A blog post about how my website (wherein my blog is contained) is now finished.
My website is now finished!
It took a lot longer than I expected, and I had to learn a little about PHP and a lot about WordPress, but here she is. If you’ve got any feedback, I’m 97% ears.
And now it’s time to go and get some sunlight on this pasty, sallow skin.
Here in Chicago, complaining about winter is just a thing we do. It’s cathartic, communal, and commiserative. That’s co-misery . . . ative–you get the idea. We complain about the cold weather, wind, and lack of sunlight during the winter months, and we do it up right.
Usually, I complain with the best of them, but this year was different. This year I had a bone to pick. People started whining about winter in August. It wasn’t even fall yet, and people had just barely begun to notice that the days were no longer 92 degrees but 89 degrees. Bring on the prognostications and ominous foreboding.
October rolls around, and all I hear about is Old Man Winter, despite the fact that we had a generally beautiful fall. By the time it finally snowed, on the second to last day of November, I’d heard so much about winter that you’d have thought we’d been buried drifts for months.
In this way, Chicagoans make winter longer than it is. Granted, there have been some harsh ones here, and somehow the lake, the grid layout, and the generally narrow streets and scarcity of greenery in some neighborhoods do make it a bit ickier than some more rural places that get colder temperatures and more snow. But there’s a lot to love about winter–don’t worry, I won’t go into all of it. You know you thought the Snowpocalypse was cool and you like sweaters–and complaining about it gets you into a cold state of mind.
In fact, recently those smartypants scientists have learned the the “brown fat” in your body, which protects you from the cold, can take a few weeks to get activated. This means that if you tough out the first few weeks of cold without wearing eight layers once it hits 45 degrees, your body will get used to it a little. I can remember doing this as a kid in Montana before I knew there was actual science behind it. I was simply too lazy to bring a coat everywhere and liked to think of myself as tough, so I’d go out in 20 degrees without a coat. Mid-winter I’d always notice that I didn’t get as cold as everyone else did. Gold star for twelve-year-old me.
The scientists just illustrate my point: Cold is in your head, at least to a degree. Several degrees, in fact. On the thermometer. PLAY ON WORDS.
So, dear Chicago, next fall can we just chill out a bit (Eh? Catch that one?) with the collective dread? Let’s enjoy the warm sun whilst it tarries in the sky and abstain from the portentous pessimism.
Sometimes (in fact, make that almost all the time), prospective clients or donors don’t want a sales pitch. They don’t want things fed to them in bite-sized pieces, they want to synthesize information and draw their own conclusions. So why not share a story every now and then?
Composed for the Cancer Research Foundation’s 2009 online catalog entry in “Best of the CFC,” this is a short nonprofit marketing piece in the form of a short “human interest story.” Its intended audience was government employees deciding whether or not to donate a small portion of each paycheck to the Cancer Research Foundation.
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Every company website should have a well-composed FAQ page, since visitors who find what they were looking for are more likely to come back–and less likely to barrage your office with phone calls asking simple questions with simple answers.
This page neatly lays out the answers to some of the Cancer Research Foundation’s most frequently asked questions.
While volunteering with several orphanages in Blantyre, Malawi (Central Africa), I kept a blog for the benefit of donors to my small micro-donation program, The Zikomo Project. Donors from my network gave small amounts to purchase specific goods for individual Malawians who had demonstrated resourcefulness and found themselves in need of a little extra help to continue in their missions. Though small in scope, the project surprised me in how well it was received by US-based donors and Malawian locals alike.
Here are a few selected blog entries. The tone is personal, informal, and intended to engage donors with interesting, quick details.
As a news writer for ThirdAge.com, I regularly compose concise news stories featured on this vibrant website for Boomer women. Topics range from health care to celebrities, international news to scientific discoveries.
To view this article about health care waivers, click here.
In one of a number of website pages I composed for the Cancer Research Foundation, I lay out the ways in which helpful souls can give of their time and energy.
Groupon’s irreverent, humorous, and distinctive voice eschews marketing clichés in order to appeal to an educated, choosy customer base. I composed a number of writeups for this rapidly growing internet bargain broker in 2011. Here’s a taste:
As a Field Organizer for Greenpeace USA, I handled media relations (and about a million other things) for a district campaign. Pitching events, composing editorial content, and producing press releases like this one were all in a day’s work.
Oh, and for the record, the event was fantastic. Free smoothies courtesy of solar power!
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Produced and mailed in early 2011, this abbreviated newsletter was geared toward steady, long-time supporters who may not spend large amounts of time online but who are genuinely interested in the meat of the studies being funded by the CRF.
NOTE: While I produced and edited this entire newsletter, the majority of the first page was composed by the Executive Director, Alexandra Nikitas.
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Hi. I'm a Chicago-based freelance writer, editor, and content strategist with backgrounds in teaching, fundraising, acting, and organizing (click here for the rundown on that). Check out my work, peruse my blog, or drop a line, why don't ya?
