writing
10 Brilliant Ideas on Writing and Work
I was lucky enough to find a writing coach and editor in the early part of my career who invested in me, let me borrow his books, and nurtured my curiosity about all things writing, editing, and publishing. Over the years, I’ve developed a wide network of writer/editor friends with whom I’ve received and exchanged […]
Communications & Systems Change
This piece was originally published at The Outside in May 2019. After working with Tuesday Ryan-Hart and Tim Merry and the team at The Outside on a few change projects this year, I joined Tuesday and Tim to co-write this piece on why a systems change approach to communications matters. Communications work is a vital piece of […]
Follow Your Real Work Inside and Outside of Institutions
Given the state of the world and our institutions, what work (paid or unpaid) do we really want to be doing? As individuals and women leaders, what work are we uniquely well-suited to do? What contribution can we make and do we want to make? I’m reminded of a line from Margaret Wheatley, “The leaders we need are already here.”
Mary Catherine Bateson on the sustainability of ideas
“It might be useful to ask about the sustainability of ideas, just as we have begun to ask about human activities, for sustainability carries with it the notions of resilience and variation over time… [We need] to know more about what it takes to get a new idea integrated into an existing system of ideas […]
Returning to the Lonely Page, What I Learned After Taking a Break From Writing
Long ago the word alone was treated as two words, all one. To be all one meant to be wholly one, to be in oneness, either essentially or temporarily. That is precisely the goal of solitude, to be all one. —Clarissa Pinkola Estes I took a break from writing in 2011. I did a fair […]
5 Books for Women Artists/Writers, or 5 Books That Changed Everything
If You Want to Write, Brenda Ueland At 17, although I knew I loved writing, I had a hard time getting words on paper. I remember struggling with one assignment in particular, visiting a professor one day to finally ask for help. She recommended this book to me, which was the most helpful thing she […]
Caroline Knapp on writing and activism
“Steering hope away from false gods, shepherding the focus back toward the heart, learning to see one’s private pain in a larger context, coming to link body with spirit: This, of course, is the essence of revolutionary work, and it always requires the reframing potential of language, the ability of words to fuel insight, rearrange facts, break down old paradigms.” […]
Turning Up the Volume on Women’s Voices
Originally published in Color Magazine, March 2011 Where are the women? In business, technology and media, among other fields, this is the big question we seem to be asking ourselves again and again as a society. It’s the headline of more than a few articles and columns. Despite an appreciation for women’s unique skills and […]
A writer at sea, an editor on the dock
In my experience of writing, you generally start out with some overall idea that you can see fairly clearly, as if you were standing on a dock and looking at a ship on the ocean. At first you can see the entire ship, but then as you begin work you’re in the boiler room and […]
New Ideas Require New Language
Originally published at BostInnovation.com As an entrepreneur and lover of big ideas, I read and follow many other creative folks online. And when I say follow, I mean follow-the-work-of, yes, but I also just mean follow on Twitter. The great thing about Twitter is that if you make thoughtful choices about who to follow, you […]
