For those who love historical fiction and American politics, I have a new book suggestion for you that releases on March 12, 2024, called Becoming Madam Secretaryby Stephanie Dray.
Publisher: Berkley Publishing
Synopsis
She took on titans, battled generals, and changed the world as we know it…
New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Dray returns with a captivating and dramatic new novel about an American heroine, Frances Perkins.
Raised on tales of her revolutionary ancestors, Frances Perkins arrives in New York City at the turn of the century, armed with her trusty parasol and an unyielding determination to make a difference.
When she’s not working with children in the crowded tenements in Hell’s Kitchen, Frances throws herself into the social scene in Greenwich Village, befriending an eclectic group of politicians, artists, and activists, including the millionaire socialite Mary Harriman Rumsey, the flirtatious budding author Sinclair Lewis, and the brilliant but troubled reformer Paul Wilson, with whom she falls deeply in love.
But when Frances meets a young lawyer named Franklin Delano Roosevelt at a tea dance, sparks fly in all the wrong directions. She thinks he’s a rich, arrogant dilettante who gets by on a handsome face and a famous name. He thinks she’s a priggish bluestocking and insufferable do-gooder. Neither knows it yet, but over the next twenty years, they will form a historic partnership that will carry them both to the White House.
Frances is destined to rise in a political world dominated by men, facing down the Great Depression as FDR’s most trusted lieutenant—even as she struggles to balance the demands of a public career with marriage and motherhood. And when vicious political attacks mount and personal tragedies threaten to derail her ambitions, she must decide what she’s willing to do—and what she’s willing to sacrifice—to save a nation.
Review
In order to understand Social Security, you should go back to its beginnings and why it was created to begin with. Frances Perkins was the woman behind it. She spent many years investigating labor conditions, trying to make things better for everyone. Becoming Madam Secretary dives into her story from her course studies to the honor given to her at the age of 80 by John F. Kennedy.
Perkins is responsible for the end of child labor. She helped change the 54-hour work week. She witnessed the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in 1911, which would move her to advocate for fire safety.
But her claim to fame is the Social Security Act.
Today, lawmakers constantly challenge the Social Security Act. But in FDR’s days, the elderly could become homeless and destitute, especially women who were dependent upon men to support them. If their husband died and the money ran out, or if they did not have children to take them in, they would wind up on the streets.
The Social Security Act was meant to protect our elders from that fate, especially if they could not work anymore. Today, we lament paying taxes into the Social Security system, but we should consider how not everyone is able to save money for retirement.
Without Frances Perkins, the SSA never would have happened. She became the first woman to be appointed to a presidential cabinet. FDR chose her to become his Secretary of Labor.
This book shares the most amazing things one woman did to change how we work. These are all things the working class takes for granted. One woman did so much to make basic working conditions better for us. She looked for ways to protect us after we could no longer work.
While she was advocating for the working class, she also struggled in her personal life. Her husband suffered from manic depression, so he had to be committed. And later, her daughter would suffer from it.
How she was able to hold it together with so many issues at home while working towards helping all of America is incredible.
For those interested in politics and the conversations happening in Congress to overturn what this one woman did, you should read this book. There is so much to learn about the history of labor and how it changed thanks to Frances Perkins. It may change your mind on how you view certain labor policies today.
The Collection of Sir Elton John: Goodbye Peachtree Road
If you are in NYC, head to Christie’s in Rockefeller Center to see all of the items heading to auction from Elton John’s Peachtree Road home in Atlanta.
You will find jewelry, costumes, furniture, tableware, luggage, a Bentley, and lots of artwork and photographs. And the Versace…a lot of Versace. So much Versace.
Of course, you may have questions on why this estate sale is happening. Elton John decided to move back to England after spending 30 years in Atlanta. He kept a home in Atlanta while he was touring, so he could have a place to rest in between American tour dates (instead of living out of hotel rooms). Now that his days of touring are over, he’s decided to return to England, where his sons attend school.
If you are looking to purchase some memorabilia of your own, Christie’s opened up a pop-up shop filled with Elton John Memorabilia for those who can’t afford something from the Christie’s collection. If you just want a t-shirt or tote bag to add to your own collection, they have it. There’s a little something for everybody. [Note: Free Elton John tote bag with $40 purchase.]
One of the coolest items in the pop-up shop includes a jacket filled with ticket stubs from Elton John concerts over the last 50 years. As the shop assistant commented, it is cool to see how much tickets cost over the years. This jacket comes with a $4,000 price tag.
Or if you want Elton’s iconic sequin jumpsuit to add to your wardrobe (or wear for Halloween), you can grab one in your size.
This cool jacket (above) is one of the many collector items available for sale in the pop up shop. Yes, the letter is part of the jacket.
Is it really an auction if he didn’t include one of his grand pianos?
One of the most surprising additions to this auction is the 1990 Bentley Continental Two Door Convertible. The estimate is $25,000-$35,000.
Many of Elton John’s famous stage costumes will be auctioned. In the exhibit, you will see items from every single era. All of these items are part of the auction.
Part of the exhibition includes a look around at many of the items from Elton John’s closet that he is auctioning off. From the stage costumes to his Versace, you’ll find a little something from every decade of his life.
Yes! The famous EJ shoes are going to be up on the auction block, along with the touring case and jacket.
As you go through Elton’s closet, you may be tempted to touch or pick up many of the items. DON’T! Let one of the assistants pull them from the shelf and show them to you. But absolutely, DO NOT TOUCH!
The numerous Versace items up for grabs are currently listed on Christie’s website. The auction began on February 9th and will end on February 27th.
This iconic outfit may have been designed by Bob Mackie.
You may or may not know this, but Elton John became a huge Atlanta Braves fan during the 30 years he lived in Atlanta. His jersey and jackets are going up on the auction block.
A lot of his trunks and suitcases will be available. Tour trunks, Louis Vuitton trunks, and suitcases are available. For those in the market for a Louis Vuitton vintage suitcase, you should try this sale. It has the added history of being formerly owned by Elton John.
One of the most amazing things in this auction is the number of art pieces and photographs he’s collected over the last 30 years. It is hard to fathom how he was able to display all of these pieces, including the glassware, in the two apartments he owned. All of these items were displayed on three floors in Christie’s auction house.
You can view the collection and visit the pop-up shop through February 21, 2024 at NYC’s Christie’s. It is free to the public to visit the collection. The catalog can be purchased at the front desk for $65.
The online auction runs through February 27. The live auction begins on February 21.
I don’t know who is on the Tony Awards committee, but whoever you are, I need to you to see this. I need you to vote for Between Two Knees.
It may make you feel a little uncomfortable (especially, if you are white), but by the end of the show, you’ll feel a little differently about how you approach the subject of Native Americans. You know, that race of people that everyone seems to ignore when they speak. Yet, they’re also the ones putting out their own stories. The stories that they tell, and the way they tell it, will enlighten you on your journey to decolonization.
You see, this show isn’t just for Native Americans making fun of white people. It’s about Native Americans having some fun telling their history in order to educate everyone on what really happened following the Wounded Knee Massacre. From Indian schools to serving in the wars, we follow one family from generation to generation as they battle all of the crap that America has dealt to the Native American.
This show was mesmerizing, funny, and lively. When they passed around a bucket asking for money, I thought they were joking until the bucket landed on my lap and it was filled with dollar bills. I never carry cash, so they caught me with $16 cash in my wallet, so I gave it all to them. It’s the whole starving actor thing for me. Gets me every time. Some might say white guilt, but I’m not white. And if we were going on white guilt, boy, by the time that bucket hit my lap, they would have been lucky to buy a slice of pizza in NYC during these inflated times.
At the end of the show, it got a little wild and crazy. They made everyone get out of their seats and dance along with them. Jana Schmieding (Rutherford Falls, Reservation Dogs, and Echo) said during the Native Representation in Contemporary Media panel that when non-Natives write stories about Native Americans, it tends to be about oppression and apocalyptic worlds. But when Native Americans write their stories, they tend to paint the world the way they want to see the world…with the happy ending.
So when I tell you that this ending was insane…it’s what made me laugh the most. In a happily ever after Native American ending, all white people would just disappear off the face of the planet. There would be no climate change. No capitalism. No poverty. Everything that is wrong with the world would be fixed and the entire world would be happy again.
This is what that happy ending would look like.
Trust me, I was shocked they said it. But at the same time, I couldn’t help but laugh. This is what Schmieding meant.
Between Two Knees is a production written by The 1491s and directed by Eric Ting. For those who’ve seen Reservation Dogs, you may know a few of the members of The 1491s: Sterlin Harjo, Dallas Goldtooth, Bobby “Dues” Wilson, Migizi Pensoneua, and Ryan RedCorn. The name Between Two Knees is derived from the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890 and the Wounded Knee Occupation of the 1970s (i.e. between the two Wounded Knee historical events).
The actors were an absolutely incredible and versatile cast. I was impressed with Rachel Crowl and how she could easily switch between playing a man and a woman. Our host, Justin Gauthier, was so funny as he took us through each scene. I loved the dynamic between Wotko Long (who was in Mekko, one of my favorite Sterlin Harjo projects) and Sheila Tousey. And if you need eye candy, James Ryen ain’t so bad on the eyes. His big and bulky frame, as well as the various roles he plays in the ensemble, adds to each punchline. His presence really amplifies the hilarity of the show. Derek Garza, Shyla Lefner, and Shaun Taylor-Corbett round out the cast with Derek and Shyla taking on the lead character roles to help frame the story for each generation…essentially, they present the love story. I loved watching the two of them together.
Overall, this production went well above my imagination of what Between Two Knees could have been about. It was crazy. Insane. There were a lot of OMGs, they went there.
To the Tony Award voters, get yourselves to Perelman Performing Arts Center. This show is running through February 24, 2024. For everyone else, if you’re in NYC, go and see this show. For those outside of NYC, check to see if this show is coming to your town and go! You will not regret it. This show was a breath of fresh air. It’s so different than any other show I’ve seen. I can’t stress enough that you need to see it.
I’ve been working on two book projects for the last eight months. Both books center around an Indigenous man and an Asian American woman. I know a lot of writers were shocked to learn that I’m working on two books at once, but one is the buffer book to help me emotionally get through the main book…the horror romance book.
Yes, I had to add horror to that story, or I just wouldn’t be interested in writing it.
So what right do I have to write about a dream I had about an Indigenous man when I am not Native American? I can definitely write from the Asian American woman perspective, but what right do I have to write from the Native American perspective? Absolutely none.
So I have immersed myself in learning everything I can about the many tribes and their cultures, but more importantly, I am making sure I lift up those people I come across, because if I’ve learned anything, we rise by helping each other. This is what we call community. You give back by helping each other rise up.
While the book publishing world has been sending Indigenous stories my way, I spent some time at the new Perelman Performing Arts Center across the street from the World Trade Center monument in New York City over the weekend to learn more about Native Americans in Hollywood and in comedy.
I started off by attending Good Medicine, a comedy show making its rounds across America, featuring Jackie Keliiaa (First Nations Comedy Experience), Adrianne Chalepah (The Curse, Reservation Dogs), Brian Bahe (Vulture‘s “Comedian You Should and Will Know in 2023”), Bobby “Dues” Wilson (Rutherford Falls, Reservation Dogs), and Jana Schmieding (Rutherford Falls, Reservation Dogs, Echo).
The next day, I attended the Native Representation in Contemporary Media panel, followed by the play Between Two Knees (written by The 1491s). There was even a stop into Marcus Samuelsson’s newest restaurant, Metropolis, for brunch.
All of this, of course, took place on Lunar New Year. I am usually celebrating Lunar New Year with Matthew (the Maine Coon), but this year, I ended up spending the day decolonizing. But while I was in line, I heard many Native Americans talking about their excitement in celebrating Lunar New Year, as well. That put a smile on my face. We’re celebrating each other’s cultures.
Speaking of being in line, back in December, I got a news blast from the fashion industry that Polo Ralph Lauren selected a Native American woman as their artist in residence. This was amazing news. So it should come as no surprise to anyone that I would wind up in line behind the Glasses family as they were on their way to the Between Two Knees show. Both Naiomi and her mother, Cynthia, were wearing items she created for the Polo Ralph Lauren collection. If you haven’t seen the collection in person yet, you must. Naiomi Glasses’s work is incredible. It’s literally how I would imagine Native American luxury clothing to be. That’s how well made everything is. I have my eye on two pieces to curate into my wardrobe, as well as the wrap that should be coming out in the next drop.
These pieces are ones you keep in your wardrobe for the rest of your life. They are well worth the investment. I even have my eye on the blankets designed by Naiomi and her brother, Tyler. You can pick those up at Sackcloth & Ashes. You’ll even find a collection designed by Lauren Good Day (who recently did some work for Louis Vuitton with Dee Jay Two Bears in the Pharrell Cowboys and Indians collection).
While I am not completely in favor of non-Natives wearing the blankets as a fashion trend, I would definitely buy them for the home. They are absolutely beautiful. I first became obsessed with the blankets when I saw Lily Gladstone wearing them in Killers of the Flower Moon. These blankets are the epitome of luxury. They’re beautiful and so well made.
Speaking of Gladstone, I’m looking forward to seeing her win Best Actress at the Academy Awards. I already see the narrative they have going there. Notice that all of the other women in that category are white. Not a single person of color except Gladstone. If you think the Academy did not plan that narrative out a certain way, think again. It’s designed so that the Native American woman will reign over the whites. All this talk about Margot Robbie not getting a nomination – consider this the Academy doing her a favor. It’s the narrative that will follow that they are protecting her from. So let it go…
Although, I would be really mad if I was any of the other women in that category.
Speaking of Hollywood, if you haven’t been watching True Detective: Night Country with Jodie Foster and Kali Reis, you really should get on that. This story takes place in Alaska in the middle of winter. There are supernatural Native American elements involved as they investigate a strange occurrence at a research facility that killed all of the researchers in it, and it seems to be connected to an Indigenous woman that was killed a few years before. The murders are intertwined within a white world living on Indigenous lands.
If you like this show, I also recommend reading Village in the Dark, which also takes place in Alaska and deals with murders in the white world stretching into the Indigenous lands.
Speaking of books, if you’re looking to support a Native and queer bookstore, Vanessa Lillie, author of Blood Sisters, introduced me to Black Walnut Books. They have two different monthly book boxes you can subscribe to. This is a good way to decolonize and diversify your bookshelves. So far, I’ve enjoyed everything I received. I even bought a few more books, a t-shirt, and tote bags to help support their business.
