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Eleni Gage

Author, Journalist, Pop Folklorist

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    • Lucky In Love
    • The Ladies of Managua
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    • North of Ithaka
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The Liminal Stage

Navigating a modern world with the help of time-tested traditions

What is a Liminal Stage?

Liminal stages are psychological thresholds, times of transition when we stand “betwixt and between” one state and another. The biggies are birth, marriage, death-cultures develop splashy rituals around these transitions to ease the anxiety they provoke. For the smaller, but significant, crossroads we traverse every day, I offer the celebrations, superstitions, and coping mechanisms found in this blog.

Just Call Me J. Lo

When I was single, I always imagined that if I didn’t marry someone Greek, I’d marry someone I could steamroll with my culture. After all, that’s what my dad did. My mom is from Minnesota and was Presbyterian before she met him, converted to Orthodoxy, got married in the Greek church, moved to Greece, learned…

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Looking for Luck in All the Right Places

I just now learned the Greek word for Equinox. While “equinox” comes from the Latin words for “equal night,” the Greek term, Ισημερία, means “equal day.” I owe my vocab lesson to a kind soul who follows my author page on Facebook. Every Rosh Hashanah, when Amalia, who attends public school here in New York, has…

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Suddenly, Last Summer

After my parents moved our family back to the US from Greece, where we lived for five years, we returned most summers. I know there were mishaps—my sister, Marina, sat on a jellyfish and went temporarily blind from taking anti-seasickness medication, while I got mortally offended when well-meaning, but ill-advised, relatives would comment on my…

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On Love Lost and Found—Counting My Blessings

I am trying to practice the art of gratitude. For obvious reasons, what with Thanksgiving around the corner, and also because I’ve been so devastated by the examples of hate that I keep hearing about from friends and reading about in the news. I am trying to practice gratitude for selfish reasons, to light a…

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Some of the People, Some of the Time

I have a feeling President Lincoln wasn’t actually talking about family vacations when he famously quoted the poet John Lydgate to say, ““You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the…

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Have Babies, Will Travel

I recently made the brilliant/idiotic decision to take my almost-four-year-old and my just-two-months-old with me on the book tour for The Ladies of Managua. As another author (but one who probably wasn’t changing diapers in between chapters) once wrote, It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. So much so that…

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Eleni Gage

About Eleni

The daughter of a Greek father and a Minnesotan mother. I grew up in Athens, Greece, and the suburbs of Worcester, Massachusetts—
and became obsessed with cultural rituals and traditions along the way.

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Lucky in Love

is a guide to planning a wedding that’s unique, meaningful, and, above all, auspicious, with the help of customs from all over the world

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Travel Writing

I love covering places that inspire me—from Greece to Nicaragua and everywhere in between—for outlets such as Travel+Leisure, Condé Nast Traveler, InStyle and more. Join me on my trips here.

 

Essays and Reviews

From parenting to politics to pop culture, I’ve got opinions —and I’m not afraid to share them in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. Learn why I’m a bad mom here.

Lifestyle Articles

I may not always live my best life, but I’m trying to live a better one! I enjoy learning from the experts when writing about everything from reading more to wasting less. Pick up some tips here.

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