The Writing Coach Podcast 15: How Nelson Mandela taught me to write faster
Today’s episode addresses two questions I get asked all the time, but never together: How can I write faster? What brought you to South Africa? These are somewhat surprisingly interconnected for me, and today i’m going to share with you one of the lessons Mandela taught me–how to write faster. Listen to episode 15 of […]
The Writing Coach Podcast 3/Travel writing: Pitching stories before or after the trip?
03: Travel writing: Pitching stories before or after the trip This episode addresses two of the most requested topics my readers told me they wanted to hear about: travel writing and pitching. Should you pitch your travel story ideas before or after you have a notebook full of notes? In theory, you can do it […]
What freelance writers can learn from Cape Town’s Day Zero
As a freelance journalist based in Cape Town, South Africa, the full meaning and impact of Day Zero is revealing itself both incredibly fast (what about this? and that! and the other?!) as well as incredibly slowly (such as the city’s non-release of details about logistics, or queuing for water). What is Day Zero? In […]
Mandela’s South Africa
Even when it’s expected, death still surprises. Prior to Mandela’s death, I had numerous conversations with editors about content that they wanted to have at the ready. It’s standard practice for news organizations to prepare obituaries of well-known people on file, but the preparations for Mandela were extreme. In the hours and days after the […]
Mandela Day
Mandela Day has been an informal day of service here in South Africa for several years, where people are asked to contribute 67 minutes in “service to one’s fellow human” in honor of Mandela’s birthday. (One minute for each year of service he gave the country.) This is the first Mandela Day since Madiba’s death, […]
Mandela paralyzes Koppel
On the eve of Mandela Day, what more could you want than a genuine laugh with Madiba:
Mandela, from Parliament and Prison
Reporting and filing two complete stories in one day is not the schedule I normally run on, but talking to people about the person who helped them clarify their purpose and vision is powerful stuff. I started out the morning visiting one of the prisons where Mandela was held–one that is still maximum security–for this […]
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