What if I don’t get published? ‘Keep writing,’ says ‘Mr. Author,’ Doug Worgul

“Dear Mr. Author,” started a letter recently from an 11-year-old boy to my cousin Doug Worgul, author of the novel Thin Blue Smoke.

With Doug’s approval, I share the child’s letter and his response:

Well said, Mr. Author! Good advice for adult writers, too.

FYI, Doug‘s other books are The Grand Barbecue, Kansas City Quiltmakers and A Table Full of Welcome.

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How the Berkshire Eagle is unbolting planning and management from print culture

This is the third of seven blog posts about the Berkshire Eagle Unbolt Master Plan (which I explained in the first post). Staff committees developed the plan in response to my call for newsrooms to free themselves from print culture and workflow in six primary areas.

This is the plan to drive the unbolting of the Eagle’s planning and management. Most of this post will be the Eagle’s plan, with my comments in italics. Responses from Managing Editor Tom Tripicco, who headed this committee, are included in bold, following my responses.

What is planning and management?

In terms of daily news planning and management, The Eagle’s workflow already is such that we post news stories (content) as soon they’re ready. The next natural step in that process is to use social media to drive readers to our site to read those stories.

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