Reading time: About 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: bardo. I read the novel The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt while on holiday last month. All 771 pages of it. It wasn’t the […]
I’ve been in a kind of bardo state Read More »
Reading time: About 3 minutes Does your failure to do adequate writing planning ever lead to catastrophe? I know mine sometimes does… I have the kind of voice that often makes people ask me if I’ve ever worked in radio. I wish I could answer yes! My deep alto, with
What a recording studio taught me about writing planning Read More »
Reading time: About 1 minute This is my weekly installment of “writing about writing,” in which I scan the world to find websites, books and articles to help other writers. Today I discuss an article written by Saul Austerlitz. I read a New York Times Opinionator column headlined “The Lost
An opportunity to play geographer… Read More »
Reading time: About 2 minutes Some skills are extra important for any corporate communicator. Here’s a quick primer on one of them: how to write key messages… If you’re forced to make a big announcement for your company or organization, you need some key messages. Essentially, these are statements that
How to write key messages Read More »
Reading time: Less than 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a simile from Chad Harbach. I’m not much interested in sports (and I’m especially incurious about baseball) so I can’t figure out how the novel The
The figurative language of Chad Harbach… Read More »
Reading time: Just over 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: suppurate. When I worked in the daily newspaper business, I spent an occasional few hours in the photo studio. I was helping
What does suppurate mean? Read More »
Reading time: About 3 minutes You’ve probably heard the charge that many academics write badly. You may even have said it yourself! Here’s why… A group of doctors paid me to edit a report a few years back. Their work — not a medical study, but a document aimed at
Why do so many academics write badly? Read More »
Reading time: About 1 minute This is my weekly installment of “writing about writing,” in which I scan the world to find websites, books and articles to help other writers. Today I discuss six writing tips from novelist John Steinbeck…. It’s been several decades since I read East of Eden
Forget your generalized audience… Read More »
Reading time: Less than 2 minutes If your company or group has something to announce — especially if it might be considered negative — you need to do some planning first. Here’s how to make a big announcement… Planning an announcement is a little bit like launching a book or
How to make a big announcement Read More »
Reading time: About 2 minutes I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a series of similes from Canadian writer Ian Brown. I don’t know Ian Brown personally. But I feel as if I do, from reading his writing. A
The figurative language of Ian Brown… Read More »
