<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8' ?>
<rss version='2.0' xmlns:dc='http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/'>
<channel>
	<title>Judi Ketteler</title>
	<link>https://judiketteler.com/feed/</link>
	<description>Copywriter and Corporate Storyteller</description>
	<pubDate>Thu, 16 Apr 2026 12:04:17 -0400</pubDate>
	<ttl>60</ttl>
	<item>
		<title>5 Effective Tools To Help You Say Less</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Do you ever just need to stop talking? Do you need to stop words from coming out of your mouth when you are standing right in front of a person you love who is behaving in ways that are making you angry/sad/frustrated/anxious/all of the above?

I find myself in this situation daily, mostly with my teenage son because (a) he is a teenager and (b) there are some other challenges going on with him. I want to say ALL THE THINGS, because I have the answers. The facts. The better way.

To be clear, I have already said all the things, and do you know much actual difference unleashing my firehose of information and disapproval has made? Very little, to him. But for me, it’s caused even more anger, sadness, frustration, and anxiety.

Saying too much makes my life worse, and doesn’t actually help the situation.

It’s taken me two years to realize this.

And yet, just yesterday I couldn’t stop talking. The night before had been bad, and that morning, I said all the things, all over again, culminating with,]]></description>
		<pubDate>Wed, 12 Nov 2025 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
		<link>https://judiketteler.com/blog/5-effective-tools-to-help-you-say-less/</link>

	<guid>https://judiketteler.com/blog/5-effective-tools-to-help-you-say-less/</guid>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>Yesterday, I Turned 51 and Made Myself Do a Back Flip</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Yesterday was my birthday. As I usually do, I took a birthday run. It is only different than a regular run in that I think about what special thing I can do to feel like I’m still a factor in the world. Usually, I take a video of me doing a handstand or something.

The thing is, I do handstands all the time. There is nothing special about them.

What would be special?

The answer popped in my head around mile three: I should get on the trampoline and do a back flip. I immediately dismissed it. There was no way I was doing that.

How long had it been since I’d done flips on our trampoline? I used to be a gymnast, and had kept up with doing flips well into my 40s. I definitely remembered jumping with the kids during Covid.

But then I’d hurt my back in the spring of 2022. I was lifting a too-heavy gardening pot—so stupid, because I know better!—and wound up in the emergency room, sure I was dying. It caused nerve damage. My right quad is still numb.]]></description>
		<pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0400</pubDate>
		<link>https://judiketteler.com/blog/yesterday-i-turned-51-and-made-myself-do-a-back-flip/</link>

	<guid>https://judiketteler.com/blog/yesterday-i-turned-51-and-made-myself-do-a-back-flip/</guid>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>Hi Again, Here&apos;s Where I&apos;ve Been</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Physically, I’ve been right here and hardly anywhere else.



Working. Writing content. Helping clients. Appreciating that I have plenty of things to be grateful for. Like my mom recently turning 90, and still being sharp and hilarious.

&nbsp;



Here she is, surrounded by her six living children. (I’m in the middle, standing.) How adorable is she?!



And yet, it’s been the hardest few years of my life.

I thought I’d already survived the most trying season a decade ago. I wrote about those years in my book about honesty, about navigating issues with my marriage and losing my dad to dementia.

But last year, two days before Christmas, my husband and I had to drop our teenage son off at a residential treatment program for substance use disorder. I don’t want the universe to take this on as a personal challenge or anything,]]></description>
		<pubDate>Tue, 12 Aug 2025 00:00:00 -0400</pubDate>
		<link>https://judiketteler.com/blog/hi-again-heres-where-ive-been/</link>

	<guid>https://judiketteler.com/blog/hi-again-heres-where-ive-been/</guid>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>If You Give a Dog a Donut, Retold After a 2023 Vision Board Party</title>
		<description><![CDATA[If you choose VARIETY for your 2023 word, the year will ask you what you mean.

