By Lisa Smith Molinari NSNC President This time of year always reminds me of my mother coming into my room on the first day back to school, ruffling the tangled hair on my sleeping head, and singing her own version of mess call, “Soupy, soupy, soupy, cornbread, and beans!” It was the undeniable signal that…
Category: Newsletter
Selected articles from the NSNC newsletter; only members get the entire contents of the monthly newsletter
Gene Weingarten: Funny, Serious, and a Pyle Winner
This is the 22nd in a series of articles about winners of the NSNC’s annual Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award. By Dave Astor NSNC Archivist It’s fitting that Gene Weingarten received our 2014 Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award just a year after Dave Barry won the 2013 Pyle prize. They’re both humorists (though Weingarten is…
2018 NSNC CINCINNATI CONFERENCE SITE SELECTED
By Suzette Martinez Standring Next year, the City of Seven Hills will be easy on our bills! The NSNC is happy to announce that our 2018 conference will be held at the Kingsgate Marriott Conference Center at the University of Cincinnati, 151 Goodman Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45219. Mark your calendars for Thursday-Sunday, June 7-10, 2018. The special…
Ask Alex: Free Trial and Error
DEAR ALEX, My column runs in 24 newspapers across eight states; eleven are weekly and the others run periodically. Of those, only eight are paying. In my desire to grow my base, I offered my column to other papers at no cost. Without thinking, I did not put a time limit on that period of…
Vacationing on Deadline: How NSNC’s Columnists Do It
By Lisa Smith Molinari NSNC President As columnists who must meet strict deadlines, we know that one of the best ways to combat burnout is to take a vacation. It’s good for us to release ourselves from the looming pressures of our next writing assignments for a week or two. But let’s be honest –…
A Brief Q&A (Quips & Amusement) With 2013 Pyle Winner Dave Barry
This is the 21th in a series of articles about winners of the NSNC’s annual Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award. By Dave Astor NSNC Archivist Four years after Dave Barry won our 2013 Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award, I thought I’d do a brief email Q&A with the renowned humorist. Of course, in this case,…
Do You Suck?
By Dave Lieber Dallas Morning News columnist Are you an awful columnist? Writer Hamilton Nolan says you are. He’s sure of it. In a piece on Fusion called “It is humanly impossible to be a good newspaper columnist,”, he writes that being a regular columnist “is one of the cushiest and most coveted jobs in…
All Hail the Queen of the West! Cincinnati to Host #NSNC18
By Lisa Smith Molinari NSNC President Registration is now open. Register HERE. You may have recently unpacked from our wildly successful #NSNC17 conference in Manchester, New Hampshire, but mark your calendars again, because you’ll be traveling to the Midwest next spring! In a unanimous vote on the final day of our June conference, NSNC’s general…
Five Years Later, Gail Collins Speaks About Her 2012 Lifetime Honor
This is the 20th in a series of articles about winners of the NSNC’s annual Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award. By Dave Astor NSNC Archivist Five years after receiving the Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award at our 2012 conference in Macon, Georgia, how does Gail Collins feel about that honor? “Well, the plaque is standing…
Turning Quirks Into Columns: Finding Your Niche
The Art of Column Writing By Bonnie Jean Feldkamp Communications Director For every special interest or hobby, there are niche publications that cover it. As writers, we have the ability to take our interests from activity to the page. Our hobbies, our lifestyles, and our day trades are all mined for material. This is where…
Maureen Dowd Accepts Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award
On Saturday, June 10, 2017 Maureen Dowd of the New York Times received the 2017 Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. The event was part of the NSNC’s annual conference held at the Manchester Radisson in New Hampshire. Lisa Smith Molinari is the 2017 president and Mike…
Dave Lieber to Receive 2017 Legacy Award
By Bill Tammeus From the time Dave Lieber first showed up at a National Society of Newspaper Columnists conference – in 1993 in Portland – wishing he were a columnist, he has been an indispensable source of NSNC’s energy, innovative ideas, and inspiration. Which makes him an obvious selection to receive the society’s Legacy Award.…
Wanna Make More Dough? Podcasting’s on the Rise
By Lisa Smith Molinari NSNC President The theme for this month’s NSNC Annual Conference – “Live Free and Write – But Not for Free” – was no afterthought. We all know that column writing is a craft, not a job; a form of art, not a task; a manifestation of expression, not a business. However,…
Via Skype, Ebert Was Honored for His Sky-High Talents
This is the 19th in a series of articles about winners of the NSNC’s annual Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award. By Dave Astor NSNC Archivist Because of serious health issues, Roger Ebert didn’t travel to Detroit to receive our 2011 Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award. But the famed film critic did appear from Chicago via…
Did Breslin Do This?
By Dave Lieber Dallas Morning News columnist First, I write the column. This is about what’s next. Did Breslin do this? * I write the headline. If I fail on this and nobody likes my headline, all the work I did for a 900-word column goes to the crapper. I know this from…
Will Rogers Award Honors Active Columnist for Community Service
Suzette Martinez Standring to receive Will Rogers Humanitarian Award Suzette Martinez Standring is one of the busiest members of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. She bylines a syndicated spirituality column and writes a blog, she has authored two award-winning books widely used in journalism classes, she speaks at national workshops and conferences on a…
What’s the Buzz? $299 Conference Rate Extended to May 15th!
President’s Message By Lisa Smith Molinari NSNC President By now, you’ve seen the social media hubbub about #NSNC17 – the National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ 2017 Annual Conference being held June 8-11 at the Downtown Radisson Hotel in Manchester, New Hampshire. The $299 reduced conference registration rate for NSNC members ended at midnight on April…