About
Maggie is a personal blogger at Okay, Fine, Dammit, a passionate (if distracted) tweeter at @MaggieDammit, and a full-time freelance writer. One of Maggie’s blog posts was anthologized in the 2009 book Kirtsy Takes a Bow, and she is a 2010 panelist for both BlogHer and Type A Mom conferences. She co-authored a book on Wisconsin for the State Department of Tourism, and has received three industry awards for her print journalism. In 2009 she founded Violence UnSilenced, where abuse survivors share their personal experiences, for which she was awarded a 2009 Community Service award from Domestic Abuse Intervention Services. Violence UnSilenced was a 2010 Bloggies finalist, and has been featured on iVillage, the Huffington Post, Momocrats, Our Bodies Ourselves Blog, BlogHer, a local city magazine, a CBS news affiliate, and dozens of other blogs and websites.
Maggie loves that the blogosphere is big enough for everyone, and bristles at how-to guides and “experts.” For her, this blog is a space to practice her craft, a financial extension of her freelancing umbrella, a platform for her voice, and a conduit for community. She sees just as much value in the people she has met through blogging as the writing she has done here, and that’s the truth.
Maggie lives with her husband and two daughters in rural Wisconsin. She loves cheese and beer but, ironically, eschews stereotypes. (She also no longer gets to have that beer, dammit.) She now writes, on occasion, about her experiences with sobriety because it is such a powerful and pervasive part of her life. She does not, however, talk about any specific treatment plan or group. Ever. Just as she has always been highly respectful of the privacy of everyone in her life, she is extremely reverent of the personal nature of recovery. She is no expert, nor does she wish to be. She simply strives to write with honesty, bravery, and integrity. She is not a tell-all blogger.
Maggie likes to knit, procrastinate, pull weeds in the rain, put on her sports bra as if she is going to work out, eat Swedish Fish, and watch terrible television. She often goes weeks without blogging, sending her mother into a frothy panic that Something Is Wrong. She quickly tires of speaking of herself in the third person, but it seems more professional so she does it anyway.
Please don’t read her early blog entries, they’re terrible.