You’ll tell it that your list includes things like having your tarot cards read, breaking out of your homebody ruts, and trying weight training.

But talking about fate, being homebound, and having sore arms will make the year think about Covid, and that you haven’t had it yet.

So it will give you Covid. And though will you feel like shit that’s been heated up in the microwave, you will be very grateful to science for vaccines. This will make you think about stories you should write about science.

But the year will say, You already write about science, bitch! You need variety!

This will make the year look out to the street and see your car and decide that an Uber Eats driver delivering to your neighbor should hit your car and abscond, leaving a large dent in your door, making it impossible to open.

You will spend an entire day looking for the Uber Eats driver (which your neighbor graciously helps you do).]]></description>
		<pubDate>Wed, 22 Feb 2023 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
		<link>https://judiketteler.com/blog/if-you-give-a-dog-a-donut-retold-after-a-2023-vision-board-party/</link>

	<guid>https://judiketteler.com/blog/if-you-give-a-dog-a-donut-retold-after-a-2023-vision-board-party/</guid>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>My 10 Favorite Books for 2022</title>
		<description><![CDATA[&nbsp;

This has been a big year for me for traveling and reading!

I enjoyed a trip to New York City (with my 12-year-old daughter—her first time there!), a family vacation to Florida, a quick jaunt to North Carolina’s Wake Forest University for a conference of The Honesty Project, an amazing yoga retreat in Iceland (that’s me doing a handstand on Hrisey Island, where the elf magic is strong), and a lovely trip down to Corpus Christi, Texas, with my mom, aunt, sisters, and cousin to see our relatives.



But with books, my brain traveled even further than my feet. I completed (and exceeded) my Goodreads challenge to read 50 books, which is far more than I’ve managed to read other years.

What I love about tracking a reading challenge is that each little thumbnail of a book takes me back to a moment. The one I was reading in Iceland during that wild windstorm. The one I listened to on the plane ride home. The one I plucked from my Little Free Library and read in my hammock.]]></description>
		<pubDate>Mon, 12 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
		<link>https://judiketteler.com/blog/my-10-favorite-books-for-2022/</link>

	<guid>https://judiketteler.com/blog/my-10-favorite-books-for-2022/</guid>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>What if Hospitals Practiced Honest Storytelling About Their Histories of Segregation?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[One of my clients is a hospital in Maryland that wants to be more honest about their history of racial segregation.

I learned this when I was working on creating a content strategy for them. I was part of a team interviewing various stakeholders at the hospital, including the diversity, equity, and inclusion leaders. Like so many hospitals in Maryland, and all over the country, this hospital had been a whites-only hospital. “We need to tell the truth about this,” one of the DEI leaders said.

Telling the truth can mean many different things for an organization. It can happen in speeches and marketing campaigns and on social media. But I specialize in strategizing around and writing web content. So that’s the place where I go.

And sure enough, when I looked at the hospital’s current “About” page, I found they had an extensive timeline. Seemingly every milestone had an entry with a specific date, from fires that destroyed wings to when the first knee replacement was performed.]]></description>
		<pubDate>Wed, 29 Jun 2022 00:00:00 -0400</pubDate>
		<link>https://judiketteler.com/blog/what-if-hospitals-practiced-honest-storytelling-about-their-histories-of-segregation/</link>

	<guid>https://judiketteler.com/blog/what-if-hospitals-practiced-honest-storytelling-about-their-histories-of-segregation/</guid>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>How Journalists and Content Creators Can Benefit From Using Sensitivity Readers</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I write a bimonthly column for Cincinnati magazine, where I focus on the experience of midlife. Usually, I write about whatever is going on in my life or happening in the world (or my city) at that moment.

In June of 2020, I wanted to talk about racism, because to write about anything else felt trivial. At the same time, as a white person, I understood that no matter how much I reflected on the ways in which I’d participated in racism in my life (the gist of my essay), my writing would still have problems and could ultimately cause harm to Black readers.

