by-shot remake* Lynn's IG* Christy's IG* Maggie's Website, IG and other links. Also, check out her Substack ! Get full access to Gen x Taste at genxtaste.substack.com/subscribe

Seneca was exiled to what he felt was a rock in the middle of the ocean. He hated it. He thought it was torture. And of course, it was unfair that he was sent there—on trumped up charges no less—and it would have been lonely and sad to be so far from his family.Yet it is a little funny that the place he was sent to, Corsica, is a beautiful vacation spot for people all over the world today.Seneca couldn't see that, just as perhaps you can't see what's just underneath the rough exterior of the situation you're in. We've talked before about the Maggie Smith poem Good Bones. It takes a certain eye to be able spot what others are too depressed or too cynical or too devastated to see.Think of the settlers and developers who were able to see what later became bustling cities in the uncultivated land. Think of the people who were able to see the potential for renewal and growth in a run down neighborhood. Think of the leaders who saw a future in an organization or franchise that everyone else gave up on.We can forgive Seneca for his moments of self-pity and doubt and hopelessness. It would happen to the best of us. We can also learn from what he missed by focusing on that. We can try to see the good bones, the better future, the potential in the situation we're in. We can strive to make that come true.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail

In a disagreement two things can feel like opposites—but it can still be a fact that both things are true. You wish they'd listen; they wish you'd not get so angry. Your kid isn't going to that unsupervised sleepover; your kid is going to be furious about that for weeks. When we start allowing for coexisting differences of opinion—when we stop feeling like the other person can only be super-wrong before we get what we want—something like change can start to occur. The idea that two things can be true dates back to the ancient Greeks, and in this episode, we discuss the history of dialectical thinking why our lizard brains love to overcategorize how we can use the "two things can be true" script in our parenting We're still figuring out how this works for ourselves, but the effort seems well worth it. Here are links to some of the resources mentioned in the episode: Dr. Becky on Instagram: How to Respond to Pushback With Firmness and Connection Raising Good Humans with Dr. Aliza Pressman: Two Things Can Be True Paul Sonderegger for Quartz: Forget the Turing Test—give AI the F. Scott Fitzgerald Test instead Steven Reidbrd M.D. for Psychology Today: "Dialectics in Psychotherapy" Oakwise Counseling: "Two Opposing Things Can Be True" The poem "Good Bones" by Maggie Smith We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/p/promo-codes/ mom friends, funny moms, parenting advice, parenting experts, parenting tips, mothers, families, parenting skills, parenting strategies, parenting styles, busy moms, self-help for moms, manage kid's behavior, teenager, tween, child development, family activities, family fun, parent child relationship, decluttering, kid-friendly, invisible workload, default parent, dialectic thinking, two things can be true Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Join Amy and Kate for the very first official episode of the Finding Good Bones podcast - a discussion of the namesake of the podcast, the poem Good Bones by Maggie Smith (the poet, not the Dame).  This episode covers the power of sparseness and repetition, the importance of breaking and reforming, and the glory of fake footnotes - in between lots of cackling.

