Sunday, August 08, 2010

Twin stories

Two things on the self-promotion front. It's not like it was planned, but there are two stories readers of this blog might find interesting which have come out in the last few days.

The first is courtesy of The Packet. About 10 years ago I used to write for them and Barbara, the paper's long-suffering editor (seriously, this is her 30th year with the paper, and her 20th as editor. I'm beginning to think shooting her would be a mercy), has a soft spot for me, for some reason. Lord only knows what as I made her life hell while I was there. Anyway, she runs a feature every summer called "Around the World" where people can write about places they've visited or lived in. It's basically a travel feature, but she tries to use people who either used to live or work in the paper's coverage area. It's a pretty clever idea. Plus, I've managed to write stories over the years about Iqaluit, California, Italy and now Australia.

This is part one. The second part runs this Thursday. I actually wrote this piece about a year ago and there are a few things I wish I had changed, but I think it holds up all right. Also, to my amusement, it's currently the most read article on The Packet's website. So by all means keep the traffic flowing there. If for no other reason then perhaps Barb will keep throwing me freelance articles.

The other piece is a bit...odder. And I don't mean that in a bad way. Kerry Breen of The Telegram contacted me wanting to do a story about Newfoundland bloggers. Now, I have only a tenuous connection to being a Newfoundland blogger. A fact noted by several friends when I lined to the story on Facebook. Yes, I am from Newfoundland, but over the past five years I might have spent six weeks there. Cathy's asked me when is the next time I plan on going back there and I honestly do not have an answer.

Anyway, I was born there and I still write about it from time to time, so I guess that counts. I mainly said yes to the article because Kerry is a former editor of the Muse, and I have a difficult time saying no to Musers, both past and present. I'm only briefly mentioned, although they did use the blog header with the story. I guess the walruses are photogenic (Yes, I know, I need to update the photo.)

So there you go, two mentions in a few days. I'm famous.....not really. But hey, I'm in the newspapers, which makes my mom proud.

Last Five
1. Sonnet in the dark - The Flash Girls*
2. Eventually - Brendan Benson
3. The first song - Band of Horses
4. Cirque du Soleil (commedy) - Patton Oswalt
5. Pride (in the name of love) (live) - U2

3 comments:

Megan said...

I demand recognition as a Newfoundland blogger, too.

BTW, it appears that you have so many readers clicking your links, you've taken down both newspapers' websites. Well done.

towniebastard said...

You'll have to file an appeal with the Secret Society of Newfoundland and Labrador Bloggers (SSNLB). I'd tell you how to do it, but then they would take away my secret decoder ring.

I would like to believe that the awesome levels of traffic my blog generates crashed the site. It is, however, far more likely that they're just trying to fix the mess they've created with those sites over the past few weeks.

pSRjK said...

Excellent writing. Makes me want to go back and explore.
By the way, I could never find part 2 on the site's home page. Any link to it?
Thanks.