I knew that good intentions could be just as damaging as bad ones. I started to write, not at all sure how I would mitigate this, but knowing it was my responsibility to figure it out.

As I was finishing the piece, I happened to see the post of a white colleague on a journalism Facebook group I belong to. She linked to a story she’d just had published related to the Black Lives Matter protests. I saw that Kelly Glass, whose byline I recognized,]]></description>
		<pubDate>Thu, 26 May 2022 00:00:00 -0400</pubDate>
		<link>https://judiketteler.com/blog/how-journalists-and-content-creators-can-benefit-from-using-sensitivity-readers/</link>

	<guid>https://judiketteler.com/blog/how-journalists-and-content-creators-can-benefit-from-using-sensitivity-readers/</guid>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>What I’ve Learned About Writing Accessible, Inclusive Content for Healthcare</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I recently wrote a series of articles about newborn parenting for a large children’s hospital system. My kids are 11 and 13, so talking to pediatricians about midnight feedings and the seedy texture of baby poop brought me back!

I realized that aside from some new gadgets, not that much has changed regarding newborn care.

But some important things have changed in how we write about parenting and healthcare.

For example, ten years ago, I would have used the term “breastfeeding mothers.” Now I know it’s better to say “breastfeeding parents” because transgender people have children. Instead of “moms and dads,” it’s better to simply say “parents,” because same-sex couples have children.

It’s only in the past few years that I’ve truly understood how many places bias can lurk in health content. These biases can be related to race, gender and gender expression, sexual orientation, ability, education,]]></description>
		<pubDate>Wed, 18 May 2022 00:00:00 -0400</pubDate>
		<link>https://judiketteler.com/blog/what-ive-learned-about-writing-accessible-inclusive-content-for-healthcare/</link>

	<guid>https://judiketteler.com/blog/what-ive-learned-about-writing-accessible-inclusive-content-for-healthcare/</guid>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>Is Your Community Feeling Divided, Too?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I scarcely know where to begin.

Which suggests I should just start right here, right now.

My community of 9,000—a suburb about 12 miles north of Cincinnati—is on fire with divisiveness. We’re split on everything and share nothing.

Or at least Facebook would have me believe this.

For example, one local man with a persistently loud voice and shockingly poor writing skills is continually posting his “theories” on a “community” page he created. He recently put forth the idea that perhaps our local park wound up with a sinkhole after the big storm in June because God was smiting it for being the site of the city’s Pride picnic earlier that month.

Then, there is a woman who responds to nearly every single post on the town forum with misinformation, guised in a mock cheerful voice. Another woman seethes with anger any time there is a suggestion that our town could be more welcoming, admonishing anyone who complains to just leave already. And oh! The school levy! Taxes! Masks! CRT!]]></description>
		<pubDate>Wed, 13 Oct 2021 00:00:00 -0400</pubDate>
		<link>https://judiketteler.com/blog/is-your-community-feeling-divided-too/</link>

	<guid>https://judiketteler.com/blog/is-your-community-feeling-divided-too/</guid>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>I’m Watching My Tomatoes Grow and Thinking About Reciprocity</title>
		<description><![CDATA[&nbsp;

Though I’ve tended a large flower garden in my front yard for 15 years, vegetables have always intimidated me. I have no idea why. This year, I decided to cast all that aside and give it a try.

In early May, I bought 10 tomato plants, plus some sweet red peppers, cucumbers, and herbs, and stuck them all in big tubs. I had no idea if this was a lot or a little. A friend who is a veggie garden pro came over and took a look. “You’re going to have tomatoes coming out your ears!” he said.

“Oh, so it IS a lot?”

He looked at my cacophony of vines, planted far too closely together, and laughed. “Uh, yeah. Get ready to learn how to can.”



As the vines are getting taller and taller and more little green fruits are sprouting every day, I suspect that he’s right: My harvest will be more abundant than I predicted!

