Jody Ewing

Iowa Author

Writing

Getting Ready for Talk Radio

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Moebanshees Lair promoI’d be lying if I said I wasn’t just a little bit nervous about tomorrow night. I’ve been interviewed for television news programs before, have spoken before large crowds, and even appeared as a guest on Chris Matthews’ Hardball on MSNBC. But, I’ve never done a live radio show before. There will be no retakes.

Tuesday night (February 8) I’m the weekly guest on the Internet Talk Radio show Moebanshee’s Lair. The visionary talk radio program was launched by Asylums Gate in June 2008, and covers topics such as the sciences, environmental issues, criminology, history, politics, mysteries and more. I’ve had my hands and feet in a few of those over the past two decades — still have them in a couple.

Still, I find myself surprised whenever someone is interested in what I have to say.  To me, the real interest lies in the subjects I just happen to write about. (Yeah, I know; I just violated that spurious rule about never ending a sentence with a proposition. But I simply couldn’t force myself to write something like … about which I happen to write — or whatever.)

At any rate, I’ll have to remember not to talk too fast. Or speak too loudly (a family curse). I’m prone to do both — especially if I’m nervous. I’ll just have to be strong. Confident. Act like I know what I’m talking about. (Did I mention I love breaking rules?)

Past guests on Moebanshee’s Lair have included legendary Latin jazz guitarist Eddie Benitiz, anthropologist John Sabol, animal rights activist Amanda Sorvino, retired L.A. police detective & author Steve Hodel (The Black Dahlia Case), and actor Michael Patrick Boatman (Spin City, Arliss,Hamburger Hill). I am humbled.

The radio show airs Tuesday evenings from 10 p.m. to 12 midnight eastern daylight time, is hosted by Moebanshee and is carried on http://www.gameconradio.com/. Like I said, I’ve never done this before, but I think you just go to that link and can tune in by a link they’ll provide. And yes, I really am looking forward to talking about that which has mattered to me over the course of my life (so far), and it’s always a good thing reminding people of the many unsolved murders we still have here in Iowa.

I will stick Post-It notes on my telephone that say things like “Slow down” and “Don’t speak too loudly.” They only need to hear me on the other end of the line, not in Argentina.

And I will be strong. After all, if I can play hardball with Chris Matthews, this should be a piece of cake! I hope you’ll tune in.

Another First for Iowa Writer’s Workshop

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Frank Conroy would have been pleased. The former University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop director taught Lan Samantha Chang to take the teaching of writing very seriously, and she has. Chang now succeeds Conroy — who died earlier this month from cancer at age 69 — as director of the famed workshop.

Chang, a Harvard University professor and award-winning fiction author, is the first female and the first Asian-American to head up the program, whose alumni include Flannery O’Connor and John Irving and whose current instructors include Pulitzer prize-winners Marilynne Robinson and James Alan McPherson.

Congratulations to Ms. Chang!

A Christmas Poem (to my Family 2004)

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I got an unexpected, heartfelt Christmas gift from my sister Lori this year. She gave the same gift to my brother as well as our other two sisters. Lori is the middle sister — the one we always called “tattletale” — and her gift made me realize some things I hadn’t thought about before:

1) Lori doesn’t take her family — or where she came from — for granted.

2) Lori doesn’t yet realize how talented she is.

The gift was a framed poem she had written herself. She called it “A Christmas Poem (to my Family 2004),” had it printed on parchment paper with holly in the corners, and signed it — I Love You, Lori — at the bottom beneath the date.

This isn’t the first time Lori has written poems for us. She wrote one after our father was killed and it read like a personal letter she’d written to him. She told him all the things she wished she’d said before he died. That was the first time I realized my sister’s talent as a writer.

I plan to hang her Christmas poem on my office wall, and thought I’d share it here. If you’ve got family, I’m sure you can relate.

The Christmas Poem by Lori Mathes

If you’re unable to view the image above, I’ve included the words below.

A Christmas Poem (to my Family 2004)

I wish you Merry Christmas, this poem’s my “Gift” to you

I’m sure that won’t surprise you . . . cuz my poems are nothing new.

So often life goes by too fast, that no-one figures out

Why they were put together or what family’s all about.

We’re not a family by some “chance”, there’s nothing that needs fixed

We each were chosen carefully . . . each adding to the mix.

He knew we each held something — A quality we had

One we would seek, and pass along . . . some trait of Mom and Dad.

We take these traits they gave us and spread out on this earth

But never really think about the miracle of birth.

A birth is how we carry on, the traits we each possess,

The special gifts God gave us, all each different from the rest.

That’s why there IS a Christmas . . . A special day each year,

To celebrate the ONE, whose birth gave ALL that you hold dear.

I think what was intended . . . is we each would do our part,

To take time for each other, which is the families HEART.

So this is why I want to say, and know there is no test

I’m glad he placed me in this group, among the very Best!!

There’s not another Family I would choose to call my own,

I feel so very lucky and there’s just – “NO PLACE LIKE HOME.”

I’m proud to be a part of you, I’m proud to call you mine,

And with you all around me I am blessed at Christmas time.

Merry Christmas!

(Copyright 2004 by Lori Mathes)

Thanks, Lori. Me, too.

Jody