Author Archives: Mary Jo Doig

About Mary Jo Doig

Mary Jo Doig was the first in her family to attend college and graduated from the State University at Oneonta in New York’s Catskill Mountains with a degree in Secondary English Education/Educational Psychology. There she fell in love with rural life, remained, and eventually transitioned from city girl to country woman when she married a dairy farmer and raised their three children on their small family farm. A life-long lover of reading and writing, Mary Jo has for nearly twenty years been a member of the Story Circle Network. There she has been an editor, a women’s writing circle facilitator, a book reviewer, and life-writing enthusiast, working extensively with women writing their life-stories while writing her own memoir. Presently, she is a three-time Program Chair for SCNs national Stories from the Heart conference and a board member. She also facilitates Older Women’s Legacy workshops and a women’s life-writing circle in her area communities. Her stories have appeared in Kitchen Table Stories anthology, Story Circle Annual Anthologies, and most recently her story “I Can’t Breathe” was published in the Anthology, Inside and Out: Women’s Truths, Women’s Stories. Her work also appears in varied blogs and periodicals, on her blog Musings from a Patchwork Quilt Life (https://maryjod.wordpress.com), Facebook, and Twitter. Her son and two daughters grown, Mary Jo presently treasures her country life in Virginia’s Central Shenandoah Valley. She loves cooking (and eating!) healthy food, reading, writing, quilting, hiking, and spending quality time with her rescue cats, Button and Xena, and beagle, Addie, who each dream of being only children. Her first book, Patchwork: A Memoir of Love and Loss, will be published in October, 2018 by She Writes Press.

Musings about Patchwork

You might already know that I love patchwork! A central theme of my life, patchwork has been not only the decades long, pleasurable activity of quilting, but also a concept that has given me ever-deepening layers of meaning and insights … Continue reading

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Happy Birthday, Pattie C. Burke

Pattie and I met more than a decade ago in an online writing group sponsored by the  Story Circle Network. As we shared life stories through the months and years that followed, we grew to know what lived in each … Continue reading

Posted in Grace, Gratitude, The Writing Life | 3 Comments

My Amtrak Odyssey – Epilogue

My phone rings out this morning and a man says in a raspy, “Hello?” “Is this Pete?” I ask. “Yes, this is Pete,” he replies. “Hi, Pete. This is Mary Jo Doig. I’ve called three times during the past ten … Continue reading

Posted in Community, Grace, Gratitude, Kindness, Mother Nature | 7 Comments

My Amtrak Odyssey

My sister Bonnie and I had planned for weeks to meet on Long Island, where our other sister, Jackie, lives in a group home in Riverhead. I was coming as a surprise for Jackie on her 73rd birthday. Bonnie, spending … Continue reading

Posted in Change, Family, Kindness, Mother Nature | 11 Comments

A Woman of Worth: Laura Mitchell Keene

Originally posted on Telling HerStories: The Broad View:
Laura Mitchell Keene and I met at church many years ago. She read stories in Sunday school when my boys were small, and attended a women’s writing group there, making insightful and…

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Two decades ago, when life tugged me away from the little Catskill Mountain town where I’d hoped to live out my days, many years passed before I realized how much of my heart remains there and how much of Bovina … Continue reading

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Hello from Addie!

Hi Everybody, My mom’s quite behind in life at the moment, so I thought I’d say a quick Hi until she gets back to the next chapter of my journal. She’s been especially frustrated this week because her computer crashed … Continue reading

Posted in Animal friends, Courage, Grace, Gratitude, Kindness, Mystery, Nurturance | 1 Comment

Glorious Autumn Harvest Muffins

Between working on my memoir, taking long and lovely autumn walks on quiet country roads with Addie, time with family, my lovely writing circle, reading, and the many other things I love to do, I realized this morning as I … Continue reading

Posted in Animal friends, Family, Health, In the Kitchen, Nurturance | 6 Comments

Addie’s Journal, Chapter 7 – Celebrating the One Week Mark

A week has passed since Addie moved in with us. As I’ve watched her closely, her small daily changes  in adapting have given me much joy and so this day I’m taking measure of the growth I’ve seen. After Flower … Continue reading

Posted in Animal friends, Change, Courage, Gifts, Health, Nurturance | 4 Comments

Addie’s Journal – Chapter 6

The next morning when I peeked around the hall corner toward Addie in her crate, I said, “Addie, Good mor-ning! I’m so glad to see you!” I couldn’t resist clapping my palms together and raising my shoulders with joy. She … Continue reading

Posted in Animal friends, Courage, Grace, Gratitude, Mystery, Nurturance | 4 Comments