Madisen L. Ray, author & nerd.
Blog posts are from 20-something, pre-pandemic Madisen. Read at your own risk.
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Fight, Resist, Rebel… and Rest
Cover image via. When I started listening to NPR a few years ago, I never thought there would be a day where I just had to turn it off because I couldn’t bear to hear one more horrible thing about what’s happening in our country. I never thought I would go on Facebook and Twitter
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A Woman’s Place Is in the Resistance
Cover photo art by Hayley Gilmore and is available for download along with her other designs! Thank you, Hayley! Well it’s been a bit of a week, I’d say. On Wednesday, January 18, I saw Hamilton in Chicago with my best friend. It’s hard to put the experience into words (without a lot of superlatives). After
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EXPeriencing ‘The Color Purple’ by Alice Walker
Cover image via. Banned books, particularly those by women of color, always seem to be the most beautiful. I have a long list of books to read on my Goodreads account, and when I was making my 2017 reading challenge, I decided it was high time I made a dent on that list. As I was
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Ringing in the New Year
Why yes, I did ring in the new year with tabletop RPG-ing. And yes, I know the photo is blurry. 2016 was a dumpster fire for most of the world. Mass shootings, Brexit, President Elect Trump, the loss of so many icons… For me personally, 2016 was a pretty good year despite these outside stressors. I
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EXPeriencing the Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo
Cover image via Read, Write, and Read Some More. The moral of this blog post is to always listen to book recommendations from your friends who work in publishing. When publishing people personally recommend books, you know they’re good. And my friends were absolutely right about Leigh Bardugo’s Grisha Trilogy. In my last blog post,
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EXPeriencing Escapism & Inspiration through YA
Cover images via Kirkus and Leigh Bardugo’s website. The 2016 presidential election concluded nearly a month ago, but I don’t think it’ll ever be behind us. Not when our president elect is tweeting his frustrations at a satire comedy show and upsetting international relations. That’s why I needed some escapism as we head into the
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EXPeriencing Trump’s America
Note: This overall blog is not intended to be political, but while I have a venue to share my personal thoughts, I’m going to take advantage of it with this post. I welcome civil and respectful discourse below, but trolls will not be tolerated. On Sunday I drove to Elwood, Indiana, a small town about
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EXPeriencing The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD
Cover image via. The Legend of Zelda is my childhood, but not for the same reason as most of my peers. In 1992 when I was three years old, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past was released in the United States. Like many families, mine had a Super Nintendo. My dad liked video
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EXPeriencing ‘Life of Pi’
I’m not one to belabor seasons. As much as I love the warmth and long days of summer, I look forward to crisp leaves and the nip in the air that comes with fall. But as much as I’ve been looking forward to fall this year, it’s felt like a long time coming. September was more like
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EXPeriencing ‘Stranger Things’
Cover image via. I didn’t mean to be late to the Stranger Things party, but that’s just how things happened. Terry and I were binge-watching Wayward Pines on Hulu when Stranger Things was released on Netflix. The first thing I noticed is both shows are tied to the Duffer Brothers. Terry and I were really enjoying Wayward Pines, so when we finished
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EXPeriencing Stories 