Asked recently to share a favorite piece of advice about writing, this was my pick, from Annie Dillard: One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right …
In a bit of journalistic serendipity, I happened to hear Carl Bernstein speak at a small luncheon just a few days before Ben Bradlee’s death. Bradlee has been rightly eulogized as a giant of American journalism. But seeing Bernstein at …
One of our missions here at re:Write is to help people learn how to write better, by, among other things, following the rules of grammar and avoiding corporate-speak. So imagine our surprise and delight when we saw two of Weird …
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” —Maya Angelou (April 4, 1928-May 28, 2014) Read more about Maya Angelou. Read Angelou’s “Still I Rise.”
How writers write seems to be an endlessly fascinating subject (at least for writers). Recently, Olivia Laing has been getting good reviews for The Trip To Echo Spring, a book about famous writers who found inspiration in the bottle. A …
Down the Hatch, Over the Counter, Under the Knife Read more »
Here at re:Write, we like to cite various experts on the importance of good writing, and how to accomplish it. People like Alexander Pope, and Edward R. Murrow. But today, in the words of the old Hebrew National hotdog ad, …
A long time ago, I heard the term “bootstrapping” described as a journalistic no-no in the newspaper world. It meant inflating the credibility of a source. I haven’t seen the word used that way in years, but I see examples …
Your typical mission statement is a glowing, intended-to-be inspiring description of everything an enterprise believes in. But the other day I read an article arguing that one way to establish your brand is to proclaim what you stand against. And …
I heard two different versions of a news story the other day. Both were aired by major American broadcasters. One of them bugged me. “British Prime Minister David Cameron has called an emergency cabinet meeting…” “There was a bizarre incident …
Mother’s Day. Patriots’ Day. Veterans Day. I’ve had to use all three in recent writings and spent more than a few minutes trying to figure out where–and whether–to use the apostrophe. So I found this piece in The Wall Street Journal especially …