8 lessons for writers from Dancing With the Stars
September marks the launch of the latest season of my guilty pleasure, Dancing with the Stars. You might think the show is mostly about the women’s scanty costumes, or possibly B-list celebrities getting some visibility. But the real point is to take non-dancers,...
Wordnerdery: Surprised? Print’s not dead
Print seems to be having a moment: IABC relaunched a print magazine in June. Its former Communication World was once printed monthly and more recently became online only. The new Catalyst will come out twice a year. Mentalfloss.com joined forces with the Paper &...
Is your writing ‘as smooth as Tennessee whiskey’?
Country music has a reputation for sad songs involving drinking, trucks, love gone wrong, and more drinking. While that’s still often the case, today’s stars are often more thoughtful about looking at and learning from past mistakes. They also put on a master class in...
Expressive writing is your on-ramp to understanding
My word-a-day calendar is famous for sharing words that make you go “huh?” True, they are often the “perfect” word for a specific situation (like petrichor, as I’ve talked about before). But they are more likely to set up a roadblock to meaning than open up an...
Here’s how to keep emails short and sweet
Smart communicators use multiple channels to reach employees, and email remains a constant for most workplaces. But dealing with the “excessive volume” of communications is a challenge for companies around the world, according to State of the Sector 2019 –...
Wordnerdery: Part 3 of the inside view of employee comms
Having been on the outside of company employee communication for many years, I’ve recently gone looking for the current “inside” view. The July issue of my newsletter, Wordnerdery, continues a series where I report the results. In this issue, I look at how Chartwell...
Puns welcome in this ‘misbegotten brainchild’ of a contest
Who doesn’t love a slice of deliberately bad writing? Yes, word nerds, gather ’round. It’s time to celebrate the Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest, “where ‘www’ means ‘wretched writers welcome.’” The contest awards the best of the worst opening sentences, or what the...
The best of the Red Jacket Diaries so far in 2019
You know the year is already half over when it’s pool season in Canada. That means it’s time to look back at the most-viewed posts on my Red Jacket Diaries blog so far in 2019. I’m often inspired to blog about what’s going on around me, such as in these posts:...