My Favorite Posts of 2013 and Hello, 2014

 

It’s my annual tradition to look back at the year in review.  When I started to think about 2013, I thought I had nothing to write about.  It hasn’t been my best year, but somehow along the way, I managed to get more accomplished than I realized. Rather than bore you to tears with a long post, I’m going to give it to you in small chunks.

My most popular posts:

A visit to the set of Orange is the New Black seems to have hit a nerve with my readers and also happens to be have been my favorite blogging experience of the year.  I interviewed cast members, strolled around the set and watched an actual scene get shot As a writer, getting to go on the set of my absolute favorite show was a joy. Seriously.

Separating Woody Allen’s Life from His Art over on BlogHer seemed to spark a conversation.  I, for one, have not stopped going to see his films and continue to appreciate him as a director and film maker but a lot of the commentators disagreed. I’m always happy to stir up things.

Over on The Broad Side, I talked about How Netflix is the New Feminist Hollywood Leader.  With the advent of Orange is the New Black and the company’s usage of female producers, directors and actors, I saw a lot of promise.  And I still do. 

Also over The Broad Side, I wrote about how Broadway Female Directors Finally Hitting Stride. As an avid theater goer and feminist, this article was a pleasure to write.

My favorite interviews:

Getting up close and personal with the cast of The Book Thief was the bomb.  Sitting in a small group of writers interviewing two of my favorite actors, Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson about their film and experience working on a subject close to my heart (the Holocaust) was for me very, very personal. I also talked about my interview with the women from the film over at Women & Hollywood.

An interview with film director Richard Curtis about time traveling, making movies, music and more. What more can I say? The director of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Love Actually and his new film, About Time. We even had a moment when I told him I’d seen him filming Four Weddings outside my London flat window and he remembered the day and the scene.

I loved meeting Tina Fey and Paul Rudd and interviewing them about their experience filming Admission, but it was her that I featured in my post over on Women & Hollywood on feminism, motherhood and Lily Tomlin.

At the press conference for The Way Way Back, I was smitten by Toni Collette, one of my favorite actresses. That interview is here.

The Interestings was my favorite book of 2013 so it was an honor to interview Meg Wolitzer for Women & Hollywood.

My personal posts:

While I was looking for a job, I wrote this post which struck a chord with many. When I went back to work, I was excited and shared my thoughts about it here.  I talked about traveling for work and how I helped my family cope during a particularly long stint of being away from home.

This was the first year we built a sukkah in my house, which was very exciting.  I also talked about my daughter’s first time at sleep away camp.

My advocacy posts: 

My post over on Mothers2mothers.org entitled Keeping Global Promises to Mothers and Children hit the airwaves just as world leaders were preparing to meet at the United Nations General Assembly to review the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals in New York City. Among their goals were to improve maternal health and combat AIDS, two of my own priorities.

Over at The Broad Side, I wrote about Showing That Every Mother Counts and Christy Turlington’s efforts to engage and mobilize people around the world to make a difference and really change lives. Over IRL, I spearheaded a conference call with a group of bloggers and Christy that resulted in one participant’s involvement in a trip to Haiti with EMC.

As someone who is virulently involved with keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive, it’s been an honor to interview survivors and to be able to feature one of my interviews over at The Broad Side.

I attended the Women in the World summit, sponsored by Liberty Mutual, to cover their program on personal acts of responsibility.  Here’s what I learned.

My travel posts:

I actually kicked off the year with a trip to Vietnam.  GoGirlfriend.com ran a trilogy on my trip, and this one of my articles. The experience was life-changing. Since then, I’ve written several articles for the site including one on our recent trip to Ireland.

Our family vacation to Morey’s Pier was a favorite for my kids and I loved talking about it.

Over at Ciao Bambino, where I am not a staff writer, I wrote about two wonderful trips I look with one child at a time. I took my son to Mohonk Mountain House and my daughter to Ocean Edge Resort. Solo child trips really rock!

My theater posts:

My passion for theater continued with some great shows and I continued to review what I saw including Domesticated, A Midsummer Nights Dream, Pippin the Musical and more.

I also produced Listen to Your Mother for the 2nd time. More on that here.

What will 2014 bring? Time will tell.  Many of the opportunities that presented themselves to me popped up last year out of the blue and I can only imagine that the same thing will happen in the coming year. As usual, I’ll continue to juggle work, kids and all my side line interests, like this blog or some formation of it. As I stated last year, I am still disenchanted with parts of the social media community but enamored with other parts. One year later, my confusion lingers about where I fit in here.  Perhaps 2014 will bring clarity.