So that’s it from me this month for this Editor’s Letter. You’ll find more posts going forward as I start to get back into my pre-pandemic life. I was getting tired of the post-pandemic Michelle. I missed my VIP life. It was time to give myself back the life I’ve been telling the Gen Z’er about. It’s been close to 4 years. Time goes by quickly, and before you realize it, your time left becomes short. This break from that VIP life just means that it’s time for transformation. That is what the Year of the Dragon is all about for us dragons. Our lives are about to transform into something else. I feel like it’s time for that change, as well.
For those looking for a little romance to read today, I have the perfect YA rom com for you! Marissa Meyer just released With a Little Luck yesterday. This standalone is the second book set in the Fortuna Beach universe. The first book in this series you may have heard of: Instant Karma.
Synopsis
After being magically gifted with incredible luck, a boy discovers this gift just may be a curse when it comes to love, in this sweet romantic comedy by #1 New York Times-bestselling author Marissa Meyer.
Jude is determined to fly under the radar. He just wants to draw comics, host D&D night with his friends, work at his parents’ vinyl record store, and escape high school as unscathed as possible. That is, until the night he finds himself inexplicably gifted with a bout of supernatural good luck.
Suddenly, everything Jude has ever wanted is within reach. His art is being published. He helps his friend’s song become a finalist in a songwriting competition. And he wins a pair of coveted concert tickets, which he can use to ask out the popular girl he’s been crushing on since elementary school.
But how long can Jude’s good fortune last? And why does he find himself thinking about Ari, his best friend since forever? If Jude has been dreaming of the wrong girl this whole time, does that mean he’s doomed to be unlucky in love forever?
With a sprinkle of magic, this sweet beachside romance is perfect for fans of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Beforeand Love & Gelato, as well as anyone who has ever swooned over Marissa Meyer’s beloved characters.
Review
In the spirit of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, With a Little Luck is an adorable feel good, light read when you feel like reading one of those cute YA rom com books. This book really took me back to my high school days of asking out the most popular guy in school (and he said, yes). About doing nerdy things with friends, loving music, and just wanting to be successful in whatever you put yourself out there to do (no matter how scary it is).
If I had a little extra luck on my side, I think things probably would have turned out just about the same. But sometimes you need that extra boost of luck. The extra bit of confidence. Or maybe even enough luck to notice that your best friend is in love with you.
I kind of laughed when the good luck charm appeared. It reminded me of my brother because he does Dungeons & Dragons meetings every week (and he’s in his 40s…thank you, Stranger Things). The book has comic strips within to show you the story that Jude is drawing as he tries to create his own D&D story. I really loved this added element in the book, because Jude’s art is what makes him unique.
Jude and his sisters reminded me of The Loud House on Nickelodeon. I love how they all have their own thing that they’re great at. They also have a great support system where they encourage and cheer each other on. I really loved that aspect of Jude’s family.
I guess I can say what really made this book were all of the characters.
Like the other Marissa Meyer books I own, there are tabs I’ve left throughout the book of wise things that hit me at my core. They’re all little life lessons. In With a Little Luck, those wise sayings center around being confident in yourself to do the scary things. For Jude, that’s about getting his artwork published. For me, that’s about feeling confident in finishing my novels. There’s always some little words of writing wisdom that Meyer puts into her novels and they always leave a lasting imprint on my mind.
Also, of note, the Fortuna Beach series involves a little bit of magic from the universe, so if you have issues with topics dealing with karma or the universe granting you an unusual amount of luck, then you should probably skip this one. But, if you are like me and LOVE stories dealing with karma and the universe giving you a helping hand, then this is your kind of book.
At any rate, if you want a sweet rom com to get you through today, this is the book you should pick up either for yourself, or for your favorite teen who loves rom coms.
I hope you have a wonderful Valentine’s Day filled with love. And rule number one to doing that is to make sure you do something for yourself. Show yourself that you are loved. Don’t always depend on others to do that for you. Do that for yourself. Love you, first. Then go share that love with others. You will find that the universe will make sure you feel loved when you start from within.
If you’ve been enjoying True Detective: Night Country as much as I have, you may like this new book out today from Iris Yamashita, “Village in the Dark.”
This book takes place in Alaska. So get your hot cocoa, tea, or coffee ready because we are about to travel into tribal lands.
SYNOPSIS
In Village in the Dark, Detective Cara Kennedy thought she’d lost her husband and son in an accident, but harrowing evidence has emerged that points to murder—and she will stop at nothing to find the truth in this riveting mystery from the author of City Under One Roof.
On a frigid February day, Anchorage Detective Cara Kennedy stands by the graves of her husband and son, watching as their caskets are raised from the earth. It feels sacrilegious, but she has no choice. Aaron and Dylan disappeared on a hike a year ago, their bones eventually found and buried. But shocking clues have emerged that foul play was involved, potentially connecting them to a string of other deaths and disappearances.
Somehow tied to the mystery is Mia Upash, who grew up in an isolated village called Unity, a community of women and children in hiding from abusive men. Mia never imagined the trouble she would find herself in when she left home to live in Man’s World. Although she remains haunted by the tragedy of what happened to the man and the boy in the woods, she has her own reasons for keeping quiet.
Aided by police officer Joe Barkowski and other residents of Point Mettier, Cara’s investigation will lead them on a dangerous path that puts their lives and the lives of everyone around them in mortal jeopardy.
Review
First, I would like to preface this in saying that the synopsis for Village in the Dark strips the story of what made it so intriguing. This book is written by an Asian American woman and includes the story of the Indigenous Peoples of Alaska. She brings together numerous tribes, including an Asian woman and her biracial daughter. These women create their own community together to raise their children. They live off the land, preparing for the day they could come under attack by an abusive ex.
Point Mettier is another community created by a former bank robber who was abused by her husband. In a large condo building, she lives with an entire community that seeks to hide women on the run from their abusive exes. The entire community exists in this one building, and they are there to protect each other.
Mia’s character is also of interest. She is a young woman who was raised in Unity Village. Reading about her journey into Man’s World was a centering moment in understanding how difficult it can be for Indigenous People to navigate the two worlds, especially ours. These are the conversations I’ve seen in the comment sections of Native American Instagram accounts.
After Cara discovers the DNA of her husband and son do not match the bodies that she had buried, that is when everything goes crazy. She soon discovers more and more dead bodies cropping up. And they’re all connected. She just has to figure out how, and it all begins with the photos they found on a gangster’s cell phone.
I was surprised how well an Asian American woman was able to include Indigenous stories into this book, all the way down to the language. She was able to do this with the help of the Native American community. They made sure she was including these elements correctly.
I also loved how she included a Japanese Indigenous woman to the Unity village. I loved seeing women uplifting each other, protecting each other, and creating a society together. They even came up with their own language, which is a little bit of everything from the different tribes.
As for the murder investigations and who is out there killing everyone, I wasn’t expecting any of it. First, I thought it was a serial killer, but it ended up being something far worse. Betrayals will abound.
This book is a quick read. A little under 300 pages.
I really enjoyed it. But mostly, I appreciated that an Asian American woman was able to tell a story that properly included Indigenous voices with the help of someone from the Native American community. There are a lot of strong women in this book. It’s like a happy ending for those who are victims of domestic violence. It’s all about community in the end and lifting your hand down to raise each other up. This is a quality that the Native American community teaches. That is what wins out in the end.
Thank you, Berkley Publishing, for sending this book my way. It gave me more confidence to keep working on my two book projects because I am an Asian American woman incorporating Indigenous stories into my books. It was good to read a book by another Asian American woman who accomplished this feat.
I took the first week of the year off to recuperate from the final stretch of 2023. It was nine glorious days of forcing myself to do absolutely nothing. But nine days ended up not being a lot of time to recuperate from 2023.
At the end of the year and during my time off, I started building my list of goals and resolutions I wanted to begin in 2024. I came up with one singular theme: HEAL YOURSELF.
This year, I’ll be sharing my journey on what I am doing to heal myself. But perhaps, I need to explain what that means. As we grow older, our body changes. For women, we start to suffer from perimenopause. Perimenopause can last from a few years to well over a decade. For those who have a history of cancer or have had surgery, that means the symptoms for perimenopause are heightened. I fall into that category, especially since it was removing a hormonal gland (due to a tumor) that kickstarted perimenopause when I was 38. Almost 10 years ago.
I knew I was suffering from perimenopause in that first year because a polar vortex hit me, and I was stripping my coat off because I was burning up. That’s not how weather works in the coldest January that NYC had seen in a while.
As the years progressed, the symptoms grew worse from night sweats to headaches to every part of my body being in a constant state of pain. 2020 didn’t make things any better. I lost muscle mass rapidly. Spending these last two years doing 10k+ steps 5 days a week with no change meant that I needed to change things up.
Diet and exercise. That is the key to beginning to fix all of these problems. Many people would become angry the second a doctor would suggest this (and trust me, I did, too). But as you grow older, you kind of have no choice. You’re not as young as you used to be. You can physically see and feel how putting off exercise and a healthy lifestyle causes you harm. BUT what they don’t tell you is that you need to focus on healing your hormonal issues.
What they don’t tell you is that cardio will not work. You need to focus only on walking, weight training, resistance training, and stretching (i.e. yoga). Your diet needs to be plant based. You need to drink more water. You need to focus on certain vitamins. Stop using hormone disrupter beauty products. The list goes on with everything you need to change.
But there’s also your mental health. I discovered that hormonal imbalances can trigger anxiety. Trust me when I say I never had anxiety problems until a year ago. Like I said, perimenopause does something insane with your body, and it happens overnight.
So this year, my focus is on healing this body and correcting all of the hormonal imbalances. I would like to be pain free, have my hair grow back, stop hormonal based cancers from occurring, and just get to healthy and focus on living a healthy last half of my life.
Speaking of the last half of my life, healing myself this year also means changing how I approach how I treat myself, especially when it comes to finances. Two months ago, I decided to fix how I approached finances because I was not happy with how things were going. I WORRIED. So 2024 is about making sure to heal that worry. It is incredible how quickly your finances change when you decide to make yourself the priority and not everyone else.
Another quest in my journey to heal myself is to do the things I have been putting off doing and then hating myself for not doing it. SIGH. The life of a writer. I may not be writing here as much because I’ve been working on two novels (at the same time). Sometimes it takes a writer 8-10 years to write a book. Most of the time, it’s the inner dialogue we are having with ourselves as we embrace our fears, instead of just creating what we know is already in our heads. This year, I am forcing myself to finish the books and create an ongoing writing system, so that I am always writing and publishing my work.
I started pitching my work and it’s funny how the publisher that you know in your gut is going to publish your work starts doing their due diligence.
When I took a class at Conde Nast College in London, one of the things the editor of Allure magazine kept telling me was my strong points were my writing and my photography. That led to a class with Nigel Barker and I started doing some fashion photography, as well as street fashion photography. Of course, when life keeps happening, you stop doing those things because you don’t have the time. Imagine just 12 days into 2024 and I’m being asked to do PAID corporate photo jobs. My friend, Grace, told me that maybe it’s time to get things together. Make this a side gig.
Which leads me to the last topic of resolutions and goals. I’m getting older. I know that maybe it’s just going to be me and Matthew (the Maine Coon) from here on out. I need to start thinking seriously about the last half of my life. I have to come up with a plan to make sure money is always coming in if I can’t work anymore. I have to think about how we’re going to live if I get sick and can’t work. I have to create a plan that will take care of us for the rest of our lives.
It’s funny how when you start prioritizing setting up your finances, creating financial goals, and working on generating passive income (in other words, focusing on paying yourself first and preparing for your future), the universe starts helping you. Two months ago, I was worried about how I was going to pay bills. Then I created a plan to get myself out of the worry. I didn’t care who was asking for money. Any money that came in, I paid myself 10% right off the bat. That is what I earned for myself. That belonged to ME. No one was allowed to have it, except ME. Then, all of a sudden, the universe started sending more money my way. In two months, I came up with 1/3 of my 2024 goal, and 11% of the long-term goal. IN TWO MONTHS. Oh, and I stopped worrying.
At one point, I got a call from Bank of America. There are certain banks that will help you reach your financial goals. While I was on the call, she gave me some financial advice and as soon as I got off the phone, I put her advice to work. It’s like I had an “Aha!” moment. She helped me figure out how to navigate the worst of the pickle I had found myself in, and put myself in a place where I didn’t have to worry anymore. Then the universe followed suit.
Grace told me at some point in our lives when Saturn Returns, everything you didn’t fix in life will become much harder to fix, unless you make sacrifices to ensure you’ve learned your lessons and you actively fix your mistakes. You have 20 years to fix it or things will get worse for you. That is why it is important to fix things that are hurting you in your life. Even the universe gets involved with making things better or worse. But I will tell you something, when you are doing the right thing, the universe helps you continue to do the right thing. If you’re doing the wrong thing, the universe will continue to help you do the wrong thing. See how that works?
So in 2024, you’ll be seeing a change in me. No more procrastinating. Just doing. The only way I can heal myself is to get up off my lazy butt and do something about it. Hopefully, you’ll find what I’m sharing on this journey will help you along the way.
Just because it’s November, it does not mean I am done reading scary books. This book I’m sharing today did not disappoint. It is perfect for horror movie fans.
Good Girls Don’t Die [#ad] by Christina Henry releases on November 14, 2023. [NOTE: This post contains affiliate links. Please see the disclosure at the end of this post for more information.]
This is not your typical horror novel. Take your horror films, cozy mysteries, and the insanity that is our world today, throw them in a blender and what do you have? Good Girls Don’t Die. [#ad]
Figuring out what was really going on was not so easy. I was confused at the end of each story, thinking, “What just happened?” At first, I thought this was reading like The Mill (a movie on Hulu), where it’s just a bunch of people going through some virtual reality. No, that wasn’t it.
Then the Cabin in the Woods story began, and I started thinking there is no way what I think is happening is really happening. Not at this scale. Are they stuck in some strange Truman like show? No, that definitely cannot be it.
Throw the Squid Game into this and you really are wondering what is going to happen after they all escape their strange scary stories.
When I got to the end, I sat there trying to wrap my head around what was going on. I kept thinking that this could actually happen because we see this kind of behavior out there in the world today. Women are murdered for these exact reasons, and that is scary.
I am not going to spoil this one for you. You are going to have to find out for yourself what happened. All I am going to say is that there is absolutely no way you are going to guess the ending at all. Good Girls Don’t Die [#ad] is straight out of several horror movies and stories ripped from the headlines.
About Good Girls Don’t Die
A sharp-edged, supremely twisty thriller about three women who find themselves trapped inside stories they know aren’t their own, from the author of Alice and Near the Bone.