I talk to my gangly plants each night, “Hey friends. You’re doing so great. I’m glad you like it here. I hope you have enough room.]]></description>
		<pubDate>Mon, 21 Jun 2021 00:00:00 -0400</pubDate>
		<link>https://judiketteler.com/blog/im-watching-my-tomatoes-grow-and-thinking-about-reciprocity/</link>

	<guid>https://judiketteler.com/blog/im-watching-my-tomatoes-grow-and-thinking-about-reciprocity/</guid>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>If You Are an Independent Contractor, You Need to Read This</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This will be the most public service announcement blog post I’ve ever written.

There’s a reason why.

My livelihood as an independent contractor—a small business owner, to be exact—is threatened. And if you are an independent contractor (and like being one) your livelihood is threatened, too.

This is all because of a piece of legislation that recently passed the House and may be headed soon to the Senate called The PRO Act.

The PRO Act strengthens employees’ rights to unionize. I have always supported this and still do. The problem is the way the bill defines an employee, for the purposes of unionizing. It uses something called the ABC test.



The “A” prong says that to be considered an independent contractor, you must be free from control and direction. The “C” prong essentially says that you’re working in your established trade.

Fine. I’ve got those things covered.]]></description>
		<pubDate>Tue, 30 Mar 2021 00:00:00 -0400</pubDate>
		<link>https://judiketteler.com/blog/if-you-are-an-independent-contractor-you-need-to-read-this/</link>

	<guid>https://judiketteler.com/blog/if-you-are-an-independent-contractor-you-need-to-read-this/</guid>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>My Word for 2021 is Toggle</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I did a vision board for the first time since—maybe ever?— and my word for 2021 is . . . &nbsp;TOGGLE.

Basically, we’re still living inside a dumpster fire. So all those epic, pretty-sounding words like THRIVE just feel . . . contrived. Things are an absolute mess right now in our country. I’m not without hope, but I am not going to pretend I’ve got this all figured out, neatly packaged up into a sparkly verb. I’m not going to pretend I have some grand plan for the year, some perfect sketch of quarterly goals. I mean, fantastic for you if you can do that. But I’m a child of the world right now. I am IN it, and I can’t just do business and goals as usual.

Hence, toggle. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.



Some examples from just this week: I’m going back and forth between writing about pulmonology and refreshing Maggie Haberman’s Twitter feed.]]></description>
		<pubDate>Wed, 13 Jan 2021 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
		<link>https://judiketteler.com/blog/my-word-for-2021-is-toggle/</link>

	<guid>https://judiketteler.com/blog/my-word-for-2021-is-toggle/</guid>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>We Learned a Lot in 2020</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The holidays are here. Which means it's time for reflection. Because we learned a lot this year, didn’t we?

And I’m not just talking about the new vocabulary. Sure, if you had asked me last year at this time what flattening the curve or social distance meant, I would have said, respectively, wearing a really tight sports bra to run, and my entire experience of high school.

No, this year, we learned more than new phrases. We learned things about our institutions, our social lives, our families, our history, and, let’s be honest, our soul.

We learned that it is actually possible to cancel everything. The way you do it is that you cancel the first thing, and then the next thing, and then all the things. Parties. Conferences. Hair appointments. Concerts. Celebrations. School. Date nights. Surgeries. Vacations. Playdates. Fireworks. Plane tickets. Thanksgiving. School again.

We learned that mail-in voting works. Really, really well. Democracy may have been the only thing that wasn’t canceled.]]></description>
		<pubDate>Wed, 16 Dec 2020 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
		<link>https://judiketteler.com/blog/we-learned-a-lot-in-2020/</link>

	<guid>https://judiketteler.com/blog/we-learned-a-lot-in-2020/</guid>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>My Favorite Books of 2020</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Hello to anyone who is new! After publishing this piece over the weekend on NBCNews.com about how I yelled at a nun in front of a church, a lot of people were like, Who is this Judi Ketteler person? Should I know more about her? For those of you who decided that maybe you would like to hear a bit more from me, thank you. And BIG thanks to all of you who bought my book about honesty!

