This author has not written his bio yet.
But we are proud to say that Anna Goldsmith contributed 172 entries already.
“Don’t dialogue with someone you can talk to.” Rob Sneddon, the latest writer to join our team, didn’t say this, but the fact that he can quote William Zinsser just makes us love him even more. Read on to learn Rob’s no-fail trick for combating writer’s block, the one book that can improve everyone’s writing […]
For every 100 writers who contact us, just dying for a chance to be a Pen, only a handful makes it through our rigorous screening process. Meet one of the qualified few. As you’ll see from our Q&A below, Virginia has the right mix of experience, brains and wit. We’re pretty sure she’s a keeper. […]
In our last blog, we talked about the often overlooked audience you really need to please with your copy: the one who’s paying your invoice. In this blog we’ll turn our attention to the audience they care about: the customer. Their customer. Myth: At the start of any content project, a client will give you […]
What’s the biggest, most common, most job-eliminating mistake copywriters make? It’s not bad writing. In fact, the better the copywriter, the more likely he or she is to make this mistake. Answer: It’s not getting to know the audience. But wait, you’re thinking: In this age of content marketing, doesn’t everyone know how critical it […]
Looking through The New York Times style section last week, an ad caught my eye. It was a giant bottle of Windex … except it wasn’t. It was Fresh Couture, the latest fragrance from Moschino, which is bottled to look like Windex, red spray top and all. The ad copy describes Fresh Couture as an […]
The last three calls I’ve gotten for new projects all went something like this: “We want to reposition our product/service because we’ve realized after doing some/absolutely zero research that our website/marketing collateral/packaging is not resonating with … [wait for it] … MILLENNIALS!” Quick, but important rant here: Companies really need to stop grouping Millennials all […]
Last night I was honored to be a speaker — along with Quiana Agbai and Crystal Paradis — at Digital Portsmouth‘s event, “The Art of Copywriting.” Now if you regularly give talks to large crowds, speaking in front of 100+ of your peers is probably no big deal. But what I regularly do is sit […]
Like all three-year-olds, mine wants to do everything “by hisself.” Among other things, this means getting ready for bedtime. Alex mastered taking his clothes off a long time ago and has just recently managed to pull on his top and bottoms (provided there are no snaps, zippers or buttons to contend with). But the night […]
As I write this post, 150 new words are making their debut on Dictionary.com. This seems like a shockingly high number, but it’s actually a pretty discriminating list compared to the 1,000 going into the Oxford English Dictionary and the whopping 1,700 Merriam-Webster said “kk” to. (Which you’d know means “okay” if you got an […]
I had just sent my husband a text reading, “This place in incredible,” when I heard my son, Leo, crying. Not just the whiny cry of a six-year-old who wants Cheerios instead of scrambled eggs, but a real, something-is-seriously-wrong cry. Like most accidents, it all happened so fast: One minute, he was jumping happily on […]