Celia wakes up in a house that’s supposed to be hers. There’s a little girl who claims to be her daughter and a man who claims to be her husband, but Celia knows this family—and this life—is not hers…
Allie is supposed to be on a fun weekend trip—but then her friend’s boyfriend unexpectedly invites the group to a remote cabin in the woods. No one else believes Allie, but she is sure that something about this trip is very, very wrong…
Maggie just wants to be home with her daughter, but she’s in a dangerous situation and she doesn’t know who put her there or why. She’ll have to fight with everything she has to survive…
Three women. Three stories. Only one way out. This captivating novel will keep readers guessing until the very end.
About the Author
Christina Henry is a horror and dark fantasy author whose works include Horseman, Near the Bone, The Ghost Tree, Looking Glass, The Girl in Red, The Mermaid, Lost Boy, Alice, Red Queen, and the seven-book urban fantasy Black Wings series.
She enjoys running long distances, reading anything she can get her hands on, and watching movies with samurai, zombies, and/or subtitles in her spare time. She lives in Chicago with her husband and son. Learn more online at www.christinahenry.net.
[Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in exchange for a review on this site. My review is not influenced by the publisher or the author in any way. This post contains affiliate links. I may earn a small commission for my endorsement, recommendation, testimonial, and/or link to any products or services from this website. Your purchase helps support my work.]
November is Native American Heritage month. As I finish my two book projects, I will be sharing Indigenous stories, as well as stories from Indigenous creators and storytellers.
Berkley Publishing sent along Blood Sisters [#ad] by Vanessa Lillie to be featured this month on this site. This book released on 10.31.2023. [NOTE: This post contains affiliate links. Please see the disclosure at the end of this post for more information.]
In this story, Syd Walker is an archeologist working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). She’s uncovered a skull of an Indian woman in Rhode Island. Finding that skull is just the beginning of a much bigger story.
Another skull is unearthed in her hometown in Oklahoma, but this one has her old badge inside of it, like a calling card asking her to come home.
Find me.
The BIA sends her home to Oklahoma, where she has to face her own demons. Haunted by a friend who was killed when they were kids, she suffers from ongoing psychological trauma from that incident. She killed their attacker, but it was too late to save her friend and her parents.
Going home isn’t what she expected. She’s not an archeologist on this return, she’s an investigator, but what she’s investigating is more than just the skull with her badge in it. There is so much more to what is calling her back home.
She arrives to find out her sister, Emma Lou, has gone missing. The land is poisoned and caving in, thanks to mining and energy companies polluting the land. People are being forced to take a pittance for their poisoned homes and nothing for the land. Drugs are becoming a way of life for their community so much that even Syd’s mother is making drug deliveries.
Bad people are taking advantage of this dying community. Whites are encroaching on the land and taking it as their own without reprimand. The government…don’t get me started. Underneath all of this are the Indigenous women who have gone missing. Their bones are littering the earth, completely undiscovered. But there are people looking for them, hoping they are still alive.
Lillie incorporates a lot of the issues plaguing Native Americans. The story takes place in 2008, but the problems are still relevant today (if not worse).
Lillie is a white-facing Cherokee. I didn’t start crying until I read the Author’s Note at the end of Blood Sisters. [#ad] Her note reminded me of why it is so difficult for me to write Book Project #1. I’ve cried so many times already, because to tell what is happening to Native Americans over these last hundred years all the way up until today has been so difficult, because it hurts me to know how much evil has been wrought against an entire race, all in an effort to exterminate them.
For this book, I will say that the ending surprised me. The twists kept coming and they didn’t stop. There’s redemption, surprise, intrigue, and just pure evil slamming up against you. She even threw a tornado in there (which actually did happen on May 10, 2008). There is more involved in this return to home than just investigating a skull with her badge in it. Ends up, everything is far worse than you can imagine.
This is a fantastic read for those who love thrillers and want to understand a little more about the terrors facing everyday Indigenous lives. If it’s not the white man trying to poison Native Americans, it’s people trying to murder them and steal the land out from underneath them, and people flooding their communities with drugs. This book goes into a very dark place, so tread lightly.
Thank you Berkley Pub and PRHAudio for sending Blood Sisters my way. [#ad] I think it frightened me more than I let on, because a lot of the topics Lillie touched upon are elements that appear in Book Project #1 (and that’s the horror book). It reminded me a bit of the psychological terror in the Hannibal Lecter books and the evil the FBI are chasing down (which is far worse than the cannibal). In this case, Syd had no idea what she was searching for when she arrived home, until it stumbled out of a cave. That was when everything changed.
[Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in exchange for a review on this site. My review is not influenced by the publisher or the author in any way. This post contains affiliate links. I may earn a small commission for my endorsement, recommendation, testimonial, and/or link to any products or services from this website. Your purchase helps support my work.]
The Book Influencer is not just a person who influences people to buy a certain book. They influence people to read more books.
I am starting a new series on this site about being a Book Influencer. This site has been around for about a decade now (maybe longer). Going through the audit pages to see what people read on this site, I noticed there are a lot of hits from people wanting to know how this all works. How do we become book reviewers? How do we get advance copies of books?
So to help answer those questions, I am starting this series to help you become a better book reviewer, and eventually a book influencer.
How I Got Into This…
After leaving the hockey writing world, I switched to writing about books. I knew absolutely nothing about this. All I knew was that post-hockey, I wanted to focus on two things I loved: books and film.
I started off by attending the Book Expo. This was an annual event where publishers met with librarians, book sellers, and the media to talk books. The first conference I attended allowed book bloggers in. I attended several panels where I learned what publishers wanted from us in order to market their books. I memorized all of the rules, picked up my advance copies, and got to it.
The following year, I noticed I was the only blogger at the Expo. I went around to all of the publishers and asked if they had seen any bloggers there. Nope. I was the only one. Someone from Penguin Random House explained that the Big Five had a meeting about who they would allow to attend, and they decided to only allow five bloggers/book influencers. Apparently, there was an issue with the bloggers from the previous Expo. They had depleted their stores, wrote a tiny blurb (if they wrote anything at all), and that was it. It wasn’t enough to satisfy gifting these ARCs (advance reader copies) to them.
So how did I beat out everyone else? I found out from an old colleague that now works for HarperCollins that he saw my name on the list and he greenlighted me for all of the publishers. He told them he had known me for years, I was a former hockey writer, he knew I would do everything by the book and already had a history of doing so. So that’s how I became one of the five allowed to attend the Book Expo. I was actually doing the marketing that was requested of me.
Now, to save you some time Googling, the Book Expo is no more. The event did not survive past the pandemic. There are book festivals throughout the United States that you should definitely attend in order to meet with publishers and authors to learn more about being a book reviewer, and possibly pick up a few ARCs.
How Do I Become a Book Influencer vs. a Book Reviewer?
For me, moving from being a book reviewer to a book influencer was a little different than most. And yes, there is somewhat of a difference between the two (but not much). A book reviewer reviews books, posts their reviews on multiple platforms in a timely fashion (or at least, we try to get the reviews out by the week the book is released).
Depending on your social media platform, you’ll need to have some sort of post about the book on your Instagram, blog, TikTok, etc. You are basically doing the marketing and sharing your review of every title you receive.
Now, this is how the Book Influencer is a little different. I receive somewhere between 30-50 books each month. 75% of those books are not books I requested. Oftentimes, these books are just dropped into the mail or into my inbox or Netgalley/Edelweiss queue.
Now, I don’t read 30-50 books a month. I wish I could. I do read over 100 books a year, though. The question is which of these hundreds of titles will I choose to be among the 100 books I will actually read. Of those 100 titles, which ones are the ones I will actually post a review for? Which ones will I promote? Which ones will get a spot on my blog or Instagram?
As a Book Influencer, I can be a little pickier about which books I choose to feature. When I told publishers that I am only going to feature the books that are good enough to share to the masses, they actually got on board with this. This method is a very different kind of marketing. That means if your book is shared, that means it was a damn good book, and I will be promoting it on several different platforms. I will be pushing the sale of the book. This is like getting a feature in a magazine or in a newspaper. The space on this blog does not just go to every single book I read. It goes to the ones that I recommend people should read.
Now, since finding those gems takes some time, I still share the books I receive from all publishers. For Instagram posting, I do a monthly round-up featuring titles I received that are releasing that month. During each pub week, I will post a graphic of that week’s releases. For physical copies I receive, I try to do a weekly or bi-weekly bookstack. For book tours I sign up for, those books are always featured. There are certain publishing houses that get an automatic post of whatever they send (think Berkley – IYKYK), as well as Penguin Random House Audio.
I do not write a review for every single book I read. I sift through all of these titles looking for books that are the diamonds in the rough. I am curating books for people who love to read that don’t want to read a mediocre or bad book.
Trust me, I know how it feels to pick up a book and think you wasted your time on it. One year, I received so many horrible books from publishers, I literally sent a message to them going WTF. Every single title from your publishing house this season was horrible. That year, it took going through 35 different books (reading them from cover to cover) to find one book that was actually worth recommending to people. So I learned how to be more selective with the books I chose to spend my time on.
In the beginning, you will find that may be the case with you. You’ll read several bad books in a row. Being a good reviewer means learning which books to stay away from because it is not going to strike a chord with you. It takes some time to master this. It will also teach you how and when to DNF (not finish) a book.
The purpose of the book influencer is not just to influence people to read whatever book you are recommending, it is to encourage them to read more books. Recommending a bunch of bad books does not influence people to read more. But if you recommend a good book, or get excited about something you read, it gets your followers excited. It makes them want to go out and read that book. And when they read one good book, they want to read more.
As a book influencer, you are not pushing the books the publishers want you to push. You are trying to establish a reputation where you are trustworthy with the books you recommend. You want to encourage people to read more books. The way to do that is to provide them direction to which books they may love. These books are the ones you vet and then decide whether to promote them or not.
This is What Happens When You are an Influencer
Over the years, as I wrote reviews and shared books, I never really looked up from what I was doing to see if any of this was having any impact. But then I started noticing that I was making an impact on people.
People that followed me during my hockey writing career followed me into the book world. One person (shoutout to Kim) went from reading five books a year to reading a bunch of books every year. She even joined Bookstagram and became a book influencer.
People I went to high school with that followed me started their own book club because they were inspired by all of the books I was sharing. The hockey community started reading and sharing their books more. Even the friends I made in the media started their own book clubs and book talks.
I do have a lot of friends and followers that are celebrities (this comes from many years of attending film festivals, writing about hockey, doing interviews, etc.). They started prioritizing reading every single day. Imagine my surprise when they started posting about books! I swear I almost fainted.
Since I do not always do book reviews or suggest books, when I do, I see within the next day a bunch of followers run to purchase that book. I think they know the difference between a book recommendation vs. all of the other other posts I do. It’s the actual book that makes the blog review that is purchased.
This is what being a book influencer is all about. It’s not just about marketing. It’s about getting people to read more books. The only way to really do that is to recommend good books.
If you think this is just about writing or posting content, you should see me in person. If I know you like to read and I know your genre, I’ll curate a bookstack for you that will have you reading more and more books. I love talking about books, but I also love helping people discover their next great read.
I hope this series will help the book reviewer community. Feel free to ping me (Instagram/Threads: @michellekennethpw) or leave a comment on any of the articles in this series if you have questions and I’ll do a post on it. For those seasoned reviewers and influencers, leave comments with advice that will help others in the book community. After all, if it wasn’t for the book community, I never would have figured all of this stuff out. Plus, there’s something new every single day to talk about.
It’s time for all things spooktacular! Oh, how I love the Halloween season. I love all of the decorations, the costumes, and the candy. Matthew (the Maine Coon) loves Halloween. I can’t get him to dress in any other costume other than his Superman costume. I tried to make him a skeleton last year. He took the costume off. So I put his Superman costume on him, and he ran around all day in it. If I tried to take it off at any point before Halloween was over, he would attack me.
He loves being Superman. I think it’s because the code phrase for me to carry him is, “Let’s go Superman!” He’ll get in position and I’ll carry him while humming the Superman theme song to him. He loves it.
Last year, since we have more dogs than kids in our building, we gave out dog toys and treats, as well as candy and small toys for the humans. Matthew had so many visitors that day. He got to meet so many dogs as they showed off their costumes. He absolutely loves Halloween. He took a few toys for himself, but that’s fine, considering all of the dogs got to take a few toys. We had treats and toys for the cats, but there were no takers. More for Matthew.
The Interview
If you haven’t caught the new feature on the site called “The Interview,” you should definitely check it out. I selected these interviews to help inspire you to go after your dreams, no matter what they are. I started us off with interviews from my hockey writing days with John Madden and Ilya Kovalchuk. I also posted a recent interview I had with Edwin Walker (Filmmaker).
I hope that you will be inspired, but also find the tools you will need as you follow along in your journey.
I gathered a few of my growing up hockey stories to start The Interview because it shows the human side of becoming a professional athlete and all the hard work they put into the dream of becoming an NHL player. From the projects of Toronto to the Cold War days of Russia, these players share their journey to make their dream come true.
Chasing your dreams is a struggle. You really have to put in the work every single day. It is about the journey, not the end result. The journey is what makes the dream worth living. The work is what fulfills you and makes you happy. It challenges you to be better than you were the day before.
And oh, the people you will meet along the way will be more and more incredible as you follow your path. Those moments will also be more meaningful to you.
My hope is that The Interview will help inspire you in whatever you do, so that you will be true to yourself and follow your dreams in order to define your own greatness.
50 Questions
Another part of The Interview feature includes 50 Questions. So what better way to start off this part of the feature than with me answering 50 questions.
Five books that helped shape you. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle The Secret by Rhonda Byrne Twas the Night Before Christmas
Favorite movie. Dune (1984)
Favorite ice cream. Mint chocolate chip
Coffee or tea? Oh, definitely coffee.
Favorite place in the world. At home with Matthew (the Maine Coon).
Most influential person you’ve met. Amy Tan. Before I became a writer, she knew I was a writer. She saw that in me before I even saw it in myself. She said to me when I went up to get her book signed, “When you finish your novel, we can look it over and help you with it.” She was referring to herself, Scott Turow, and Stephen King. I told Scott Turow about this many years later. I even got to meet Stephen King. I guess I should finish the novel(s) before they die. They are getting up there.
Who inspires you? My grandfather. He told me before he died that I needed to get on my path in life. Nothing would ever work out until I did. Love would never work out until I was on my path.
Favorite band/musical artist. U2
Favorite song. There are so many. I think right now, it’s George Michael’s “Freedom! ’90.” This one has been on repeat this week. The song is about George shaking off what the music industry expected of him, this sex symbol that the teenage girls loved (I had his Faith posters up on my wall). But he was secretly gay. This song was his coming out song. This was his way of saying stick around for the music, and let me be free to be me. The music video for this song featured every supermodel in the world at the time. For me (this week), this represents choosing myself and being the person I am meant to become. It’s about letting go of the person I can’t become, so that I can become the person I am meant to be.
