The Spotlight's On: Alison Piepmeier

Getting to Know You:

Name:  Alison Piepmeier

Blog Name and URL:  “Every little thing” (www.alisonpiepmeier.blogspot.com).  I also used to have a blog called “Baxter Sez” (www.piepmeier.blogspot.com).

Blogger or Wordpress?  Blogger

Favorite widget or plugin?  Oh, I don’t think I’m cool enough to have an answer to that question.

What’s one thing that people don’t know about you?  I feel like I’ll talk about anything on my blog!  But people probably don’t know that cold cereal is my very favorite food of all.  Mmm, I wish I were eating some right now.

While we are at it, what’s your theme song?  “Groove Is In the Heart,” by De La Soul. 

Dish you would bring to our community picnic:  Chocolate chip cookies.  Or maybe fudge pie—I don’t love fudge pie, but everybody else does.

On Blogging:

What got you blogging and what keeps you going?  I started blogging because my then-husband and I lived in different states, and we’d moved away from the state where our families live (Tennessee).  The blog was a place to share what Charleston was like, and then for us to keep in touch with each other while Walter was finishing his last year of graduate school.  What keeps me going is the fact that I love blogging.  It’s a place where I can get my ideas out in an informal, non-academic way.  And I can get feedback and create a community.

One post (that you wrote) that makes you laugh? “Bitchmother” was a pretty funny one (and it includes an illegally posted picture from the fantastic zine, The East Village Inky, by Ayun Halliday):  http://alisonpiepmeier.blogspot.com/2013/02/bitchmother.html

One post you are really proud of, for whatever reason?  This is an old post, from 2006 on “Baxter Sez,” called “Hairy-Legged Feminist” (http://piepmeier.blogspot.com/2006/05/hairy-legged-feminist.html).  The byline is Biffle, but I wrote it.  It has nothing to do with Down syndrome.  People love it.  I’m proud of it as much as anything for the impact it’s had.  We don’t talk nearly enough in mainstream American culture about the possibility of letting your body hair grow.

How have you seen your blog/blogging style change and how would you like to see it develop?  My blog has become a little more focused on Down syndrome and disability studies, as well as reproductive justice—the topics I’m researching right now.  I don’t want that to become the focus of my blogging, though.  I appreciate the blog because it’s a site where I can articulate and explore anything I want to.  I gave the new blog the name “Every little thing” because I want it to be a space for whatever I’m interested in.

Two blogs you love to read and why?  I love “a moon worn as if it had been a shell” (http://elizabethaquino.blogspot.com), a blog by Elizabeth Aquino who is a fantastic writer.  Her daughter has epilepsy, and that’s something she blogs about quite a bit, but she also blogs about politics, food, parenting, poetry—I always enjoy going over there.  Another I really enjoy is “Viva la Feminista” (http://www.vivalafeminista.com).  Veronica Arreola is a scholar, activist, and mom, and she’s becoming a bigger and bigger name online!

Where else can we find you online?

Oh, my—here’s a list of options:

·        www..alisonpiepmeier.com

·        “Choosing to Have a Child with Down Syndrome” on the NYTimes Motherlode blog (http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/choosing-to-have-a-child-with-down-syndrome/)

·        “Outlawing Abortion Won’t Help Children with Down Syndrome” (http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/01/outlawing-abortion-wont-help-children-with-down-syndrome/)

·        “Girl w/Pen” (http://thesocietypages.org/girlwpen/)