Elevate Difference

Reviews by Jen Wilson Lloyd

Jen Wilson Lloyd

Jen Wilson Lloyd is a freelance writer and the author of Witch (2005, ISBN: 978-1420821093), a fictional first person account of the life of Bridget Bishop of Salem.

She has worked for BBC Magazines in London, Seal Press in Seattle, and several independent record labels. She is currently at home writing her next book while her twins attend kindergarten.

Gray Flower Beret

I guess you could say that hats have always been my ‘thing.’ It really started the first time I shaved my head… and then soon after decided to grow my hair back in again. It was a long process in which hats played an integral part. I repeated this process several times throughout my twenties. Now, a mom, I love hats and any hair covering article that can erase the clues to the timing of my last shower in one fell swoop. When my CoverYourHair.com hat arrived, I was giddy. It was very cute and, well, like I said, I love hats.

Nimo’s War, Emma’s War: Making Feminist Sense of the Iraq War

The stories of eight women’s lives, four Iraqi and four American, establish the framework for an examination of the gendered phases of war. Nimo is a beauty salon owner in Baghdad who keeps her business open through blackouts and listens to what the women there really think. Emma is a mother in Texas, urged to let her second son join the military during wartime. Maha, Danielle, Safah, Kim, Shatha, and Charlene all have stories that in telling offer a deeper look into not only their circumstances, but into the state of the world and of the ravages of wartime.

The Desires of Letters

In 1994, poet Bernadette Mayer published The Desires of Mothers to Please Others in Letters, a collection of loosely structured and un-posted letters written over a nine-month period while she was a new mother in New York in 1979.

Lifting Depression: A Neuroscientist's Hands-On Approach to Activating Your Brain's Healing Power

"Depression hurts," chimes the television announcer. Most people have been depressed at some point in their lives, whether from a life-changing event or simply a bad patch of circumstance. I am willing to wager that if you haven’t been there yourself, you know someone who has suffered from depression. The pharmaceutical industry is now doling out pills to treat depression and a large portion of our population is taking them, some with marked results, some going from pill to pill searching for the perfect cocktail that will relieve them of pain and anxiety, fear and restlessness.

A Place of Belonging: Five Founding Women of Fairbanks, Alaska

The thing I remember most about my brief visit to Alaska is that even in Anchorage, I could feel the lessening of human population as soon as I stepped off of the plane.

The Sixties

Jenny Diski gave me more to contemplate in 134 pages of The Sixties than I could manage to willfully squeeze out of the last piece of popular literary fiction I read. It is clear after only a few sentences that Diski is a writer worth her salt, and why she was the one chosen to handle this topic. Often the sixties are romanticized to the point of obscurity, those who lived through them trying to weave fame, and infamy, out of their psychedelic experiences.

Stepmonster: A New Look at Why Real Stepmothers Think, Feel, and Act the Way We Do

Wednesday Martin lists Step-Dilemma Number One as “The Myth of the Blended Family” in this emotionally charged look into the real experiences of stepmothers: Stepmonster.

Just Like Family: Inside the Lives of Nannies, the Parents They Work for, and the Children They Love

Like Tasha Blaine, I once took a job working as a nanny. Also like the author, I thought it would be a relatively easy gig that would allow me the freedom to write while working in a nice, supportive environment.

Boyfriend University: Take Advantage of Your Man and Learn While You Can

In 1994 I was sitting around a bonfire in my combat boots and a thrift store granny dress, drinking homebrew and wondering how many years it had been since I’d used a razor, when someone handed me a pamphlet from the 1930s about how to be a “good wife.” And I couldn’t believe what I was seeing—it was demeaning and yet terribly serious all at once, and we laughed with a combination of horror and relief that the world had changed so much since our grandmothers were young.  This particular memory came flooding back to me when I received _[Boyfriend University](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/

Cancer is a Bitch: (Or, I'd Rather Be Having A Midlife Crisis)

After completing her second novel (one about a woman dealing with breast cancer that her agent wasn't very excited about), Gail Konop Baker was actually diagnosed with the disease herself. In this book, she takes the journals that kick started her column "Bare-Breasted Mama" and turns them into this smart, funny, insightful, and intimate book about an event in her life that really rocked her world. I selected this read because it seems like cancer has been creeping around the six-degree-edges of my life lately.

On Their Own: Women Journalists and the American Experience in Vietnam

Joyce Hoffman read a book about journalists who reported on American involvement in Vietnam in the sixties and wondered to herself, “Where are the women?” Considering that she holds a Ph.D. in American Studies, a job teaching journalism to college students, and pens a biweekly op-ed column about journalism accuracy and fairness issues, it was not unlikely that she would write the book that would answer that question.

Starved for Science: How Biotechnology Is Being Kept Out of Africa

As a mom who does what I can to buy organic food for my family, I completely understand the general distaste most of us have for genetically modified (GM) foods. The very thought of vegetables altered by scientists in labs seems creepy and somehow inherently wrong, doesn’t it?

Zodiac Girls: Recipe for Rebellion

Cathy Hopkins has sold millions of books, most of them written for teenage girls. After reading her latest book, Zodiac Girls: Recipe for Rebellion, I credit her popularity with a tone that both accurately captures the anxieties of adolescent life, and also achieves a likeability of character that is the key to most of today’s popular literature. Formerly an art school student, rock singer, aromatherapist and teacher of meditation techniques, Hopkins has an edge to her, a wit and style only found in people who have lived life outside of the lines to a certain degree.

Trespassing through Time

Do you like Sandra Bullock? Some people do, and some people don't. But she does have a certain appeal, a wide-open smile that brightens the celluloid, and her popularity is evidenced by box office stats and the ability to get Miss Congeniality made into a sequel. Well, Trusting Calliope has a similar charm. Jill Horn and Susannah Meyer are both California natives who are often mistaken for sisters. Before they joined forces, their lives ran parallel paths.

Acceleration

In his latest double disc release, Acceleration, Tom Gavornik continues on with his forty-year, six-string love affair and creates a welcoming modern jazz space, always hospitable and graced by the spirits of many of his own musical icons. This is his eighth release and follows the double disc, Soul Cry, which topped many U.S. and Canadian jazz charts in 2005. Disc one gently rolls from the light "Breeze in a Bottle" through to a mellower "One Small Cup of Water," showcasing his skills with a Telecaster, and echoing the great Les Paul as well as many of the rock groups of the sixties.
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