Favorite actor/actress. Bing Crosby, Cary Grant, Laurence Fishburne, Russell Crowe.
What do I love about my life? Matthew. This Maine Coon cat became the child I never had. When I realized I wasn’t having kids, Matthew came into my life. I did not miss out on mom brain, the all night feedings, the 2 hour naps, Matthew proofing the entire house, the shit, the vomit. Oh, I got the whole baby/child experience out of this cat. But the thing I love the most with my life with Matthew is that we upgraded our life back in 2021. Since I couldn’t get out of the country to move to France, I decided that if I couldn’t get out of the country due to the travel ban (and I had to move because the landlord had served an eviction notice to everyone in the building because he wanted to remodel it), I would just upgrade my life. So we moved down the street to a luxury building where professional athletes live and movie stars stay. Matthew has made several celebrity friends in this building. He is so much happier. Because he’s such a social animal, he has made so many dog and human friends. He has a whole courtyard he can run around in (he even sneaks into the dog park). He’s happy. I’m happy I did this for us. The whole point was to do something amazing for myself. I do not regret this happened. It was a nice consolation since France was put on hold.
Where do I want to be in 5 years? In the South of France with Matthew, writing, photographing, and maybe thinking about opening up a bookstore.
Astrological sign. Cancer
What hobby have I been wanting to start? Needlepoint? LOL. Looks interesting, but I don’t have the time nor the patience to learn.
Favorite song from your childhood. “Say Say Say” by Paul McCartney and “American Pie.”
Favorite memory. My grandmother was living with us in Georgia for a little while. Something happened and we started laughing hysterically. I just remember laughing so hard with her. Probably the happiest moment of my life.
The icon in your life. My grandfather. He passed away in 2007. He was the only person in this universe that actually loved me. Love is changing who you are to become a better person, because someone kept knocking on your door wanting to be loved by you. When I was 3, I used to knock on his door every day (we lived next door to each other). I would say, “Grandpa, are you home?” Even after I just watched him walk into his home, I’d run over and follow him. He’d close the door, so I would knock. He didn’t like me. He didn’t like anyone, truthfully. He was a bitter old man back then. But one day, I saw he was actually hiding from me inside. I kept knocking. He kept hiding. I started to cry. He heard me, and something inside him changed in that moment. He opened the door, and his entire life changed. It was that moment that changed his life to becoming a more loving human being. A few years later, he found out my parents tried to adopt me out after finally getting the boy they wanted. My dad was so cruel to me. My grandfather asked him why he hated me so much. He responded, “Because she was born a girl.” My grandfather was shocked. In that moment, he truly hated his son. My great uncle (his brother) was with him at the time, and they decided to love me. They could both see that I was not loved by anyone in the family, so my grandfather and his brother decided to love me and to give me opportunities to have a better life. Before my grandfather died, he told me the family planned to kick me out. But he had a surprise in store for all of them. When his Will was read, they discovered he had written them all out and disowned them all…except me. This was how he made sure I knew there was at least one person in that godforsaken family that loved me. He had written them out because he sat through so many dinners for years, quietly listening to them plot against me and talk crap about me, as if they knew me. This was the man who believed in me, and he knew I was meant to become something far greater than the person they wanted to believe I was. He made them pay in the end.
Longest relationship. Surita (cat). She was with me for 18 years. My brother. 41 years together.
What kind of love story do you want? I thought I wanted the soulmate story, but I’ve learned that this is probably the most difficult love story to have. Although I’ve had more than one soulmate (I just encountered a third recently), I’ve learned that you end up alone in this story. I don’t recommend this kind of love story at all. I highly doubt the two living soulmates will change my mind about this. So the kind of love story I want…it just does not exist for me. There comes a time when you hope and hope and hope, then you realize it’s just never coming. Why hope for something that is only going to break your heart?
What did you want to be when you grew up? Believe it or not, a writer. Backup was a police officer (think FBI). Then, I wanted to be a Senator. I ended up being a writer. I was the first intern ever with the DC Metropolitan Police Department, and I worked for the Attorney General, the Senate, and the Republican Party (note: I am a Democrat and they knew this when they hired me). I learned that you always know what you should be when you’re a kid, before the world tries to tell you who you should be. Listen to you as a child.
Favorite season. Summer
Religion? No comment because you will not like what I have to say.
Favorite subject in school. I loved French class. In college, I loved the law classes that focused on victimology, constitutional law, or policing.
Hobbies. Reading, cooking, and writing.
Favorite vacation spot. The castle wall at sunset in Oia, Santorini, Greece.
Cat or dog? Both. I’ve always had cats, though, because cats can take care of themselves and I’m not home very often. Well, I used to say that. Matthew is more child than cat. He sleeps during the day. He starts getting hungry at 4PM. I’ve come home late to discover he’s tried to get out the can of food himself to feed himself. Not sure how he was opening up the can. But simply put, he needs his emotional support human.
Person (living or dead) you would like to have dinner with. Cary Grant
Have the date pay or go dutch? Dutch.
Favorite TV show. Supernatural
Favorite fashion designer and why. Valentino Garavani. The first designer I ever laid eyes upon their work was Valentino. He knew how to take the beauty of a woman and create a masterpiece from it.
Toxic trait. Running.
Do you believe in soulmates? Yes. I just discovered soulmate #3 recently. Edwin Walker asked me about this because, for some reason, in this lifetime, I’m gifted with more than one soulmate. He pondered why that was. Maybe because this is my last lifetime? At least, that’s what the Creator has been saying. So maybe I’m supposed to come across all of my past loves? I’ve come across two that were not soulmates, but I was definitely married to them in a past life. I had vivid memories of them, and they definitely were drawn to me.
Coolest thing that’s ever happened to you. When I was 16, Harrison Ford walked up to me to hang out and talk. When I was 23/24, the Secretary for the Department of Transportation told me that he would rather hang out with me than hang out with a bunch of politicians. And so he did. Every time he saw me. But the coolest thing…2001. Russell Crowe serenaded me with a song. He sang “Somebody Else’s Princess” to me. The man the Sex and the City girls masturbated to…he serenaded me.
Most loved item in your closet? My Fendi tote bag.
Favorite restaurant. Red Basil in Rutherford, NJ. I haven’t been there in years, but they have the best Pad Kee Mao I’ve ever had.
What do you get on your pizza? Depends on where we are. Little Italy Pizza in NYC – salad pizza or their spaghetti pizza. Papa Johns is the Works. Brick oven pizza – margherita. Everywhere else – cheese or pepperoni.
Favorite food. Pad kee mao.
What item would you like to add to your closet? An Hermes Kelly bag.
Favorite cookbook. Right now, it’s Bountiful Cooking.
Favorite author. Amy Tan
What’s your theme song you would walk out to? “We Will Rock You,” the Queen/VonLichten version.
Dating/married/single? Single. I have not dated in 23 years. This is likely some kind of record, but when you’re holding out for the right person, you reject a lot of guys before they can even ask. Sure, there were a few guys in those years I loved, but it didn’t quite work out. One broke my heart (he still to this day writes songs about how I left him). The next one showed he had no respect for me and tried to sabotage my hockey writing career (I am still mad about that time when I got multiple text messages from the Philadelphia Flyers media telling me what he did. Only one person printed it. The rest refused to print it, tweet about it, or even mention it out of respect for me.). The next one told me as he was walking out the door how he felt about me, and it nearly ruined me. I was so heartbroken and devastated over it. Took a long time to get over him. In between, there was some other guy that asked me to travel the world with him. If I didn’t have Matthew, I would have. But I have Matthew and he’s more important. I think with each one, I thought I deserved a better love. You know this when you love yourself first. I wanted someone who complements my existence. A best friend.
Perfect date. A great conversation.
Favorite drink. Water.
What is your proudest accomplishment? Being me. I am more successful than anyone in my family ever was. I command a higher salary than anyone in my family, not to mention as a woman. I’ve done more things, met more people, had more amazing experiences in life than most. Once again, Russell Crowe (right after winning an Oscar) serenaded ME. I am in the NHL history books as the first credentialed writer to ever be allowed into the press box that was from a website (not newspaper/TV/radio). A bunch of senators told my rich aunt and uncle (who believe I’m the worst thing to ever have existed on planet Earth), that I was the best thing that ever happened in the Senate. They all loved and respected me there. My aunt and uncle were shocked. Best comeuppance I’ve ever witnessed.
What is the craziest thing you’ve done in the name of love? Flew to X. Did not end well for them in either instance.
What three items would you take with you on a deserted island? The longest really good book I could find, a tool kit & a first aid kit.
What is your goal for this year? To finish my current book projects.
What negative habit have you dropped? Thinking that everything will be better when X happens or when someone comes to save me. I am the hero in my story. I make my dreams come true. I save myself.
The scariest thing I ever went through. When I found out I had a tumor in my parathyroid gland back in 2013. The doctor told me to prepare for the worst. Some people stress eat, I stress shop. I was scared out of my mind. But luckily, everything turned out ok. I still deal with the after effects of missing a hormonal gland (like perimenopause starting at the age of 38). We’re always looking out for the next tumor.
Today’s fall horror book comes from Erika T. Wurth, and it is called White Horse.
[Disclosure: I may earn a small commission for my endorsement, recommendation, testimonial and/or link to any products or services from this website. Your purchase helps support my work.]
I’ve been sitting on this book for a little while now, because I’ve been mulling it over. That is actually how I know the book is really good…if I am still thinking about it long after I read it.
For me, what I am mulling over is Bigfoot. Weird, right? Kind of reminds me of Big’s obsession with Bigfoot on Reservation Dogs. If you are like most, Bigfoot is just some urban legend that no one really believes is out there. Never once did I contemplate just where the story of Bigfoot came from.
Imagine my surprise that Bigfoot’s roots come from Indigenous cultures.
As I dive more and more into Native American stories and their culture, I am learning how protective they are of their stories. One book (I’ll be sharing soon) lists most of their horror stories as the white man being the monster. And truthfully, it is rather eye opening to see the story through the eyes of a Native American. I usually just nod my head and go, “Wow, you are so right.”
With White Horse, you can see the monster through different eyes and it is equally as terrifying. Watching history and folklore cross paths to explain the monsters around us, really made my heart sad. I think I didn’t want to talk about this horror story so soon, because my heart wept. To have that sort of emotional feeling during a horror story, that means you need to read it.
All I can say is that I don’t think the horror story ever really ends. There are so many levels of horror that stick with you long after you turn the last page. That is what makes this debut novel an incredible horror story.
Synopsis
Some people are haunted in more ways than one…
Kari James, Urban Native, is a fan of heavy metal, ripped jeans, Stephen King novels, and dive bars. She spends most of her time at her favorite spot in Denver, a bar called White Horse. There, she tries her best to ignore her past and the questions surrounding her mother who abandoned her when she was just two years old.
But soon after her cousin Debby brings her a traditional bracelet that once belonged to Kari’s mother, Kari starts seeing disturbing visions of her mother and a mysterious creature. When the visions refuse to go away, Kari must uncover what really happened to her mother all those years ago. Her father, permanently disabled from a car crash, can’t help her. Her Auntie Squeaker seems to know something but isn’t eager to give it all up at once. Debby’s anxious to help, but her controlling husband keeps getting in the way.
Kari’s journey toward a truth long denied by both her family and law enforcement forces her to confront her dysfunctional relationships, thoughts about a friend she lost in childhood, and her desire for the one thing she’s always wanted but could never have…
Edwin Walker is no stranger to Perfectionist Wannabe. You can read his first interview (when he was 27) and his latest interview (at the age of 35) to see how he’s still living the journey in pursuit of the dream that is ever-evolving.
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50 Questions
Name 5 books that helped shape you.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho All About Love by Bell Hooks Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell James Baldwin Artist on Fire by W.J Weatherby The Artist’s Wayby Julia Cameron
Name 5 films since 2015 that you saw that moved you and why.
Room (2015) by Lenny Abrasmson – This film touched on what trauma truly does to us. It was a moving film about love and it humanized our rawest emotions.
Get Out (2017) Directed by Jordan Peele – A true masterpiece in telling a story in such a unique way. I will never forget my first time watching this film and the ride it took me on.
Sorry to Bother You (2018) Directed by Boots Riley – This film was so different and wild. An artistic compelling deep dive into capitalism, race relations, and modern forms of slavery.
Parasite (2109) Directed by Bong Joon Ho – I was truly moved by the creativity and nuanced elements of this powerful story of class conflict and wealth inequality.
Premature (2019) Directed by Rashaad Ernesto Green – This was a brilliant moving story of the innocence and fragility of love.
What do you do in life?
I’m a Multi hyphenated Creative Architect, Artist, and Filmmaker. Creating whatever I can create that’s dope, telling stories, curating, and facilitating infinite possibilities.
Coffee or tea. Tea
How many stories have you written? Over 50 short stories, short films, features, TV pilots, and vignettes.
Favorite cartoon. Anything Looney Tunes.
How many movies have you been a part of? 6
What are 2 things on your bucket list? Smoke a joint with Beyonce and Jay Z and to hike Mount Kilimanjaro
Favorite book.The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Favorite author. Octavia Butler
Favorite movie. City of God, directed by Fernando Meirelles & Katia Lund
Favorite actor/actress. Jeffery Wright & Viola Davis
Last vacation. Peru
Next vacation. Panama
Favorite place in the world. East Africa ( Any Country there)
Favorite city. New York City
Favorite song. My Cherie Amour by Stevie Wonder
Favorite restaurant. Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen
Favorite food. Anything that’s Pasta
Favorite drink. Moscow Mule
Favorite TV show. Martin
TV or Film. Film
Favorite project you worked on. FX’s Atlanta
Person that inspired you the most. Honestly, myself.
Favorite moment in your life so far. Traveling to the continent of Africa, all 3 times.
Name one place you would like to visit. Tokyo
Advice you live by. Bask in L.I.F.E (Live In Freedom Everyday)
Advice you would give to your teenage self. Slow down man, enjoy these years.
Biggest impact Chicago has had on you. It’s kept me grounded and authentic to myself and others.
Biggest impact Hollywood has had on you. It’s taught me to know who the hell you are and own your work and identity.
Would you ever do theater? Of course, I started out doing theater and stopped, but I plan on returning one day and making it to Broadway in the future, God willing.
Favorite film festival. South by Southwest
Favorite artist. Jean-Michel Basquiat
Name an artist you think everyone should be following. Myself – Edwin Walker x E. Micheaux
Your social media go to. Instagram
Favorite filmmaker. Oscar Micheaux
Which project challenged you the most? Caged Birds
What do you do to relax? Meditate, walk, read and rest for half a day once a week.
