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We’re thrilled to announce our new HerStories Project advice column, HerTake: Practical Tips for Modern Connections with Nina Badzin!

You may be asking yourself:

So why an advice column and why Nina?”

First of all, one realization that we’ve come to after reading so many women’s stories and after being a part of the writing and blogging world ourselves is that women want to share their experiences and feel like a part of a community. Often, however, they want something even more, in addition to feeling like they’re being heard: They want level-headed advice about  how to negotiate different aspects of their lives, whether it’s a friendship breakup that happened on Facebook, a conflict with another blogger, or a concern about how their online lives affect their families.

These are not issues that would have come up in an advice column from 10 or 20 years ago. These are modern dilemmas, needing contemporary solutions. Yet Nina will also share with us how today’s issues are not so different in some ways as past ones.

FULL RES - Badzin-03 copy-1And why Nina? Because Nina is one of the first people that I turn to when I need clear, sensible wisdom about a situation in my blogging and writing life. And I’m not the only one! In fact, immediately after I started my blog, Nina was literally the first person that I contacted when I couldn’t make sense of Twitter. (I soon read her Twitter tips, and I was hooked on her smart, engaging writing.) She then has become one of my (as well as Stephanie’s) blogging mentors. She’s been a huge supporter of HerStories from the beginning, and her guest post on her own friendship break became one of our most popular posts and one of our favorites. (To get more of a sense of Nina’s style, you can also check out what Nina has to say about the importance of couple friends, about why party favors may be a bad idea for kids, and about the difference between being welcoming and saying that you’re welcoming.)

Nina wants to hear from you! Submit your questions and dilemmas to myotherex@gmail.com with “HerTake” in the subject line. Or use the contact form below. You’re welcome to use an anonymous alias (“Blogger From Boise”)., and you don’t need to share your name or e-mail address. Your identity will not be shared, but your question may be edited for length and clarity.

The theme for her first and second columns will relate to relationships in crisis or transition:  friend breakups, betrayals, and dissolutions of all types, from online friendships and blogger relationships to writing group misunderstandings and ambiguous friendship signals or conflicts with your oldest, best friend.

Read Nina’s first column here!

Please welcome Nina, and share what’s on your mind with her and see if she can help you find a sensible solution!

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