What freelance writers can learn from Cape Town’s Day Zero
As a freelance journalist based in Cape Town, South Africa, the full meaning and impact of Day Zero is revealing itself both incredibly fast (what about this? and that! and the other?!) as well as incredibly slowly (such as the city’s non-release of details about logistics, or queuing for water). What is Day Zero? In […]
Modern Journalist Toolkit 3: Home Office Hacks for Writers
Like most freelancers these days, my office is where my laptop and cell phone are. I do well with a home office/out of the office split. At home, I have lunch the way I like it, and a puppy who likes to go for mid-morning walks. At a cafe, I have the buzz of people […]
Ebola as a geography teaching tool
On a nonstop flight from London Heathrow to Cape Town last week, I had to sign a compulsory new form stating that I didn’t have any ebola-like symptoms, and that I would notify … er, somebody, possibly the Department of Home Affairs, though they didn’t provide any sort of literature for me to take with, […]
Screen saver
My annual visits to the optometrist followed a clear pattern: for many years, my eyes became continually more nearsighted. With glasses or contact lenses, vision was 20/20, and at some point the technology improved enough to render lenses thin enough to throw away the coke-bottle glasses of childhood forever. Great stuff for somebody who surely […]
On My Bookshelf: New Life, No Instructions
Cherry red. Deep blue. When visiting New York, off-white with a thin seafoam stripe. Whomever designs veterinary surgical tape knows that when your dog comes out of the back room, the best response is, “Ooh, how cute you look, all bandaged up!” My dog, a red fawn Shar-pei, has always gotten a lot of attention, […]
Download a free copy of “5 Proven Steps to Writing Queries that Sell.” I hate spam and will never share your info.