Melanie Padgett Powers

Finding Inspiration in the Written Word on the Anniversary of September 11th

I was inspired today, and also humbled. I was moved, saddened and carried away by storytelling. As we reach the 10th anniversary of 9/11, The Washington Post published a series of articles featuring individuals who had been directly affected by the terrorist attack. The articles may be too difficult, too heart-wrenching, for some to read. [...]

Should This Blog Post Have Been Written in Cursive?

I recently learned that Indiana, my beloved home state, is no longer requiring schools to teach cursive writing, focusing instead on printing and typing. I remember struggling to perfect my cursive writing in Mr. Biltz’s fifth grade class. But I never came close to the beautiful script of my teacher. If there were an Olympics [...]

Quit Daydreaming and Focus on Your Website

That one big idea—the one that will bring the masses to your website overnight and lead to more Twitter followers than Lady Gaga sees is not worth waiting for. I’m all for brainstorming and trying big new ideas, but if you really want to improve your pageviews and build community online you should place your [...]

Conquer the Writing Process (Or Let it Conquer You)

The interesting part about writing is that much of the “writing” process involves staring at a blank document on the computer screen. I rock back in my chair, I play with my hair, I stretch out my back. But all the while, the ideas are churning in my head (and that’s not just what I [...]

4 Tips to Develop Engaging Story Ideas

“That’s a story idea,” I would often think as a general assignment newspaper reporter and editor. So many of my friends’ and family’s stories about lively debates at their jobs, old friends they ran into or the TV shows they were obsessed with would often lead to an article idea relevant and interesting to our [...]

Lead and I Will Follow: On Writing Good Leads

You’re making me nervous. You clicked on this link expecting to learn something or to perhaps be entertained. I could boldly hope that you may even retweet or bookmark this article. But a lot of that depends on my lead. Here’s hoping it worked.

7 Grammar Mistakes that Make Editors Hyperventilate

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It’s time to declare a war on bad grammar, misuse of words and cringeworthy punctuation and capitalization. In today’s fast-paced media environment, perfection seems to have been traded for speed, making room for these unwelcome villains on the pages of publications everywhere. But who is enemy #1? Do all editors loathe the same mistakes, or [...]

Give the Gift of Good Content

Is there a more sparkling, party-filled, cookie-eating, holiday-song-playing month than December? Wrapped up in all that fun is gift giving. Do you want to be the person who gives earrings to a woman without pierced ears, a snowblower to your friend in Hawaii or an evergreen-scented candle to someone who sneezes at the first sight [...]

5 Rules of Content That Will Never Change

At least half of what I do all day long didn’t exist when I studied journalism in college. And I’m not that old. At that time, you wrote an article and it was published. The end. There was no updating it and certainly no tweeting it, no blogging about it, no linking it to other [...]

5 Tips to Fight the Writing Procrastination Gremlins

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For every 300-word blog entry or 2,000-word article they write, many writers spend a substantial part of that time doing everything they can to not write the story. Writing may be something you have wanted to do since you started a class magazine in the sixth grade, wrote editorials for your college paper, or had [...]

It Takes a Village to Save a Newspaper

I have a fantastical dream of returning to Indiana and buying my hometown weekly newspaper. Nevermind that I don’t have the cash, it’s not for sale and that I’m firmly rooted in the DC area. I started in newspapers and continue to believe in them. Am I a dinosaur?

That’s a Fact

“Did you hear what some flight attendant in New York did?” From offices to college campuses to airports, it seems everyone was talking this week about Steven Slater—the JetBlue flight attendant who had just about enough with one rude passenger. After getting hit on the head with a piece of luggage and cursed at, he [...]

Head(line) of the Class

I still remember one of my favorite headlines with a chuckle: “Skywalkers in Korea Cross Han Solo.” I was enticed to click the head after spotting it while browsing a news website. The headline is so clever that it actually seems like a no-brainer to use. But remember, the editor was only crafting a headline [...]

Building Community, One Blog at a Time

A reader made my day today. Well, she’s more than a reader. She’s a blogger, and she just began blogging for a magazine website that I manage for a client. She reminded me of the impact our publications and websites can have on our audience—she even reminded me that I have an audience. Honestly, I [...]

Geeks in Style

Last week, this self-proclaimed editing geek stumbled upon an unexpected gift: a styleguide for web writing. At first look, it seemed to be what I had been hoping my beloved The Associated Press (AP) Stylebook would become. Yahoo! has published its own web content style guide. However, it’s not the new guide I’m interested in. [...]

The Dark Side I Sense in You

I was amazed to learn recently that Facebook sends more people to news sites than Google does. Sixty-eight percent of your Facebook fans are likely to recommend your product, and fans will spend nearly $72 more than non-fans. All these facts come courtesy of an interesting American Marketing Association webcast, “What the Big Brands Do [...]

I Don’t Know

“I can’t know everything.” A co-worker at a previous job once said this to me. He wasn’t being flippant. He was explaining to me that it’s OK if we don’t know everything. It’s OK to admit you don’t know the answer to a question and that you may need to conduct research on the topic. [...]

5 Ways Phone Calls Trump Email

As much as I’ve always loved being a reporter, there’s something inherently nerve-wracking about picking up the phone to ask someone questions. But when I first started out in the 1990s, I had no choice. There was no email, at least not in most homes and offices. But, oh how the times have changed. A [...]