Read any banned books lately?

How many of you have an all-time favorite book? That one book you would want with you if you washed up on a deserted island. A book you have in every possible format . . . paperback, hardback, audio book, e-book. Well, find it on your bookshelf or pull it up on your e-reader and re-read it in celebration of Banned Books Week. September 22 marks the beginning of Banned Books Week, an event celebrating the freedom to read. The event is sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA), which has been tracking and raising awareness about attempts to remove materials from...

10 reference works you didn’t know...

As a content marketer and corporate communicator, I often spend more time researching an article than I do writing it. And one of the greatest joys of researching is discovering unusual and obscure reference works. If you look hard enough, you’ll find a wealth of information about even the most obscure topic. When a Google search just won’t do, here are 10 printed reference works to help you with any writing or research project Learn the history of phrases, stories, and expressions with Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Entries are drawn from mythology,...

Can you pronounce these brands?

Imagine what it must be like to be a brand manager for Givenchy. Sure, your job is to manage a French couture fashion label, but your brand name is repeatedly mangled. How do you manage a brand when many people can’t even say it? Perhaps the first place to start is by building awareness. Below are some of the most commonly mispronounced brand names and their correct pronunciations. How many of these can you pronounce correctly? Pronunications from Pronounce it right, How do you say that word, and YouTube’s How to pronounce. Alfa Romeo (an Italian car...

Words even you may be mispronouncing

Under the #mispronounced, Twitter users are sharing words they’ve hilariously mispronounced at one time or another. The tweets are spectacular. The English language — with its silent letters, odd accent placement, and words borrowed from other languages — can be a pronunciation minefield. Below are some of the most common mispronounced words Twitter users are sharing. Click on the word to hear the sometimes-surprising and sometimes-controversial pronunciations. (Definitions and pronunciations are from Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com.) Acai — a small, purple...

6 fictional journalists and how to pitch...

Many fiction writers choose journalism for the profession of their main character. After all, journalists make good narrators, and they are often where the action is. Below are a few of my favorite fictional journalists, who inspire me with their talent, wit and sense of adventure—along with guidance on how to approach them with a pitch. 1. Irwin “Fletch” Fletcher From the 1985 movie “Fletch.” Everyone’s favorite undercover journalist, Fletch spars with everyone from his editor to a millionaire bigamist to a corrupt police chief to get the story. All while...