10 Questions with Cheryl of Strikethru

1. Describe your blog in five sentences or less.
Strikethru is a blog for nostalgic types who still remember the smell of ditto paper. Who still have a shoebox of earnestly-penned letters from school crushes. Who possibly haunt thrift stores and eBay auctions for Royal Quiet De Luxes and Remington Quiet-riters. Who are still in search of the perfect turn-of-phrase. Or, who just like reading about this kind of thing.

2. Link us to one post from your blog that best defines who you are.
Slide Film, Resurrected. This was a very early post that captures my attempt to find the human story behind ephemera like letters and pictures, a source of endless unread stories.

3. What sets you apart from other bloggers?
I spend a lot of time waxing nostalgic about obsolete writing machinery.

4. When and how did you first discover blogging?
I began blogging in 1999, uploading pages of a site called The Hall of Heads via FTP. This was before blog was a word and people used to churn their own butter.

5. What is your biggest pet peeve related to blogging or the internet?
The way comments or letters sections for controversial blogs (e.g., Salon’s Broadsheet) quickly become dominated by tearer-downers.

6. Name one plugin, blogging widget, or service that you can’t live without.
I’m going to turn this question sideways and say, I put a tag cloud on my blog, but I have no idea what it does. Can someone explain it to me?

7. If you could choose anyone, living or dead, to write a guest post for your blog, who would it be and why?
Oh, John Updike, for sure. I think the opening paragraph of “Rabbit Run” is the greatest writing I’ve ever read. I love what he said about old photographs in a recent issue of the New Yorker, which I, of course, blogged about.

8. How has blogging made you a better person?
Community. Learning about other people’s lives. Seeing behind labels. When I was nursing my daughter, I often read The Lactivist, written by a woman with very different political/religious ideas than myself. She’s amazing.

9. What are your tips for becoming a better blogger?
Be earnest. Irony is dead.

10. Name one great blog that you read on a regular basis. What makes it unique?
Uppercase Woman. Cecily is so open about her life and her flaws. She is not afraid of controversy. She is not afraid of taking a hard look at herself. And she does it with style.

Categories: Retro, Ten Questions, Writing & Books