Morning person or night person? Night
Streaming or in theater kind of person? Both
Favorite movie snack. Any gummy candy
Coolest celebrity you’ve met so far. Tom Hanks
Best advice someone in the industry gave to you. “It’s a marathon journey, not a sprint so pace yourself, slow and steady wins the race.”
First movie you loved.The Lion King
First crush. Kyla Pratt
Person (alive or dead) you would love to meet. Tupac
Do you get imposter syndrome? Nope
Do you get nervous right before you get on stage or get in front of the camera? Of course, I thrive off my nerves and excel in the moment.
Best advice a friend has given to you. Don’t ever change, keep being yourself!
What’s next? So much, we are traveling the country with the “PreSchool To Prison” documentary project. I’m curating art/photo exhibitions, and dinner parties with artists and brands with Lab Eighty 8. I’m shooting a documentary series titled “E’s Global Quest” where I’m traveling to places around the world, meeting new people, learning about culture and cuisine from my POV. I’m producing and directing a feature documentary titled “Every Second Saturday In August” about the enriching chronicle of an annual vibrant celebration of black culture on the South-Side of Chicago. Along with prepping a feature film titled “Love’s Intention” that I’m praying to get cameras rolling Summer 2024 in Chicago. I have so much to be grateful for.
Building Your Collective When Following Your Dreams
It’s been eight years since I first met filmmaker Edwin Walker at the American Black Film Festival and he did an interview for this site. I said back then that I knew we would end up being good friends for the rest of our lives. So far, I’ve been right about that.
Every time Edwin stops into NYC, we try to get together. We spend more time walking, talking, and eating than anything else. We are kindred souls in that we are not just storytellers, we also understand each other on a spiritual level. I think, in a way, we keep each other going on this journey as we follow our dreams.
I do not recommend following your dreams on your own. You need people around you to help you navigate through this journey. It is not all sunshine, unicorns, and rainbows. There are a lot of things that happen along this path that can completely sideline you for years.
For me, I think maybe the hardest thing after leaving hockey was my identity crisis and trying to figure out who I am now and where I wanted to go next. When the pandemic happened, it got even worse. But luckily, I had Edwin checking in on me, forcing me to get on a Zoom call with him, just to talk…so that we both knew we were not alone.
Edwin is a huge reason why you see a resurgence on this site. He came out to NYC during Tribeca Film Festival in June and we stopped into one of the panels. He asked a question that resonated within me. What do we (creatives) do when we become uninspired? How do we push through? We’ve been asking each other this question for the past few years. The answer he received was literally the answer we were looking for.
We, storytellers, need to push through. We need to continue to tell our stories and the stories of others, because we are a very important part of humanity. I think for me, putting a label on who I was helped me figure out what I wanted to do next. It helped me to understand why Edwin and I became friends. We are storytellers.
It is important to always surround yourself with people who are pursuing their dreams, just like you are. It is vital that you know you are not alone as you go through each win and each failure. There will be times of mediocrity and times that will completely gut you and leave you an emotional mess. Sometimes the entire world just stops or your country creates so much turmoil you are scared for your life. This is when you need to reach out to your pack of friends…your collective. Sometimes it helps to know that we are all going through the same thing as we navigate becoming who we are meant to become.
That’s the key. We are inspired by the people we surround ourselves with. Even when we’re stuck, wading through the mud, we need each other to help pull each other through this together. Following our dreams is not an easy task. There are moments we are going to feel uninspired and don’t want to continue. There are times life will hit you with something huge and you need to figure out how to get through this, even when you are an emotional mess.
Creatives need each other, because we need to know we are not the only ones going through this hard part of the creative process. But it is not just about the creative process. It is about the dream and the pursuit of it. Following your dreams is not easy. There are going to be a lot of disappointments along the way, a lot of learning curves, but that is just the universe’s way of helping you find your way.
I met Edwin right after I left hockey. The universe helped us find each other because as these eight years have proven, we needed each other when we created our own collective of creative friends. We inspire each other. We lift each other up and encourage each other, even when we are stuck. We help each other figure out what in the world the universe is saying we should do next. We help each other find our way.
Background
Edwin Walker x E. Micheaux ( A MONIKER in which he uses to pay homage and continue the legacy of pioneer filmmaker Oscar Micheaux) is a talented multi hyphenated creative architect/artist with a focus in filmmaking, storytelling, creative directing, experimental art curation, and facilitation of spaces. As an innovative filmmaker his credits include writing, producing and directing several narrative and unscripted short films, series and specials. He has produced shows for Netflix, CNN, Peacock, BET and Comedy Central. He produced one of the finalist films for the 2011 Coca-Cola Refreshing Filmmaker’s Award, along with producing the winner of the 2015 Essence Magazine Short Film Contest. Through his 2012 founded production company Edclusive Entertainment he produced the indie thriller “Caged Birds”, starring Khalil Kain, Bentley Green and Kamil McFadden, which is currently streaming on Amazon.Edwin is also an accomplished ACTOR having appeared on NBC’s Chicago PD, FX’s Atlanta, CBS’s MacGyver, Fox’s Empire, and Starz’s BMF to just name a few. This audacious Creative Architect/Artist founded Lab Eighty 8, a creative experience brand that is building dynamic and curated spaces, experiences and exhibits by artists of color who are bringing impactful creative change to the world. His work as an installation artist and curating for Lab Eighty 8 has engineered several artistic spaces in Los Angeles, London, San Diego, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, and Houston. Working alongside clients such as AfroPunk, Saint Heron, Nike, Uninterrupted, and Netflix. Edwin Walker x E. Micheaux is poised to revolutionize, disrupt and empower the entertainment, arts and media space. His creative core value and MISSION is to amplify black creative voices, humanize the narrative and imagery of black people with powerful stories, resources, spaces and bold unapologetic art.
The Interview
It has been eight years since your last interview for PerfectionistWannabe.com. Where has life taken you?
Wow, eight years flew by in a blink of an eye. What a wild ride it has been, from a Pandemic that made the world stop, to political madness, to a deep personal development journey I’ve been on. I’ve traveled to over 10 countries since our last interview. In 2020, I moved back to my hometown of Chicago, IL after doing a 13 year bid in LA. I joke and tell people, living in Lalaland is like a bid, of some sort, into a different world. But that place was really impactful in my growth as a man, an artist, and overall identity in my career. I met so many amazing people and built a collective of friends. A lot of development and evolution happened for me in LA that I’m forever grateful for.
What film projects were you involved in?
I have two projects as an actor. I hope to be able to talk about them soon. But I’ve appeared on NBC’s Chicago PD, FX’s Atlanta, CBS’s MacGyver, Fox’s Empire, and Starz’s BMF to name a few. I recently produced under my production company, Edclusive Entertainment, an indie thriller called Caged Birds. It’s a story about three black high school seniors going to school in the suburbs who are forced to cover up a murder when a prank against a white bully goes wrong. As the investigation into the murders intensifies, the boy’s relationships begin to splinter and their loyalties are tested. It stars Khalil Kain, Kamil McFadden, and Bentley Green. It’s currently streaming on Amazon. It was a great learning experience on my journey as an independent filmmaker.
Life has taken strange turns for everyone in the creative field. From the pandemic to the George Floyd protests to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike, how has your life and work changed for you during these times of adversity? What have you seen as positive (and negative) coming out of these times for both you and the industry?
I would honestly say these past 3 years in turbulent times have been impactful years of major artistic growth for me. I feel more powerful, liberated and free within myself than I have ever felt on my journey. I have created an energetic force field of faith, peace, passion, purpose, and positivity from all the chaos and noise. During the pandemic, I reflected so much about who I am as an artist, spiritual being and filmmaker. I was able to get into therapy, and do some healing from untreated traumas and self awareness work. I was able to keep myself inspired, hopeful, full trust in the most high and in alignment with new possibilities. Now, of course, I had some days that were rough, but I have a motto of “DON’T GIVE IT NO MORE THAN 24.” I process my feelings and survey what I am truly in control of and move forward in gratitude and ease. So as this dual WGA, SAG- AFTRA Hollywood strike has been going on, which I’m a member of both; I reverted back to that energetic force field of faith, peace, passion, purpose, and positivity. I hope we get a resolution soon, but I can’t let it affect how I show up to my creativity and life. I’m pivoting and continuously creating.
Tell us about your latest documentary PreSchool to Prison.
PreSchool To Prison is an amazing short documentary that examines how the United States public school system is built and operated like prisons. Zero-tolerance policies are used to justify suspension and arrests that set up a pathway to send children of color and children with special needs to go from school to prison. Children are being suspended, restrained, dragged, physically manhandled, and subsequently arrested for minor offenses such as throwing candy on a school bus. These personal accounts from people affected by the school-to-prison pipeline give riveting tales about the generational impact on society. I produced this along with the director, Dr. Karen Baptiste, who is a powerful educator, speaker, consultant and now filmmaker. We met at Sundance three years ago,and instantly connected and we’ve been on this amazing journey to eradicate the educational lynching that has been going on in this country.
Lab Eighty 8 is a creative experience brand that is building dynamic and curated spaces, experiences and exhibits by artists of color who are bringing impactful creative change to the world. I founded Lab Eighty 8 in 2021 during the pandemic after seeing so many artists of color struggling to create and not seeing enough spaces that allowed us to create, build and connect. Since starting the creative brand it’s been a rollercoaster ride but an exhilarating one. I’ve grown as an installation artist curating for Lab Eighty 8, I have been able to curate artistic spaces in Los Angeles, London, San Diego, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, and Houston. Working alongside clients such as AfroPunk, Saint Heron, Nike, Uninterrupted, and Netflix. We have a few sponsored curated experiences happening in Fall and Winter. So I’m continuing to build the Lab Eighty 8 community and team of bold artists.
What inspires you to create?
Life inspires me. From moving to LA at 18 (only 3 months into adulthood I might add) with only $1,700. Traveling the world, going to foreign places, new elements, being in nature, meeting new people. I have been so blessed to experience life in a way many haven’t been afforded. From being raised by a single mother, being an only child, having to grow up so fast, being in an unpredictable and wild industry and working every job you can think of. I embraced the struggle and grew through it. I value and appreciate every good, bad and ugly experience that has happened to me. At 34, I have lived like 10 lives, it seems. I mentioned building an energetic force field of faith, peace, purpose, and positivity and that must be anchored somewhere. Moving back home to Chicago, I created a creative sanctuary of peace in a garden unit apartment filled with art, plants, candles, and books. Full of peace. You have to find a place to retreat, recharge and have stillness. When I return from my traveling adventures, I need a place where I can process myself and sit still. I’ve done so much reflecting in my creative sanctuary. As I check my life’s journey travels, I am so inspired to create bold art and continue to grow as a man, artist and filmmaker.
Since the George Floyd protests, do you think the narrative is starting to change for Black stories? Are you seeing more of a demand for Black stories, or has it tapered off (as if it were a trend)? Are you seeing more Black creatives and writers breaking ground and becoming a powerful voice?
There’s been some progress, but more progress is for sure needed. It’s so many unique, powerful and creative black voices that need to be amplified. Many black creatives are in need of resources, platforms and spaces to be unapologetic with their art. There are many who are creating these spaces like me, but we need more. I truly believe we need more Allies from corporations, major art/creative institutions, film studios and investors who are not black who want to make sure black creatives have EQUITY in their futures. A true commitment to assisting creatives with resources, and knowledge to own their IP and work. Not performative commitments which we saw a lot of after the George Floyd protests in 2020. Companies spotlighting and highlighting black creative voices, but then they slowly fizzled out and didn’t build a promising 5-10 year plan of creating effective resources and tools. We need more backing and collective unity amongst ourselves as black creatives. I hope to assist in building that paradigm before I leave this earth.
As a new feature for Perfectionist Wannabe, I present The Interview. Here, I am sharing the stories of the people I’ve met over the years. These stories go back to the start of my professional writing career, when I was a beat reporter covering the New Jersey Devils (NHL) for Inside Hockey. Over the decade following my hockey writing career, I interviewed authors and filmmakers. Now? The Interview season begins and you will find a whole new crop of interviews from the people who made their dreams come true. These are the interviews that will help inspire you and maybe learn something new.
The Crazy Ride Ilya Kovalchuk Took Me On
Looking back on the interview I am presenting below, I still shake my head at everything that happened while I covered Ilya Kovalchuk when he played for the New Jersey Devils. I do not know why this Russian chose me out of all of the reporters that covered the game of hockey, but he chose me.
Let me explain.
Kovalchuk appeared in the Devils locker room after a trade from the Atlanta Thrashers. Kovy is one of the best Russian players to ever play hockey. I did not say ‘the best.’ He is one of the best.
He came to the Devils right before the 2010 Winter Olympics. When I went around the locker room to interview the players about the upcoming Olympics, this was the moment he prepared me for what would eventually happen three years later.
I had asked him about being one of the Olympic ambassadors for Russia for the 2014 Sochi games. It was here that he explained that if the NHL did not choose to play in the 2014 Olympics, he would defect. It was expected that other Russian hockey stars (like Alexander Ovechkin) would also defect.
That was right before the Olympics in 2010. He prepared me.
At the end of the season, he was set to head to free agency. He was in his locker being interviewed by a Russian reporter. He looked at me and stopped the interview. He let me ask my question. I asked what everyone wanted to know. “Are you signing with the Devils?” He told me, “Yes.”
I never printed it. He told me that in March 2010.
By June, his agent contacted me. He asked why I never printed it (Kovalchuk was looking for the article). I explained that I’m not about to publish an article unless I had certain guarantees that what he told me was the truth. If I were to print he was planning on signing with the New Jersey Devils, I needed guarantees that was where he was going, because I am not in the business of writing rumors.
The main assurance I was given: Kovalchuk promised he would never lie to me. He kept his promise. He never did.
After the assurances were made, as well as his agent feeding me exactly what Kovalchuk wanted printed, I published the article. The LA Kings fans (at the time) believed they were getting Kovalchuk. Their General Manager was behind that rumor. He made them believe it was a done deal. There were articles saying, “Michelle Kenneth Thinks the Devils are Getting Kovalchuk.” They were vicious. They were mean. They made fun of me, and they slandered me, saying I was just like “Eklund” (who is actually a friend of mine that has a website that caters to the rumor mill). But if you are accused of being like Eklund, that’s actually not a nice slander word, especially when you are a woman who is trying to be respected in this male dominated industry of sports.
What they did to me while we waited for the announcement in July was horrible. Even the Devils players got wind of it.
I remember Patrik Elias reading the article and then reading my blog going…who is Kovalchuk talking to? There were things I had written that made it sound like I knew Kovalchuk very well…like I knew personal reasons why he would sign with the Devils. But then the New York Post would print something and it confused him. He knew Kovy was talking to someone. He just didn’t know which reporter. He would text Kovy and never received a return text.