It’s the time of year for book roundups, so I wanted to do my own take on one. These aren’t all new books. In fact, one was written in 1947. But they are all books that were new to me in 2020.



I’m including links to buy at Amazon and IndieBound, if you are so inclined and want to give any of them as gifts (note that these are affiliate links). I know you might be thinking, Ah, wait a minute, don’t all “real” book people like hate Amazon now? I actually don’t hate Amazon. I buy A LOT of books from independent booksellers because I believe in supporting these retailers. But I still buy from Amazon,]]></description>
		<pubDate>Wed, 02 Dec 2020 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
		<link>https://judiketteler.com/blog/my-favorite-books-of-2020/</link>

	<guid>https://judiketteler.com/blog/my-favorite-books-of-2020/</guid>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>Broken Bones and Countries</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I’ve started many newsletters over the past several weeks, but none felt right. What to say, where there is so much to say, and yet, such a deluge of information that it feels exhausting to contribute to it?

So I’m just going to tell you how I broke my foot.

I’ve never broken a bone before. I assumed I was a person who didn’t break bones. Keep in mind, I was a gymnast for 10 years, and I’ve been a runner for 25 years. So the “no broken bone” mythology in me was fairly strong.

But I kept rolling my left ankle while running. I rolled it in April in the middle of a seven-mile run, and hobbled home in pain. I gave it a few days to heal and was back to normal. Then I rolled it again in May—this time a little worse. But nothing some ice and a few days of rest couldn’t fix.

And then about a month ago, I was finishing up a five-mile run, heading up the hill to come back home, and I rolled the same ankle AGAIN—but this time, with such force that I fell to the ground in terrible pain.]]></description>
		<pubDate>Tue, 17 Nov 2020 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
		<link>https://judiketteler.com/blog/broken-bones-and-countries/</link>

	<guid>https://judiketteler.com/blog/broken-bones-and-countries/</guid>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>My Cat and My Town Are Having Behavior Problems</title>
		<description><![CDATA[&nbsp;

My cat and my town are both named Madeira, and right now, they are both having some problems. My Cincinnati suburb of 9,000 and my honey-colored tabby are each acting out because they are uncomfortable with change.



The cat is pretty straightforward. With the kids back in school after all this time, she’s confused about where they are. She’s not unhappy about it. She is just perplexed by it. After all, for almost six months, they were here and hardly anywhere else. Plus, the house was much sleepier. Now, we’re all up and about at the ungodly hour of 7 a.m. and she doesn’t know what to make of it. Her answer is to follow me around and pee in the dirty laundry. She has mostly stopped doing the peeing thing, so I think we’re through the awkward transition.

If only it were that easy with my town—a comfortable, middle-class community full of mostly white people. A sizeable chunk of those white people look around and think that because what they are seeing is so nice,]]></description>
		<pubDate>Tue, 22 Sep 2020 00:00:00 -0400</pubDate>
		<link>https://judiketteler.com/blog/my-cat-and-my-town-are-having-behavior-problems/</link>

	<guid>https://judiketteler.com/blog/my-cat-and-my-town-are-having-behavior-problems/</guid>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>Back to School, and the Sands Are Blowing</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The house is quiet for the first time in five months.

Masks in hand, my children are going back to school this morning. To fifth grade and seventh grade. Back to the school they haven’t seen the inside of since March 13th. Back to their friends. Back to a routine that is set by people who aren’t their parents. Back to all of it.



“I can’t believe we’re just going to be in a building with everyone!” my son said last night. He’s thrilled to be with his friends again, but he’s old enough to understand that the whole endeavor is questionable, and likely to change at any moment. My daughter was mostly worried about her outfit, and whether or not she would know where to go, since it was her first day at the middle school.

