It's National Grammar Day, brought to you by Grammar Girl and the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar (The SPOGG blog is always good for a laugh).
I received this envelope from a local politician whose name has been removed to protect the guilty. I wonder how many people this went out to?
From the SPOGG blog, "People are posting all day in the Twitter parade, using the #grammarday tag. If you're on Twitter, join in. If you'd just like to watch, here's the search query"
Just in time for Valentine's Day, this month's San Diego Family Magazine features a Family Dining review of the Solana Beach cupcake shop Cupcake Love that features a dozen different flavors of gourmet cupcakes every week. This piece is extra special to me because I co-wrote it with my daughter, who is in sixth grade now and turning into quite a writer herself. (She also helped me pick out the cupcakes - and eat them!) So if you're looking for something to get for your sweetie, maybe a Love Bite from Cupcake Love will be just the thing.
Click here for the review in the online version of the February San Diego Family Magazine.
Every year San Diego Family Magazine publishes Out & About, a free "family adventure guide to San Diego County" and this year I contributed the San Diego Coastal entries, covering the coastal communities of La Jolla, Pacific Beach, Mission Bay, Mission Beach, Ocean Beach and Point Loma. My family and I spent many fun summer weekends on "staycation" scouting out the best family-friendly opportunities right here in our back yard. Find out how to book a kayak tour of La Jolla, where to find a mini regatta at Mission Bay, and the site of the biggest "teddy bear" you've ever seen (180 tons), on the UCSD campus, not to mention a selection of unique, kid-friendly eateries in each community. The guide is available at select locations around San Diego County or online.
Click here for the San Diego Coastal entries, Page 30-38, online.
Did you know that there are people who track wildlife in San Diego County? When I found out about the San Diego Tracking Team, I knew I wanted to interview a tracker. I thought tracking was something you only saw in Wild West movies, but it turns out that ordinary people like you and me can be trained to track wildlife from different signs. The San Diego Tracking team does this in many of the urban/rural boundaries in the county and the data are used for planning purposes and to keep tabs on the vitality of the wildlife in the area. I had the pleasure of interviewing Senior Tracker Ann Hunt for the January/February issue of AAA Westways.
Download "A Conversation With Ann Hunt, Senior Tracker, San Diego Tracking Team" (PDF, 264 K)
For the Holiday 2009 issue of Encinitas Magazine I landed a plum assignment: explore ten of the most intriguing boutiques in the city and write about them. Encinitas is full of trendy little boutiques with everything from high-end designers and custom jewelry to price point denim to organic children's clothes, so I jumped at the chance to write this piece. Just in time for the holidays, here's a guide to ten of the top fashion-forward boutiques.
Click here for the online version of "Style Network," or go to page 30 of the digital version of the Holiday 2009 Encinitas Magazine.
I had a blast interviewing two of the newest Model Builders at Legoland California, Brian Heins and Mandy Jouan, for San Diego Family Magazine. Heins and Jouan were among five finalists who secured a coveted Model Builder job out of a field of 18 who competed for a position with the park this past June. Find out how these two San Diegans turned play into their profession.
Click here to view "Turning Play Into Professions" in the online version of the November 2009 San Diego Family Magazine
Correction: I learned after this piece was published that the correct way to refer to these toys is "LEGO toys" or "LEGO bricks," and not "Legos," as LEGO is the company brand name, similar to the way one should not say "Kleenex" for "tissues." I apologize for the error.
An ambitious mosaic mural project at the Montessori Arts and Sciences School in Carlsbad entitled "Tribute to What Came Before Us" brings together schoolchildren, local artists, and the Carlsbad community—through the ArtSplash program—to create a work of art that also pays tribute to local history and environment. This was a fun article to do and my first for Carlsbad Magazine, published by the parent company that also publishes Encinitas magazine.
Download CarlsbadMontessoriSchoolMural (PDF, 2M) from the September/October issue of Carlsbad Magazine.
I'll admit it, I am a social networking convert, and have embraced Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn wholeheartedly. Not everyone is comfortable in this new online networking environment, however, so I proposed this short piece on the basics of social networking etiquette which was published as an online exclusive in San Diego Family Magazine. I list a few questions new social networking site users should ask themselves before diving in, answer a nagging question about accepting new invites, and give some practical advice about approaching these new online networking opportunities.
Click here for Social Netiquette in San Diego Family Magazine's online exclusives.
This month I had the opportunity to review Pizzicato in Encinitas for the Family Dining column of San Diego Family Magazine. It's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it ;-)
Click here for the Pizzicato Family Dining Review in the September issue of San Diego Family.
Crafting a clean, concise, well-written piece that’s a perfect fit for its readers gets me jazzed; I aim to always give the target audience a memorable story while leaving the writing transparent. I love talking with people to find out what makes them tick, discovering what’s interesting about every place I go and spreading the word about good things in my community and beyond.
My professional ethic is to deliver clean copy on time and to give the same attention to detail to every piece, from short profiles and brochures to in-depth features and reports. I also have an obsession with hunting down and eliminating grammar, punctuation and usage errors and rewording confusing copy. I love making editors' jobs easier and giving clients exactly what they need—even if they can’t fully describe what that is just yet.
Click the "Clips" link for my published work, and check the sidebar for a client list, useful references and links to all the ways to contact me—I'm active on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, I publish a personal blog called Thoughts Happen, and as my daughter will tell you, I am on my computer All The Time.
Anne Lamott: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Andy Wibbels: Blogwild!: A Guide for Small Business Blogging
Dianna Booher: E Writing: 21st Century Tools for Effective Communication
Lynne Truss: Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
Mignon Fogarty: Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing
Edith H. Fine: Nitty-Gritty Grammar: A Not-So-Serious Guide to Clear Communication
Stephen Glazier: Random House Word Menu: Revised and Updated
Robert Mckee: Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting
Norm Goldstein: The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law
John Morgan Wilson: The Complete Guide to Magazine Article Writing
Bill O'Hanlon: Write Is a Verb: Sit Down, Start Writing, No Excuses