When Kovalchuk signed, that’s when the team found out exactly who was feeding me my information to say Kovalchuk was signing with the Devils. He had given me the most coveted information in the entire NHL and I had known since March. NHL fans may remember that the summer of 2010 became the Summer of Kovalchuk because of his insane contract deal with the Devils that was rejected by the NHL. They negotiated it down to a 15-year $100 million contract.
When Kovalchuk’s son, Artem, was born, I got a text message telling me.
When I couldn’t be there at the news conference or the celebratory party after he signed with the Devils, the players made sure I was texted a photo.
Kovalchuk gave one of the only women in that locker room a huge opportunity. And I was hated for it.
David Clarkson (NHL) had complained to me at the beginning of the 2010-2011 season that I was always traveling with other teams. I never did a tour of duty with the Devils. So after whatever European trip I took with whatever teams that fall, I decided to do the California tour of duty with the team. That meant we were heading to San Jose, Anaheim and Los Angeles.
I showed up to the Anaheim game with a little sun. David asked me where I had been. I told him I went to Disneyland. He was like, “You went without me?” Yes. And I would do it again. LOL.
I say it that way, because I never allowed players to hang out with me.
When we finally headed to LA, I was met with harassment throughout the entire game. It was so bad, the players heard it from the ice. It wasn’t just about me. It was about me and Kovalchuk. Jamie Langenbrunner, who was the Devils captain at the time, was not happy over what they were saying about both of us. He tried to console me (and I never told him what happened, he heard it from the ice). He said that obviously they really wanted Kovalchuk, but apparently he was only talking to me. I printed the truth. They’re just mad because they did not like the truth.
I haven’t liked LA Kings fans since. [The irony is that Kovalchuk would later go play for the LA Kings.]
Sigh. That Kovalchuk. The journey he would take both of us on. This was just the beginning.
In 2013, faced with the NHL’s indecision of whether to allow players to go to the 2014 Olympic games in Sochi, Kovalchuk retired from the NHL to defect to Russia. Vladimir Putin was behind that. A few weeks after he retired, the NHL made their decision to go.
So what happens when fans get angry? They come at the hockey writer that they knew Kovalchuk spoke to. I had to explain that I had been saying since the 2010 Olympics that if the NHL did not decide to go to the Sochi games, Kovalchuk would defect. I told them that before he even signed that 15-year contract. And what happened? Putin gave him a cut-off date.
I still haven’t spoken to Kovy since he defected. I follow his wife on Instagram. But I haven’t reached out to him in all of these years, even after he came back to the NHL. Part of me wants to thank him for helping me in my career. The other part of me wants to say WTF. Why would you drag me through all of this with you? Why me?
Maybe some day we will run into each other and he can tell me.
The Interview
This interview is part of the growing up hockey series I liked to write and fans loved. Reading this again, I am actually impressed with the amount of research I did on Russia vs the NHL, especially centering around the time Kovalchuk was born.
I can’t remember if I got to the second part of the interview, but I remember him telling me that he knew he wanted to marry Nikol Andrazajtis when he was 18. He saw a music video for her all-girl singing group, Mirage, and he knew that was the woman he was marrying.
I used to tell him that on a scale of 10, his wife was definitely a 15. She’s super tall and like most Russian beauties, absolutely stunning.
In this interview, you will learn a little bit about Kovalchuk’s upbringing, along with the history of Russia vs the NHL. Frankly, I am amazed at what I learned in order to write this interview.
In the beginning of every dream, there is that moment that defines us in our youth. It’s the place where we find our meanings in life. They are the things that shape us into who we are and creates our destined paths that we will follow in this lifetime.
Whether it was experiencing something magical with our own eyes or following in the footsteps of a parent, these are all things that help mold us and inspire us to become who we are today.
Born during the Cold War in 1983, Ilya Kovalchuk’s humble beginnings in life took place to the north of Moscow in a place called Kalinin, a medieval city with a population of over 400,000 people. Kalinin changed its name to Tver in 1990, shortly before the Cold War ended.
On the day Kovalchuk was born (April 15), Tokyo Disneyland opened its doors for the first time and the Islanders were leading the New York Rangers 2-0 in the Patrick Division Finals.
But in the US, the relations with the Soviets were still on the iciest of terms.
The New York Times reported back on April 15, 1983 that, “People tend[ed] to accept the President’s description of the Soviet threat but reject Mr. Reagan’s strategy for meeting it, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll. By about 3 to 2, those interviewed said they viewed the Soviet Union as a growing threat, but by an even bigger margin of 2 to 1 they felt that the American arms buildup would prompt only a further Soviet arms buildup and not in serious negotiations.”
It would still be another five years before the first Russian would be permitted to play in the NHL. Kovalchuk was born during a time when talks of being drafted by the NHL would result in a ban from playing hockey. Viktor Khatulev was drafted in 1975 by the Philadelphia Flyers. Soon afterwards, he was banned from playing hockey for five years after being in a fight during a game (the ban was later lifted in 1978). [Khatulev didn’t even know he was drafted by the Flyers until after the ban was lifted (1978)].
There were rumors that the ban was made in an effort to make an example of him, just in case any future Soviet players were considering disembarking to play in foreign countries. It was also an attempt to thwart the NHL from attempting to draft any future Russian hockey players.
This was the hockey world Ilya was born into… a Cold War where playing for a foreign country was betrayal to your homeland. This was a place and time where you played hockey for your country and no one else. Nationalism was instilled in each and every person from day one. It was the Cold War after all.
“I started to play when I was probably about four and a half. I started skating” Kovalchuk said of his early beginnings in hockey. “My dad convinced me to go to hockey school. It was the only one in my hometown, and I started playing.”
Valeri Kovalchuk, llya’s father, was a former Soviet pro basketball player, and one of Ilya’s most influential figures in his life. “[My dad], he [was] always with me. Hockey was his wholly favorite sport.”
Even though he was a pro basketball player, he was there every step of the way for his son out on the ice.
“He was skating with me all of the time. He was pretty good, actually. He was my challenge until like 12 years old… and then he [couldn’t] keep up with me anymore.”
Was llya the better hockey player at that age going up against his father?
With that slight smile of his where he pretends he’s not smiling, he responds in a very serious tone, “Yes. Yes, definitely.”
Ilya describes his family life as ‘normal.’ “It wasn’t any special family. My mom, she was a doctor. She works. My dad, he was director of [a] sport club. He got his own store. They spent a lot of time with me, nothing really special.”
Even though Valeri was a huge part of llya’s young hockey training, he didn’t influence his son’s decision to play hockey.
“He knows I wanted to play a top sport, so he asked me what I liked the most. At that age, probably, I didn’t understand. But he put me in all different stuff. I played a little tennis, a little basketball, a little soccer. But I liked hockey for some reason or another.”
One of the hockey players that Ilya has cited as being the reason why he wears number 17, Valeri Kharlamov, was not the reason why he became inspired to play hockey.
“No, not at that age,” he said. “When you’re four years old, you don’t even know those guys.”
His father ended up showing him a lot of tapes later on in his childhood of Kharlamov. “He passed away before I was born.”
Kharlamov died at the age of 33, in a car accident, just two years before Ilya was born. But it was that fondness that he saw his father have in Kharlamov that led him to wear his number 17.
“It was his favorite player. He showed me the videotapes. I think he’s one of the most dynamic players. He was great to watch, that’s for sure.”
Kovalchuk was five years old when the first Russian played in the NHL. At what point did the NHL factor into his decision on where he wanted to play?
“When I was 18, it was the best… it is the best league in the world, and all of the best players play here. So I was drafted and I decide to try for myself and play for the best league in the world.”
It wasn’t until 1994, at the age of 11, that Ilya got his first glimpse at an NHL game. It was the Stanley Cup playoffs … the year the Rangers won the Stanley Cup over the Vancouver Canucks. This win, of course, led to riots in Vancouver.
Who was Ilya cheering for?
“Vancouver, because [Pavel] Bure was playing there. At that time, Pavel scored a lot of goals and was one of the leaders on the team. I looked up to him.”
“[Bure’s] just one of the greatest players ever to play the game, I think. He’s just one of those guys that is fun to watch.”
[Ironically, Pavel’s father, Vladimir, an Olympic medalist swimmer, is a scout for the New Jersey Devils, and has been with the team for several years.]
Even though he watched these Russian hockey stars on television, they were not the ones that influenced him. Not even his father’s favorite player, Kharlamov, was an influence on him.
“I think the biggest influence on me is my dad… my parents, because I’m not that kind of guy who dreams about being someone [else] that has already done it and try to be the same.”
While Kharlamov was known as one of the greatest hockey players in the world, Kovalchuk did not aspire to be an even greater hockey player than him.
“You can’t compare players now and before that. He was one of the best in our generation. It’s just a different game right now. You can’t really compare. I never even think about it. You can’t be better than him. How are you going to compare who’s better? It’s impossible. It was a different time, different era, different tournament, everything was different.”
“There were greats in their time. We try to be as good as we can in our generation.” Was his dream to always be a hockey player?
“Yes. I wanted to play hockey. I wanted to play the best I can. In my hometown, we’ve got a men’s team that played as a professional team. When I was there, I liked to watch them. I wanted to be, maybe one day, in their position and try to get myself to play at their high level.”
He didn’t set his sights high with big aspirations of playing for one of the biggest leagues in the world. He set his humble dreams on his home team, because to him, they were the greatest team around.
Long before Kovalchuk caught the eye of scouts at the age of 15, he was no stranger to North America. He had visited America on several different occasions.
“We [had] a lot of tournaments here. We played in Minnesota with my Spartak team. We were like 10, 11,and 12. We were here a lot before I moved here.”
Did he like North America enough to want to move here?
“No. I never. It’s the best league here. I respect everything here, but my home is in Russia.”
Kovalchuk ended up leaving his hometown early in his teens to play for a team away from home in Moscow.
“I was playing in Moscow. My dad, he was driving me every time. I was practicing in my hometown with my team with two of the guys that were three years older than me. He was driving me to Moscow every Saturday and Sunday we had games. I would play for Spartak. But then there comes a time that you have to be with your team that you play for and practice with them, so then I moved to Moscow when I was 15.
“But then the men’s team in Spartak, the main team, was playing in the Super League at that time. Their coach told my dad that they want him to bring me up and practice with them… try to play. So I was playing, when I was 16, for the men’s team already.”
What was it like being away from his family so soon?
“It was different. It was a tough decision when my dad told me that we’ve got to do that. I think when you’re away from your parents, you’ve got to learn a lot of responsibilities and you grow up quicker.”
This entirely explains why Kovalchuk is wise and mature beyond his years.
His desire to want to play in the NHL and move to North America didn’t come until after he was drafted. “You can’t know for sure where you’re going to play. Everyone was saying that I leave too early. I was only eighteen. They said I should have played a couple more years in Russia and get better then come here. But I decided to go right away.”
Kovalchuk became the first Russian to be selected first overall in the NHL Entry Draft in 2001 by the Atlanta Thrashers. He created history in both the NHL and in Russia that day. After all, he was born into a time when being drafted by the NHL meant being banned from hockey in the Soviet Union, and there were no Russian players in the NHL.
Kovalchuk became the new future for Russian hockey players that day. He would lead the way as Russians became one of the hottest hockey commodities in the new generation of the NHL.
There are a lot of new books coming out this month. A LOT!!! From horror to cookbooks to Native American stories, you will find a whole array of new titles you will want to get your hands on.
One of my favorite new titles this month is Jo Nesbo’s The Night House. Want to get into the mind of a horror writer, plus throw Inception on top of it all? This one will creep you out. It is a great read to get you in the mood for spooky month.
The phone ate the kid!
That is all I am going to say.
I will also be picking up a bunch of copies of Yung Pueblo’s The Way Forward to give out as Christmas gifts this year. His words are just the right words needed to inspire you. It will make a great gift for those you hold dear.
I am making my way through all of the other new books coming out this month (there are a lot of them).
You can easily find all of the titles listed below at PW’s Amazon Store. [Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, I earn a commission from qualifying purchases.]
Also, if you are looking for more spooky reads, check out the Fall Horror Books in the Book archive for some of the stories I loved this fall season.
Happy Spooky Reading!
You can order any of the titles listed above through the PW Amazon Store. [Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, I earn a commission from qualifying purchases.]
As a new feature for Perfectionist Wannabe, I present The Interview. Here, I am sharing the stories of the people I’ve met over the years. These stories go back to the start of my professional writing career, when I was a beat reporter covering the New Jersey Devils (NHL) for Inside Hockey. Over the decade following my hockey writing career, I interviewed authors and filmmakers. Now? The Interview season begins and you will find a whole new crop of interviews from the people who made their dreams come true. These are the interviews that will help inspire you and maybe learn something new.
The Rookie Interview
The first one I am going to share is a story I needed today. As crazy as my universe is and the opportunities that arise, I came across this as I was going through my writing samples. It helped me to understand what I am going through right now. It had the words I needed during a time when I feel blocked and like everything isn’t working out right. But at the same time, I know my life is starting down a new path.
A hockey fan once told me that there were two articles in hockey journalism that he could never forget. He told me what both of them were, and I stood there going, “Wait. I wrote both of those.” He was shocked. Hell, I was shocked. I went to school for law. I didn’t go for journalism. One professor even wrote on my midterm paper, “Is English even your first language?” So to hear this diehard hockey fan tell me that his two all-time favorite hockey articles he had ever read were both articles I authored? I think he validated that what I was doing was the right thing. I was telling the stories of the people I meet.
“Madden’s Timeout” is one of the articles that I’ve heard hockey fans list as one of their favorite hockey stories. The other one was an interview I did with David Clarkson (NHL) who was playing for the New Jersey Devils at the time. A NY Rangers fan that adamantly hated Clarkson messaged me and said that the interview I did with Clarky helped him to change his mind about the guy. He, actually, became a fan of his. That’s the power of a good interview.
I wrote this piece during my rookie season. Yes, I heard the players tease Madden about me calling him a Cinderella Man in this piece, but they did so with respect to both the man and the author. This is the story that won NHL players all over the league to become regular readers of mine. It was stories like this that would have the most coveted player in the NHL tell me where he was going to sign before anyone else knew.
Sometimes people see who you are before you can even see it in yourself. They believe in you before you can learn how to believe in yourself…that you are good enough. This story is the story I needed to remind me of who I am and where I am going.
I’m thankful that Madden was stuck in his locker the entire season. He heard what was said to me. He saw how I reacted. When the moment came when people would accuse me of some misogynistic crap, he’s the one that stood up for me and allowed me to continue for years to come. For him, I am thankful. He gave me the best interview to date.