Giddyup! This week we're talking about an essential Thingie, being forthcoming with one's universe, the squashissance, cowboy love stories (real and fictional), and, as usual, a whole lot more.Big Thingie Energy: a good vet, specifically cat ‘n bunny caretakers at Catnip & Carrots. Having a moment? Squash. Some recipes we love include Aacorn Squash with Coconut Custard from Kristen Kish for Food & Wine, Soy Glazed Kabocha Squash with Japanese Sesame Seasoning from Season with Spice, Delicata Squash Agrodolce from Athena Calderone for PureWow, and Roasted Honey Nut Squash and Chickpeas With Hot Honey from Melissa Clark for NYT. GRWM audiobooks we're into include Tom Lake by Ann Patchett and You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith (< who you probably know from her poem “Good Bones” and/or her essay “My Marriage Was Never the Same After That.”). We love cowboy love! Get into Lyla Sage's Rebel Blue Ranch series, starting with Done and Dusted and the upcoming Swift and Saddled. Related: the rodeo, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, and Bella Hadid's cowboyfriend. We love easy crafts! Including decorating these 99¢ frames, rolling beeswax candles, doing fruit and veggie prints (maybe at RecCreate Collective in BK?), and collage journaling like Martina Calvi. Also, we endorse Target's Spritz line of party decorations (balloon arch + gold fringe, hello). We are deep in the Grossy Universe. Do you want any context on the people in our ‘verse? Ask away at 833-632-5463, podcast@athingortwohq.com, @athingortwohq, or even our Geneva. Do your nails so well you impress yourself with Olive & June—20% off your first Mani System when you use our link.YAY.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Mina Starsiak Hawk is the star of HGTV's Good Bones which wrapped its eight-season run this October 2023. Mina has also been seen on HGTV's Rock the Block and A Very Brady Renovation. She is the co-founder and owner of Two Chicks and a Hammer and hosts the podcast Mina AF. Stephen Hawk is a certified nutrition and fitness expert and the owner and founder of Hawkfit.In this episode, Mina and Steve open up about their struggles with infertility. We talk about listening to our gut and instincts and then taking action. After six months of trying to get pregnant with their second child, Mina knew something was not right. That is when they decided to begin their journey with IVF.Steve opens up about the loss of his mother, father, sister, and best friend – all of which occurred over a very short amount of time. We talk about grief and resilience and how to persevere despite huge personal losses. We talk about pain and how to sit in the discomfort of it all. We talk about how to hold space for others and how important that is. We delve into what to say and what not to say to someone who is grieving. We talk about people's discomfort with silence and how you don't always need to fill things with words. How powerful it can be to be able to sit in the silence and bear witness. This is an incredibly personal and intimate conversation that I feel honored to have been a part of.You can find Mina at @mina_starsiak_hawk and Steve at @hawk_fit_.You can find Mina's Podcast here.You can find Amy at @amymarcs.You can find the show at @sexafterpodcast.Sex After with Amy Marcs is produced by @thechrisderosa. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  Embark on a captivating journey with Mina Starsiak Hawk, from her initial steps in the world of home renovation to becoming a household name in HGTV's 'Good Bones.' Mina opens up about the highs and lows of filming, the challenges of balancing fame with family life, and the thrill of tackling the iconic Brady Bunch house renovation. She also gives us a sneak peek into her latest venture, the 'Mina AF' podcast, where she continues to inspire and connect with her audience. Career Beginnings: Mina discusses her journey from starting with no formal training in construction to becoming a renowned figure in home renovation. Challenges and Triumphs: The conversation delves into the challenges of filming "Good Bones," including dealing with damaged properties, unexpected setbacks, and managing tight schedules. Personal Insights: Mina shares personal stories, from handling fame to balancing her professional and personal life, providing an intimate glimpse into her world. The Brady Bunch Renovation: An exciting segment where Mina recounts her experience working on the iconic Brady Bunch house renovation. Pilot to Podcasting: Mina talks about the evolution of her career from the pilot episode of "Good Bones" to launching her own podcast "Mina AF." Audience Connection: The episode explores how Mina's open and honest approach has helped her connect deeply with her audience, discussing everything from mental health to family dynamics. Future Endeavors: Mina discusses what's next for her, including potential HGTV projects and her podcast, Mina AF. You're going to love my conversation with Mina Starsiak Hawk Instagram Mina AF podcast Two Chicks: District Co. Two Chicks and a Hammer  Follow Jeff Dwoskin (host): Jeff Dwoskin on Twitter The Jeff Dwoskin Show podcast on Twitter Podcast website Podcast on Instagram Join my mailing list Buy me a coffee (support the show) Subscribe to my Youtube channel (watch Crossing the Streams!) Yes, the show used to be called Live from Detroit: The Jeff Dwoskin Show Love the books I talk about on the show? Here is my Amazon store to shop.

Poet and author Maggie Smith isn't sure where she falls on the spectrum from optimism to pessimism. But her viral poem “Good Bones” and her bestselling books have inspired countless readers with profound insights on the messiness of being human. In this episode, Maggie and Adam discuss strategies for handling complex emotions, sustaining hope while acknowledging reality, and accepting ambiguity in life and art. They explore the value of asking questions that may not have a satisfying answer — or any answer at all. Transcripts for ReThinking are available at go.ted.com/RWAGscripts

Joining Mina this week is Interior and Home Designer MJ Coyle! Taking us behind the scenes of Good Bones and what it was really like working together! Want to leave Mina a question and have it answered on the show? Drop her a voice message here! Hit follow and see you next tuesday! MinaAF is created by AdLarge and editaudio. It's hosted by Mina Starsiak-Hawk, edited, mixed and produced by Megan Hayward, and executive produced by Steph Colbourn. Thank you to Simone Osondu, Melissa Haughton and the entire editaudio team. You can get in touch with us and learn more at link below! editaud.io IG/Twitter: @editaud.io Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Maggie Smith is the New York Times bestselling author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful; the national bestsellers Goldenrod and Keep Moving: and author of the beloved, world famous poem, "Good Bones." Maggie Smith's memoir is truth-telling of the highest order. This book chronicles the peaks and valleys of her odyssey in recent years. How her poem, “Good Bones,” went super viral, and her marriage dissolved, and she found herself in frightening terrain. And how she stepped up and responded by writing two books, and through her artistry and creativity: she was able to insure that she and her kids would be OK and continue to live in their house. Show Notes Buy Maggie Smith's new memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful Subscribe to Maggie's newsletter For Dear Life Buy Maggie's recent book Keep Moving Buy Maggie's poetry collection Good Bones Visit Maggie's website and follow her on twitter and instagram Rate/review Kurt Vonnegut Radio on podcast platform of your choice Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the first time, Glennon requests a one-on-one with our guest – author and poet Maggie Smith – in this deeply honest conversation about: how to tell the brutal truth without betraying our people, how to reclaim ourselves after infidelity and betrayal, how the shaming of women who dare to tell their stories keeps us powerless and isolated, and how they both have embraced acceptance instead of “forgiveness.” About Maggie:  Maggie Smith is the award-winning author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful, Good Bones, The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison, Lamp of the Body, and the national bestsellers Goldenrod and Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change.  A 2011 recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, two Academy of American Poets Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from the Sustainable Arts Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. TW: @maggiesmithpoet IG: @maggiesmithpoet To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices