How Mexico will attract 5 million U.S. retirees Maggie Van Ostrand

About one million U.S. expats already live in Mexico, and that number can grow to five million by 2025, according to estimates based on U.S. Census figures. And healthcare costs in Mexico are approximately 70 per cent lower than healthcare costs in the U.S. Nine Mexican hospitals have already been certified by the U.S. Joint International Commission, and others are currently awaiting certification. read more

New Year's Non-Resolutions Maggie Van Ostrand

Windshield wipers. You probably think they always came on cars, but they didn't. In fact, some taxis today, at least in Mexico, have them but they don't work and when it rains, the cabbie has to hang out the driver's window and swipe at the windshield with a greasy rag.

So next time you're driving in the rain, say thanks to a lady from Alabama, Mary Anderson, who invented and patented the windshield wiper in 1905. I only wish they put one on each of the side view mirrors. read more

The crookedest Christmas tree Maggie Van Ostrand

One long-ago year, my Dad was out of work, much as fathers are today, but he was determined we'd have a tree just the same. All four of us, Dad, Mom, my sister and I, went to McNally's, the local man who sold trees just once a year. We couldn't afford any of his trees, except the worst looking thing on the entire lot. To call it "scrawny" would've been a compliment. It had a skinny trunk an 8-year-old could put her thumb and forefinger completely around and it was not blessed with more than half a dozen nearly bald branches. Besides all that, it tilted like the Tower of Pisa. My sister and I looked at each other in teary dismay. read more

Why don't doctors ask Josefina in Mexico? Maggie Van Ostrand

Josefina: you got to know when to fold 'em Maggie Van Ostrand

Cejas and the great escape: Dog rescue in Tijuana Maggie Van Ostrand

 

A warm-hearted missionary rescues a Tijuana street dog and smuggles him across the border to a new home in California. read more

Juanita and the president: Obama's Mexican connection Maggie Van Ostrand

From conspicuous consumption to conspicuous frugality Maggie Van Ostrand

Wishes Instead of Resolutions Maggie Van Ostrand

My first Christmas in Mexico Maggie Van Ostrand

English, and how she is spoken Maggie Van Ostrand

Expatriate writers in Mexico and the six-word memoir Maggie Van Ostrand

La Llorona: does she seek your children? Maggie Van Ostrand

Ajijic: the way we were Maggie Van Ostrand

The Widow Tamez, accidental expatriate Maggie Van Ostrand

Border promotions, or the Mexico two-step Maggie Van Ostrand

Stars shine in sunny Mexico Maggie Van Ostrand

Elvira Arellano: saint or sinner? Maggie Van Ostrand

Oaxaca: what is it like? Maggie Van Ostrand

Honeybees: have they emigrated to Mexico? Maggie Van Ostrand

Christmas shopping with the sliding US dollar Maggie Van Ostrand

A modern day Rio Grande ferry tale Maggie Van Ostrand

Ghosts, goblins and Gonzales-Gonzales Maggie Van Ostrand

The fence along the Mexican border Maggie Van Ostrand

Say Bartender, make mine tuna on the rocks Maggie Van Ostrand

Maggie Van Ostrand

Maggie Van Ostrand was born and raised in New York City, but due to a strong westerly wind, she found herself in Los Angeles. Harvard cannot claim her, nor can Yale, Princeton or Radcliffe. On the other hand, Queens College might remember her. They certainly remember Jerry Seinfeld. Then again, maybe not.

While traveling as a roadie in the music business, she co-wrote “Home Is Where the Hurt Is” with Grammy- and Tony-winning humorist, Roger ("King of the Road") Miller. She wrote liner notes for both Roger Miller and Andy Williams. She was head writer for Goodson-Todman's quiz show, "Trivia Trap," and, as a freelancer, has ghost-written for television sitcom writers and stand-up comics. She has performed her own stand-up and some guy in the audience even laughed once. She gives keynote speeches, like the one at a swank New York hotel in 2005 on Direct Marketing and another in Gallup, New Mexico, in 2008 on Immigration before 250 Catholic Bishops (not known to be a barrel of laughs). Maggie keeps secret the fact that she knows nothing about any of the topics she has ever been hired to discuss. Each year since 2004, she has been a judge of the Erma Bombeck Writers Competition (humor) and the Arizona Press Association's Humor Column of the Year.

In 1995, Maggie began her column, "A Balloon in Cactus" for the newsmagazine, El Ojo Del Lago, for which she has received six Awards for Outstanding Literary Achievement. That column is concurrently running in El Ojo Del Mar. She was awarded Best Feature Article of the Year by MexConnect, for which she has written since 2002.

Readers cut out her columns and stick them on their refrigerators. Thanks to submitting these clips to bigtime newspapers (do you know how expensive it is to mail a refrigerator?), she became a regular contributor to the Chicago Tribune, and has been published in the Boston Globe, Newsday, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Sun-Sentinel, Amarillo Globe News, and other major newspapers and magazines, both online and in print.

Maggie now writes an entertainment column for filmschoolrejects.com as well as fandomania.com; writes political satire for huffingtonpost.com; has columns in local hard copy newspapers from California to Ohio; a column for TheSeniorNews.com; a column about Texas for texasescapes.com, and other publications who assign her different subjects. You can check her website under Publications for all the names.

Maggie lives sometimes in Ajijic, Mexico and sometimes in Pine Mountain, California, each with a population smaller than Al Pacino.

Maggie's web site

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