Madden’s Timeout
Published: March 14, 2009 Inside Hockey Edited: October 4, 2023
All season, I’ve watched John “Mad Dog” Madden sitting in his stall seething game after game. I always watched him, sitting there quietly awaiting any member of the press to come by and ask him a few questions. But that aura he gives off is that of a ‘mad dog’ ready to bite off anyone’s head that asks the wrong question.
Most of us have been too scared to walk up to him and ask our questions about the game. Regardless of whether we stop at his stall to talk to him or not, he sits there and waits for his ten minutes of press time to be over, like a kid sitting in timeout.
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve overheard him ask the Devils communications team if his ten minutes were up and if he could leave. Those times he asked, no one from the press had stopped by to talk to him during those ten minutes. If those ten minutes weren’t over, he’d sit there and wait a little longer until someone said he could go.
After the Calgary game, as I was walking from one side of the locker room, past Madden, toward Martin Brodeur sitting a few stalls down from him, my Blackberry caught Madden’s “Are my ten minutes up, yet?” It was a little humorous to hear it on the feed, so I decided to make sure his next ten minutes in his locker room stall were more productive than his ten minute timeouts over the past few weeks.
Interestingly enough, Madden had a lot to say in those ten minutes while I sat next to him in David Clarkson’s neighboring stall. His story is not the common story we hear from most NHLers. His story is indeed a Cinderella story. Not since the legendary boxer Jim “Cinderella Man” Braddock have we seen this kind of story.
In The Beginning
Any blue collar worker or kid growing up in tough times can’t help but have a lot of admiration for Madden. He grew up in the projects of Toronto, but luckily he had a guardian angel on his side making sure that this streetwise kid grew up to become something better.
But all of that hard work during hard times gave Madden the backbone he would later need when he joined Lou Lamoriello’s team. That hard work is what gave him his work ethic that would define him as a New Jersey Devil. But it was that guardian angel that provided him with a lot of luck and opportunities.
“I was fortunate in a lot of different ways,” Madden said as he began his tale. “I was a good hockey player. So a lot of teams wanted me to play for them. A lot of teams kind of waived their fees to play. Well, I shouldn’t say kind of…they did. So that really helped out a lot.”
“I was really young,” he said about his youthful hockey start. “I can’t remember, maybe four or five years old.
“As soon as I could walk, I think my Dad threw me in skates, if I can remember correctly.” His Dad was a big part of his hockey development years. The reason why Madden is one of the best guys at the face-off circle for the Devils has to do with the fact his father forced him to practice the face-offs again and again.
“He never played professionally,” he said of his father. “But he played a lot of hockey. I remember watching him play a lot of hockey when I was young kid and going to his games all of the time, even though they were late at night. He allowed me to go and it was great.
“It was just a normal childhood growing up in a broken home. My mom did everything she could to give me the best of what I needed, and working two jobs, etcetera. She found a way and I found a way to get to the rinks, whether it was hitching a ride with a friend on a team.”
“Or taking, when I was a little bit older (maybe 13),” he said with a smile of remembrance. “I was able to take the Toronto transit system by myself if I’m allowed. I thought that was great until it got real cold out.” He then paused to laugh, “Then I didn’t think it was so great.”
“I just found a way and I was very lucky to have a lot of people help out along the way in terms of coaches. I had a coach up in Ontario named Jim Burke who really helped out a lot when I was 15/16. He really helped out with a few things and putting me up in his house and giving me guidance along the way, not only hockey but with other things.”
The College Years
After Madden graduated from high school, he headed to the University of Michigan to play for the Maize and Blue. “I was kind of surprised, to be quite honest with you,” he said about getting into college. “I was always a decent student. I never studied, but I was able to get C’s and the odd B in there. The reason why I never studied, I just never really thought about it. As long as I was getting by, I was doing alright. I spent most of my time playing hockey outside.
“I was 17/18 years old in my senior year in high school. There were, I don’t know, 15 teams that came in to watch me play. They all offered me scholarships of some sort. I was lucky to meet a guy, Assistant Coach at Michigan, Mel Pearson, who I liked a lot, and he made me feel comfortable around him. And I think that was the biggest key to going to that school. It was kind of close to home.”
University of Michigan has had a lot of great hockey players coming out of their school.
“You know what’s funny,” Madden said about Michigan. “I didn’t look at those teams back then. I was thinking ‘how far away is this from home?’ I wasn’t thinking NHL. I was thinking, ‘what if this doesn’t work out?”‘
“What was your backup plan?” I asked him.
“I didn’t have one,” he responded.
“You were taking it as it goes?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, it was really weird. I kind of fell into a lot of things, obviously by hard work and being in the right place at the right time. It was just one of those things that came about. I was kind of surprised when they said scholarship. I was like, ‘what do you mean? I get to go four years there?’
“I was kind of new to that area, too. None of the guys on our team had ever gotten a scholarship or an offer. I was kind of the first guy there. Mike Bales went to Notre Dame and Jeremy Brown (from our team) went to Western Michigan. So there were a few good hockey players on our team…so there were a lot of guys that year that went to some good schools. It was all new to us. Obviously, others had good game plans. I was just going with it. I had nothing else.” (He laughs.) “I had nothing else left to do, so I was like, ‘well, let’s go with it.’ And then by sophomore year, I realized I had a really good opportunity.
“Freshman year I was kind of going through the motions. I probably wanted to go home more than anything.”
Even with those freshman jitters, during his college days, he posted some of the most amazing numbers playing for the the Wolverines.
“My freshman year was a blur, it seems like. It seems like so many things were happening, so many new things between friends, school and opening my eyes to different parts of life I never saw before. I remember wanting to go home at Michigan, but at the same time, when I got home that summer, all I wanted to do was to go back. I couldn’t wait to go back. I was like, ‘Wow! What an opportunity!’ I kind of didn’t do my best my freshman year, so I went back and had a great sophomore, junior and senior year.
“Again, I got lucky again, because I wasn’t drafted and Brendan Morrison was [drafted] for the Devils and they came to see Brendan a lot. He was the second round pick for the Devils. I just got real lucky because they really liked my game and Lou Lamoriello really liked my game. They offered me a contract right out of college, a two-way contract. The rest is just kind of history. I just kept working and I got a chance in the NHL.”
The Present (Now) is a Present (a Gift)
Madden has been a part of two of the last Stanley Cups for the New Jersey Devils. Going into the final stretch, I wanted to know if the feeling was there now, like it was the last two times the Devils won the Cup.
“It’s the same,” he replied, getting a little quieter (just in case the hockey gods were listening). “The reason why it’s the same is we know we’ve got something special going here. We’ve got a lot of things working in our favor. To win the Stanley Cup, you need a little bit of luck…a lot of luck.”
“It seems like that’s what we have here,” I replied.
“Yeah,” he continued. “We’ve got some guys that are working really hard, and a lot of key role players, and depth. I mean, depth is the key. So many guys get banged up in the playoffs and you need four or five guys to chip in and score goals. You need everybody to be accountable, you know…a lot of intangibles to hockey. It’s not just having great pitchers pitch in and give up one run and all you’ve got to get is two. There’s a lot of different things going on. We seem to be working towards that. The one thing I like about this group is that we’re tight. We’re as tight as any team that I’ve played on. They compare this tightness to the ’03 team, when Jim McKenzie and Turner Stevens were here. We were a real tight group then. We had a lot of fun and that’s what we’re doing right now. We’re having a lot of fun.”
Going forward for the remainder of the season and into the post-season, Madden said, “I hope we just continue to win hockey games and keep building. Every year, we’ve been eliminated first, second or third rounds. It’s because of the way we entered the playoffs. You know, sputtering or injury plagued…something’s always gone wrong. It’s been real difficult getting there, and we thought that once we got there, we could turn it up. But that’s not the way it works. We’ve got to turn it up and start playing some really good hockey down the stretch here. I think that’s what I’m really looking forward to is seeing the guys pick their games up as we move closer towards the playoffs.
“In the playoffs, we have high expectations. I’m sure other teams have the same high expectations. We’ve had them all year, since day one. We’re going to continue to have those, especially when we’re playing hockey.”
Tuesday’s game against the Calgary Flames is being talked about as the preview to the Stanley Cup Finals. When I spoke to Madden about it, he responded, “So they had the Devils versus Calgary? I like that!” He laughed. “If they would have said that we weren’t in the Finals, I would have told them that they don’t know what they’re talking about.”
Of course, the Devils beat Calgary on Tuesday if that’s any quiet prediction of things to come.
Earlier in the season, hockey pundits said that the Devils would not be in the Finals. When Martin Brodeur went out, everyone had pitted that the Devils were going to go out and not even make it to the post-season. But instead that happened to the New York Islanders when they lost Rick DiPietro right around the same time.
“Sure. That could be expected,” Madden said of the talks of the Devils going out earlier in the season. “I mean, you know what? Winning and losing in the NHL is a thin line. A lot of it has to do with your attitude, what you expect of yourself, and what you accept. If you accept losing, you’ll lose. You’ll lose by one goal. You’ll find a way to lose when you make excuses.
“We could have made an excuse. And that’s one of the other things I really like about this team. We could have made excuses, ‘now that Marty’s not here, we’re going to lose.’ But you know what? There’s a lot of guys in this room. It was an opportunity for a lot of guys to step up and say, ‘You know what? Marty’s a great goalie. He’s going to the Hall of Fame. He’s going to beat Patrick Roy’s record. But we’re still a good hockey team.’ And I think that’s what we said.”
With Brodeur getting ready to make history, Madden said about being part of this historical moment, “It feels good. It feels great. I’ve been fortunate to play my whole career here, and Marty’s been in the net for a lot of those games. I’ve got to tell ya, it’s really reassuring. It makes you sleep well at night knowing he’s back there covering you up when you make mistakes.”
The Moral To Madden’s Story
This is where I need to explain why I am calling this a Cinderella story.
We all know Cinderella’s story of how she went from hard work, hard labor, being destitute and growing up in a broken home to being blessed by a fairy godmother that went on to help her to live happily ever after. Even before the finale of her happily ever after, she still had some feats to conquer and people wanting to harm her right as she was touching the tips of her path in life…freedom and a better life. In the end, she made her wish come true – success.
That is what a true Cinderella story is about. For us girls, we were taught the story a little differently…it was about meeting Prince Charming and finding true love. But that’s not what the story is really about. It’s about overcoming the odds of a hard childhood and reaching a dream that is bigger thanyourself. It’s about working through the trials and tribulations in life and succeeding in life when the moment arrives for you to follow your destiny. It reminds us that even the impossible is possible.
With Madden’s Cinderella story, he grew up without the privileged life. He worked hard, without ever knowing why. His effort paid off when youth hockey clubs helped him out. People put out a helping hand without asking for anything in return. He followed his path, never knowing where it was leading or what that path was. He followed his path in life without ever asking questions…he just lived it.
By some chance, luck was on his side. A guardian angel (fairy godmother) made sure to provide him with more opportunities as he walked along his path. He headed off to college (an opportunity that he didn’t think was possible) and worked hard. Someone noticed…and he gave Madden a contract to play in the NHL.
That path then led to a bigger purpose where he, along with his team, won two Stanley Cups. This has been his journey so far. He’ll have more feats to add to his Cinderella story as time moves on.
This goes to show that no matter how horrible you think your conditions are, those moments are there for a reason. They are there to help prepare you for the future so that when that moment arrives, we can change those conditions for the better. If you are ill-prepared for when that time comes, your path will not change. You will stay in those conditions until you learn the lessons you were supposed to learn before you can climb to the next rung. That is the secret to changing your circumstances.
When our moment arrives when we must follow our path in life, we will know how to handle the obstacles as they appear along the horizon. Life is about taking chances and learning from our past. Madden would not be the New Jersey Devil that he is without that hard work ethic he learned in his youth. He would not appreciate what he was doing, if he hadn’t gone home that summer and realized the amazing opportunity he had in his life. That realization later led to a hockey contract and the rest is history from there. Fairy tales do come true. That’s what Walt Disney has taught us (there’s always a deeper moral to those cartoons).
Also, as a side note to this story, those individuals that were part of his story that helped him along on his journey, it goes to show that good tidings in life towards others helps everyone in the longer run. Stepping up and helping others can go a long way. He was fortunate that people invested some of their time to him. He grew up to do the same for others.
It takes one moment to change another person’s life. Just make sure that one moment is a good moment.
To buy or not to buy a dupe? That is the question. Counterfeit bags are the it bag right now. Here’s the low down.
Walking out of my midtown NYC office after work one evening last winter, I saw a blonde woman with a kid in a stroller. Upscale. Very apparent she had money. She was running around like a maniac from one handbag street merchant to the next.
“Fake Chanel. Do you have any fake Chanel?” she asked one man at the corner.
“No. I do not sell fakes,” he responded.
At this point, I wanted to tell her where I bought mine last year while I was doing research for this article. But then I opted not to, because I enjoyed watching this woman running around frantically looking for a fake Chanel bag outside of my office. It was a strange sight: an upscale woman who, by all intents and purposes, had the appearance that she could just walk into the Chanel store and buy the real deal.
It ends up, there are a lot of women just like her running around Manhattan sporting their very fake couture handbags, because believe it or not, carrying the fake is the latest trend.
I never thought I would say that a counterfeit bag is the new “It” bag. Really. That makes me shudder. After working on my own couture handbag collection over the last decade, imagine my shock after I started doing a deep dive into the counterfeit realm and discovered that most women I’ve seen around New York City carrying their Louis Vuitton Neverfulls and Goyard tote bags were actually carrying fakes? Like why was I wasting my money on the real deal all these years?
Why? Because I met with the lawyers for Louis Vuitton when I first came to New York. They told me about their investigations into finding fake LV bags. They scared me straight into never buying fakes. They taught me the importance of buying the real thing.
That was 2005. Almost 20 years later, owning the real bag is met with backlash by the younger generation. Consumers that purchase directly through the brand (or resale) are ridiculed and accused of acting like they are far superior to those who cannot afford the bag. Basically, it has become the equivalent of the peasant throwing cake at Marie Antoinette and telling her to eat the damn cake herself, with a lot of extra anti-bourgeois expletives.
The influencers that are heralded and making a pretty penny these days are the ones that push the dupe and fake narrative. An affiliate link to the dupe they found on the Walmart app or Amazon, nets them a pretty penny, because that’s what their followers want. They want that fake Louis Vuitton bag for $30. So that is exactly what the influencer is going to find for them.
THE INFLUENCER
On a lazy Sunday morning last summer, I was perusing a Chinese marketplace app. My friend, Ethel (God rest her soul), was a big fan of the site. She was a big crafter and loved ordering the free or $1 items to add to her collection. I thought I would peruse and maybe buy some washi tape or stickers.
While I was going through the app, I noticed over and over again fake listings for fake couture bags. I kept thinking these photos can’t be real. Or maybe they’re just poor fakes. I became curious after passing the twentieth listing, so I clicked on it. No, there was no way these dupes could be that good. So I purchased something like 20 bags ranging from Christian Dior to Louis Vuitton, Bottega Veneta, Chanel and Gucci thinking I could do a piece on fake couture bags [i.e., you’re reading that article right now].
When I received the shipments, I was in shock. The bags looked exactly like the real deal. One Chanel bag even came in a Chanel box with receipts from a Chanel boutique in Hong Kong. I was just flabbergasted at how real the bags looked. I took a picture of the fake next to my real Chanel Deauville tote and asked followers to tell me which bag was real and which was fake. Everyone, except the people that worked in the fashion industry, pointed to the fake as being the real bag and the real bag as being the fake! [The pink bag in the picture is the real.]
You actually need to inspect the stitching in the logo to determine which bag is real and which is fake…and that is only if you know what you are looking for!
Two weeks after I received my bags, I was scrolling through Instagram and one of the biggest influencers I follow was showing off her new bags. I stopped and looked closely. She had five or six new bags ranging from Chanel to Bottega Veneta. I took a really good look. They were the exact same bags I just received from the Chinese marketplace app. The exact same bags right down to the color and size.
Now, how ironic is it that she had all of the same bags I just received?
That is when I realized she was one of those Influencers: a mix of fake mixed in with real. I felt like I could say, “I see you now.” And yes, I was very disappointed. I haven’t looked at her in the same way since then.
HBO Max (now Max) came out with a series called “Fake Famous.” They enlisted a handful of people and tried to create an amazing life to share on Instagram in order to help elevate them to a status where they could get sponsorships, free merchandise, and help them become famous. The experiment was cut short due to the pandemic.
The end result was that faking it to make it worked for the actress. It helped her get a few jobs, as well as free merchandise and trips. For one individual, people that knew them called them out, and the experiment failed for them. Others did not like how it made them feel. They couldn’t be their own true authentic self. It took away from who they are and the person they wanted to be.
What amazed me the most about this experiment is that it revealed just how fake Instagram can be. Influencers portray this incredible life, when it is all staged. They pay $100 to use a set, have a photographer take photos on this set, and then they post it to their Instagram. No, they are not on a private jet. That’s just a set. They’re not living in some posh mansion, they rented the room for an hour to take photos in it.
Influencers can and do fake everything they are posting. Sure, there are a few real people out there, but then there are those who will fake it to make it. In this case, this Influencer mixes her fake life in order to get a real life, instead of just being real the entire time.
This can be confusing for newcomers breaking into the TikTok and Instagram fashion influencer worlds. At Vogue World last September, I met a young TikTok fashion influencer that was just starting out. He told me that he was thinking of leaving to go to the Vogue Club party where people would be watching the Vogue World fashion show on television. I stopped him right there. He’s right where the event is happening. Those influencers watching it on television WISH they were at the actual event. Why leave to watch it on TV when you could be living it?
After I said that, he realized how foolish it was to think that. But at the same time, he was revealing something about his generation. There’s a disconnect with understanding what is real and what is fake. Do you choose the fake life to make it real? Or do you live the real life and share your journey?
Why embrace the fake couture and the fake life when you could have the real thing?
HOW DID THIS GET PAST SECURITY?
I put in a very large order through the app and expected none of them to arrive. I had this belief that Customs would see it and confiscate every single item. In a way, this was my way of testing to see if Customs was doing their job.
After the first four bags arrived, it was very apparent which packages were the counterfeit bags. Every bag was wrapped in either a gray or black plastic trash bag like material with lots of tape around it. You could pick out the packages from a sea of boxes. Customs had to have noticed, right?
Oh, every single bag made it through Customs. EVERY. SINGLE. COUNTERFEIT. BAG. To this day, I am still shaking my head that Customs didn’t infiltrate any of these bags.
What does that say about US Customs?
In an article similar to this piece, the New York Times magazine reported that in 2022, only 300,000 bags were intercepted. Considering the demand for fake couture bags, that is only about 5% of what is coming into America.
TO DUPE OR NOT TO DUPE? THAT IS THE QUESTION
For some consumers, there is no question, they are going to buy the dupe. But for hard core ethical designer lovers, they would prefer to buy the real thing. They don’t want to waste their money on fakes and put out a fake image.
Take for instance the Hermes Birkin bag. This bag is at the top of the list for all couture handbag lovers. For the longest time, this bag was the only handbag to go up in value. Owning a Birkin isn’t just a status symbol, it is also a wise financial investment. Not everyone is offered an opportunity to purchase a Birkin from Hermes. A friend of mine was offered a Birkin. He purchased it for $20,000 and flipped it 6 months later for $75,000. Not too many people can get a return like that on their investment that quickly. Because of the bag’s scarcity on the market and the brand’s limitations in the ability to purchase a bag, any bag that enters the resale market can expect a heftier price tag than if you purchased it directly from the Hermes store. Those severe markups will still sell, because people are desperate to own an Hermes Birkin bag.
Joan Rivers was a Birkin collector. She was one of the first celebrities to admit that she owned both real and fake Birkins. Another woman made famous on Good Morning America for her luxury closet was burglarized. The burglar discovered that the majority of her closet was fake and leaked it to the news. She claimed that every woman has high end, low end, and vintage items in their closet. The low end included her fakes.
In 2022, The Cut released an article on rich women who love their fake Birkins. They can afford the real Birkin, as well as a closet full of them. But these days, they’d rather spend a few hundred dollars on the fake Birkins than spend thousands on the real ones. The rich ladies of New York have made it into a contest to see who can get a Birkin that looks as close to the real thing as possible. They are one of the biggest consumers of fake luxury handbags. They even have their own fake couture parties (similar to the legendary Tupperware parties).
So if the rich ladies of New York are buying dupes and making a game of it, shouldn’t everyone else follow?
For those who love couture and are not fabulously wealthy, but can afford 1-4 bags a year, this proves to be a dilemma. They’ve spent years saving for these items and have amassed a collection, something they value. They spend a lot of time curating pieces to add to their collection, even if it takes years to acquire it. It is a collection. So adding a dupe has its ethical issues, but in 2023, they may be saying a different story.
My friend Simon and I spend a lot of time sharing our recent couture buys and the adventure that went into procuring it for our closet. We had a long discussion on the fake couture world, and this is what he had to say about it.
It takes only one time for someone to place judgment upon you. If they realize you are carrying a fake, but you are trying to act like it is real, they will consider you a fake. You’re pretending to be something you are not. Even if you carry the real thing after that, when they see you, they will always assume what you have is fake. They will spread the news that you carry fakes, because this is the opinion they have of you. It’s the Will Rogers saying, “You never get a second chance to make a good first impression.”
Letting your children play with fake couture is perfectly acceptable, so long as they only carry the real thing outside of the home. [Back to first impressions.]
But there are exceptions to this in 2023 that Simon and I both agree upon. Influencer Karen Blanchard (karenbritchick) advises her followers that it is perfectly fine to purchase the dupe or a knockoff if you want to try out a certain style before dedicating a lot of money to it. If you find you really like the bag, then she recommends investing in the real thing.
This is sage advice. I loved the Bottega Veneta Jodie and Cassette bags. They came in so many colors, so I ordered the dupes in every color. While I love the way the bags look in my closet, these are not bags I would want to invest in, because they do not properly fit the items I normally put in a bag. I am glad I took her advice on this, because I would not have been happy owning the real thing. I would have resold the bags, because they may look beautiful on the shelf, but I need something I can use.
Another reason to carry dupes in this day and age is because of the rise in crime, especially muggings. Returning to life post-pandemic, we worried a lot about carrying the real thing in Manhattan. There were plenty of stories of people being robbed in Midtown. The idea of losing a bag that costs more than our rent, meant that the girls stayed on the shelves. We carried cheap tote bags, backpacks, or purses that would not attract attention to us.
The idea of carrying a dupe in the post-pandemic world made sense, because we could still carry a similar designer looking bag and not have a heart attack if it gets stolen. One bag I love more than anything are my Fendi tote bags. I bought a dupe of the Louis Vuitton Neverfull, because it mimics the Fendi tote. I do not normally buy LV, because it feels like everyone in NYC owns LV. I got it in pink and I make sure people who comment on the bag know that it is a fake LV. That’s me being honest. Plus, all of my bags have a story. Being honest about it allows me to open up the conversation about dupes and luxury handbags.
One bag I invested in after trying out the knockoff style was Balenciaga’s Agneau bag. Back when I first moved to NYC, I saw the bag being sold by one of the guys on the corner and I picked one up in pink and aqua. I carried those two bags for years until they fell apart. I absolutely loved them. I actually did not know at the time they were Balenciaga Agneau bags. After I found out that I could upgrade to the real thing, I bought one.
Taking Karen’s advice, if you want to be a smart consumer, buy the knockoff style to try it out before you buy the real thing. Upgrade only to the bags you fall in love with. That upgrade is about buying that bag you love in better qualitative materials and craftsmanship. The bag will last you a very long time, unlike the dupe. And because you know you love the bag, you will keep it for a very long time.
THE OLD FAST FASHION VS. DESIGNER/THRIFTING ARGUMENT (I.E. THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT)
You see the argument all of the time: the environmental and human impact on buying fast fashion vs. buying the authentic designer piece. Both sides can say both play a party to the issues we face today with waste. But instead of pointing fingers away, we should ask ourselves what impact we are making in this argument.
How sustainable is the product we are purchasing? If we are trying to curb our carbon footprint, wouldn’t it be more feasible to buy vintage? Wouldn’t it also be better to choose the more qualitative piece that is designed to last a lifetime? Shouldn’t we be doing our part to keep items that have already been made out of landfills, instead of reaching for something that is newly made?
Everyone always wants what’s new and what’s within our budget range. While people flock to places like Shein, H&M, and Forever 21, after the newness wears off, a lot of those items end up in landfills and thrift stores. Some people in NYC report that the majority of items they find in thrift stores are from Shein. No one wants to purchase used Shein, knowing that the reason why it’s in the thrift store to begin with is because it is so poorly made, it did not have sustaining power to last a long time. This is true of fake bags. They are not made to last. They are meant to be a fast fashion product, marketed at a lower price for anyone to purchase, so that they can sell more product to more people.
Considering the constant problems the world is having with climate change, why contribute more to the problem? Why make new items when we have way more than enough products out there to satisfy everyone?
While I struggle with this myself (look at all the bags I bought for purposes of this article), sometimes change doesn’t start tomorrow, it starts now. You can commit yourself right now to making a difference. Focus on designers like Coachtopia or Zero Waste Daniel who are taking old products and repurposing them to create something new. They are trying to help curb their carbon imprint, while still creating something new. Buy vintage or thrifted bags. Even if you have no clue if they are real or not, buy something you love and will use.
THE PROBLEM WITH TRAVELING WITH A FAKE
If you plan on travelling internationally, keep your fakes at home. Do not travel with them. Countries like France and Italy will fine you if you are caught carrying a fake. You may think you can handle the fine, but the fine is actually more than the real bag itself. There have been reports of fines beginning at $5,000.
When I travel with couture, I have always been stopped. Customs officials in England, France, Switzerland and Italy have all inspected my handbags. My $500 Just Cavalli bag I always travel with has been inspected again and again and again for authenticity.
While fakes are becoming more and more difficult to authenticate from the real thing, unless you have the money for the fines, keep the fakes at home or just buy the real thing and travel with it. At the end of the day, if you get caught with a fake and have to pay for all of those fines, you’ll come to the harsh realization that it would have been so much cheaper if you actually purchased the real thing.
ALTERNATIVES
Instead of buying dupes, you should look into buying the real thing for less in the resale market. Look for vintage bags or try your luck in thrift stores or estate sales. I once picked up a Fendi messenger bag for $75 through an estate sale. I even got an iconic Gucci bag for $100 through a thrift find. This style of bag is relaunched every few years, so it is always in style.
If you are in the market for the real deal, go with reputable resale companies like Fashionphile or purchase through Ebay’s Authenticated merchandise. Also, try The Outnet or Net-a-Porter when they have 80% off sales. The Outnet and Yoox are both sister sites to Net-a-Porter and offer severe discounts on couture items.
The Malus Domestica series from S. A. Hunt is one of my favorite scary series. It starts with Burn the Dark, followed by I Come With Knives, and The Hellion. This series is perfect for those who love their scary books to be on the extreme side, as in explosive action featuring witches, demons, and lots and lots of scary stuff. I don’t think I will ever get that cat scene out of my head.
This is also perfect for those looking for a trans author to read and follow.
What I loved about this series was all of the explosive action, followed by everything super evil you can think of. I may end up going back to read this series again.
This series is one you need to share with everyone who loves horror. It is really, really good.
Synopsis
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina meets Stranger Things in award-winning author S. A. Hunt’s Burn the Dark, first in the Malus Domestica horror action-adventure series about a punk YouTuber on a mission to bring down witches, one vid at a time.
Robin is a YouTube celebrity gone-viral with her intensely-realistic witch hunter series. But even her millions of followers don’t know the truth: her series isn’t fiction.
Her ultimate goal is to seek revenge against the coven of witches who wronged her mother long ago. Returning home to the rural town of Blackfield, Robin meets friends new and old on her quest for justice. But then, a mysterious threat known as the Red Lord interferes with her plans…
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For over 50 years, the Diane von Furstenberg Wrap Dress has defied the test of time.
While curating the right pieces for your wardrobe that will withstand the test of time, you should add pieces from designers that have historically proven their ability to be fashionable over several decades.
Take for instance, the Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress. In 1976, Cybill Shepherd wore the DVF wrap dress in the iconic movie “Taxi Driver.” The 1972 dress design is still going strong 50 years later. It is timeless. It is an investment piece you will not regret adding to your curated wardrobe.
The iconic dress comes in a variety of prices and styles.
When I first moved to NYC, one of my managers introduced me to the DVF dress. She picked up her dress from Ebay. She wore it through both of her pregnancies and many years afterward.
Keeping that in mind, I added the classic style, as worn by Cybill Shepherd, to my wardrobe, as well as a sleeveless version. That dress never goes out of style, no matter which pattern you get.
Warning for petite women: skip the maxi length dress (especially if there is a pattern), because the dress is very long and not easily hemmed.
[DISCLOSURE: This post contains affiliate links. Should you click on any of the links below, I may receive a commission from the sale at no additional cost to you.]