Selected articles from the NSNC newsletter; only members get the entire contents of the monthly newsletter
President’s Message By Eric Heyl President National Society of Newspaper Columnists Circle the dates. Trust me, it’s OK. The calendar cops won’t appear at your door to arrest you for beginning to arrange next year’s schedule with a full two months of this year still to go. With the nation’s prisons being chronically overcrowded, they…
Memoir Tells Lively Stories of Famous Cartoonists, Columnists and Author you, the columnist By Dave Lieber www.YankeeCowboy.com Book Review: Comic (and Column) Confessional: Finding Myself While Covering Syndicates, Celebrities, and a Changing Media World. By Dave Astor. Xenos Press (2012). 232 pages. Paperback. $25 Dave Astor, that quiet guy sitting in the first row at…
Art of Column Writing By Suzette Martinez Standring Past President National Society of Newspaper Columnists No matter what our specialty is, we can learn from columnists with a very different focus. Joel Brinkley, who also serves as the NSNC education chair, is one of only a handful of foreign affairs op-ed columnists in the United…
President’s Message By Larry Cohen President National Society of Newspaper Columnists Decades ago, the Hartford (Conn.) Courant shipped me off to the national conclave of the Episcopal Church, in Louisville. The Anglican natives were restless. There was news to be reported. Sure enough, the assembled faithful slapped around the sort-of-liberal church leadership at the time…
Art of Column Writing By Suzette Martinez Standring Past President National Society of Newspaper Columnists I come late to the blogging party. This has been my reluctance: What, another deadline? I can’t compete with established, tech-savvy bloggers. Do I really need more emails to suck up all my writing time? Now I blog. What changed?…
President’s Message By Larry Cohen President National Society of Newspaper Columnists When Steve Lopez, the great L.A. Times columnist, spoke at an NSNC convention a number of years ago, he joked about being labeled a “local” columnist. What exactly did “local” mean in a Los Angeles metro area that sprawled for hundreds of miles, with…
Attribution is the antidote to plagiarism you, the columnist By Dave Lieber www.YankeeCowboy.com Angry as all get out, as Texans like to say. That’s how I feel when I think about what happened in recent months to many of our NSNC colleagues. More than their words were stolen when their columns were plagiarized in separate…
President’s Message By Larry Cohen President National Society of Newspaper Columnists Larry Cohen With the financial help of my mysterious Political Action Committee in the Cayman Islands; with a last-minute surge of support from the National Rifle Association; and with my foreign policy promise to transform Syria into a Disney amusement park; I was able…
By Ben S. Pollock President, National Society of Newspaper Columnists Dear Larry, [NSNC Vice President Laurence D. Cohen is on the slate of nominees for the May 6 election, for 2012-14 president.] This, the columnists presidency, has been a humbling experience. I’ve had plenty of humbling experiences in my life, so I should know.…
By Suzette Martinez Standring NSNC Past President At writing conferences, creativity often gets short shrift in favor of growing one’s business. Supersize followers on Facebook and Twitter! Get readers a-gogging with vlogging and blogging! Strengthen your footing on the technology trail. Very helpful, yes, but when all is said and done, it is about our…
By Suzette Martinez Standring NSNC Past President Vlogging, blogging, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter – it’s all under the umbrella of social media and I’m dog paddling in the deluge. Recently, I attended the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop in Dayton, both as a presenter (Hypnotic Recall Fills the Creative Well), and as a seeker of information…
Preview of 2012 “Macon Whoopee” conference … Not one, but two columns by regular contributing columnist Suzette Martinez Standring … President Ben S. Pollock gives a “fare thee well address … Reports and photos from the 2012 Erma Bombeck Writer’s Workshop … Plus “What Are You Writing?” and “Columnews”
By Dave Lieber Fort Worth Star-Telegram No matter what crevice of Ernie Pyle’s life you look into, you find something interesting, honest and authentically American. His real name was Ernest, after all. April 18 marks the 18th annual celebration of the NSNC’s National Columnists Day, a project former NSNC President Bill Tammeus and I…
By Ben S. Pollock NSNC President It must have been this time of year in 1999, I was on the phone with my mom about soon flying to Louisville, Ky., for that year’s NSNC conference. “You go there and ‘network’ your heart out. That’s what they call it now, right? Chat people up and…
It’s the National Columnists Day issue and President Ben Pollock tells how to get the most out of the conference and comments on plagiarism. A conference schedule shows what you’ll miss if you don’t sign up. Dave Lieber has another story about Ernie Pyle. Will Rogers Humanitarian Award winner is announced. Plus lots of “Columnews”…
Writers’ Academy Article previously published in Freelance Focus at PR Newswire, 3/21/2012 By Suzette Martinez Standring Maybe you write an informational or how-to column or blog based on a passionate interest. A popular column is an unbeatable platform for self-expression. Whether it’s about woodworking, social media, or pets, prepare your pitch to an…
By Suzette Martinez Standring Whether you write op-ed, humor, lifestyle or other columns, heartfelt expression is a goal. Relaxation unlocks creativity, and I use guided imagery exercises in my writing workshops to mine memories for sensory details and emotions. Self-hypnosis, meditation, guided imagery, and trance are all the same things, and the process is common…