I’m deeply grateful for all the work my district has done to come up with the safest plan possible. I’m appreciative of their transparency. There have been slide shows and many emails. Explanations of definitions and procedures.]]></description>
		<pubDate>Wed, 26 Aug 2020 00:00:00 -0400</pubDate>
		<link>https://judiketteler.com/blog/back-to-school-and-the-sands-are-blowing/</link>

	<guid>https://judiketteler.com/blog/back-to-school-and-the-sands-are-blowing/</guid>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>Hello Summer, I&apos;m Home</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This is the first summer since 2010 that I’ve been home, like really home. The past nine summers all involved intense traveling and working long days to write scripts for live corporate events, like sales meetings.

Since in-person meetings are not a thing right now, those projects aren’t happening. I replaced the lost work with other content work, so I’m just fine.

But it’s interesting, because it means I’m home. All. Day. Every. Day.

I wrote a post last summer called This Was July, talking about everything that happened in July. It started out, “I traveled 14,000 miles.”

This July, I’ve traveled maybe . . . 300 miles? And that was because I took last week off and went on some daytrips with my family to swim at nearby lakes.

This summer, I’ve gotten to do things I didn’t know I needed to do. Like watch the movement of the sun across my backyard. I’ve wanted to plant a vegetable garden forever.]]></description>
		<pubDate>Tue, 14 Jul 2020 00:00:00 -0400</pubDate>
		<link>https://judiketteler.com/blog/hello-summer-im-home/</link>

	<guid>https://judiketteler.com/blog/hello-summer-im-home/</guid>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>Trying to Make May be May</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I’m trying to make May be May, but it’s not going so well.

Everything that is May to me—family gatherings, milestone celebrations (someone is always graduating in a family as big as mine), anticipation of summer, planning vacation—is not happening, and it’s as if I’m having a bit of delayed grief.

I think it’s because I forged through March and April with a “get through it” mentality. I felt the collective sadness and loss, of course. Sometimes I felt so much, I could barely stand it. But I tried to keep cultivating the dogged optimism that I keep on hand for daunting situations.

I also did this thing I do called, Let’s tell a story and make it be so. I’ve been engaged in a lot of content strategy work lately, so when the virus started ravaging the U.S. and it became clear that everything must change, I strategized the shit out of our lives.

Instead of coming up with the narrative for what an organization’s website needed to be,]]></description>
		<pubDate>Tue, 12 May 2020 00:00:00 -0400</pubDate>
		<link>https://judiketteler.com/blog/trying-to-make-may-be-may/</link>

	<guid>https://judiketteler.com/blog/trying-to-make-may-be-may/</guid>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>The One Question I Ask Myself Every Day Now</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I’m an empath, which means I tend to feel others’ emotions as my own. In the first days of the coronavirus shutdown, all I felt in my community was fear. I couldn’t run up the main street of my small town without crying. I would inhale everyone’s fear and sadness, hold it, and then exhale.

I felt it all and breathed through it all, because I’ve learned now to do that instead of fighting it. It was hard every time, but I kept running and feeling because running and feeling is what I do.

I have noticed there is a new feeling on the streets in this last week: Judgment. It’s mixed with the smell of honeysuckle, to the point that everything blooming so beautifully carries the distinct smell of indignation. The local moms Facebook group is imploding with anger and full of members who are ready to call the police any time they see more than what looks like a small family out together. They are angry. So angry. They are lashing out at any suspect scenario.]]></description>
		<pubDate>Wed, 01 Apr 2020 00:00:00 -0400</pubDate>
		<link>https://judiketteler.com/blog/the-one-question-i-ask-myself-every-day-now/</link>

	<guid>https://judiketteler.com/blog/the-one-question-i-ask-myself-every-day-now/</guid>
	</item>
</channel>
</rss>
