Eileen Mitchell has added another award to her collection. The writer-author-blogger from Palatine, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, is the first-place winner in the 2015 Will Rogers Writing Contest. Her essay, “Roped in by Technology,” was judged the top entry in a national competition to find the best examples of the style of writing practiced by…
Columnists and bloggers living or visiting in the District of Columbia area might be interested in knowing the biographical play Erma Bombeck: At Wit’s End will be running this fall at Washington’s Arena Stage. The drama is part of the season’s Women’s Voices Theater Festival and runs Oct. 9 through Nov. 8, 2015. The Arena…
Rick Horowitz — a longtime member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and occasional workshop presenter at its annual conferences — will be featured in a webinar presented by the Poynter Institute’s News University. “The hour-long program, “Connecting as a Columnist: Your Voices, Your Choices,” will be aired live at 2 p.m. Eastern, Thursday,…
When Will Rogers died 80 years ago this month, the world lost a phenomenal figure. The “Cowboy Philosopher” from Oklahoma was an expert trick roper, star of stage, screen and radio, book author, newspaper columnist, aviation enthusiast, goodwill ambassador and humanitarian. Authorities generally agree it would be difficult, if not impossible, to replace him. But…
Jeff Kramer Mystic Tie Award 2014 INDIANAPOLIS, June 27, 2015 — Dave Astor, a New Jersey-based writer, employed a bit of magic realism to take home the 2015 Jeff Kramer Mystic Tie Award for his creation of the top of a story from a farcical premise. The set-up, by longtime NSNC member Bill Tammeus, was…
Sitting Duck 2015 INDIANAPOLIS, June 27, 2015 — In the first-in-the-nation Indiana straw-man caucus, Donald Trump swept all other candidates for the Sitting Duck Award of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. The award is given each year to a subject or person, about which or whom columnists can easily grab, much as low-hanging fruit,…
Humor columnist Burton W. Cole‘s third “faith, fun and farm pranks” children’s novel, “Bash and the Chocolate Milk Cows,” was released May 1 from B&H Publishing Group, a division of LifeWay Christian Resources. Cole’s second novel, “Bash and the Chicken Coop Caper” (2014, B&H Kids), won the prestigious 2015 Selah Award as Best Novel for…
The 2015 Nominating Committee of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists presents the following slate of nominees to two-year positions being left vacant June 30. Secretary: Telly Halkias Treasurer: Kathy Eliscu Archivist: Dave Astor Contest chair: Michele Wojciechowski Membership chair: Amanda Beam This year’s Nominating Committee comprised NSNC former presidents Eric Heyl, Suzette Martinez Standring…
Will Rogers Humanitarian Award An award-winning writer from The Indianapolis Star has been chosen to receive the 2015 Will Rogers Humanitarian Award at the annual conference of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Marisa Kwiatkowski, an investigative reporter covering social services, will be recognized for her outstanding work on behalf of children. In nominating her…
NSNC 2015 — Indianapolis The National Society of Newspaper Columnists will hold its 2015 conference June 25-28 in Indianapolis. Here is a statement to the membership from NSNC President Jerry Zezima. Dear NSNC members: As our conference in Indianapolis approaches — and it will be here before we know it — I have heard from…
Member Barry Schrader has published a second volume of Hybrid Corn & Purebred People, a collection of a hundred of his columns, run in the Daily Chronicle newspaper of DeKalb, Illinois. He’s considering an e-book edition. The first volume, issued in 2010, sold out in two months, the author says. The new volume is illustrated…
Have you or someone you love ever thought of selling real estate? NSNC Member Cathy Turney, a 25-year veteran of the business, just published Laugh Your Way to Real Estate Sales Success. In this humorous but positive exposé on the real estate sales profession, Cathy channels Dave Barry channeling Erma Bombeck with instructive true-life stories…
Will Rogers Humanitarian Award Has your community suffered a natural disaster within the past year — flood, fire, tornado or earthquake? If so, did local news media get involved in coming to the aid of victims, during and after the event? Was there one individual columnist or other writer who performed outstanding service? That person…
Journalists, American ones at least, keep a rope line between reportage and commentary, and by extension between photojournalism and illustration. U.S. discussions on news concentrate on the presentation of factual material. If we accept, though, that journalism is inclusive in this continuum — and the major media practitioner societies show this by endorsing the “Je…
“A journalist’s most important and powerful tools are words, but even they are inadequate in expressing the horror we at the National Society of Newspaper Columnists feel about the attack on the staff of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. It also was an attack on freedom — and free speech — everywhere. “Thomas Jefferson said,…
Dorothy Rosby, a National Society of Newspaper Columnists member, published in November a column collection, I Used to Think I Was Not That Bad and Then I Got to Know Me Better. She writes at her website dorothyrosby.com that it’s “the book for people who read self-improvement books and never get any better. (Also for…
Mary Stobie, a National Society of Newspaper Columnists member, released in October what she calls a “patchwork memoir,” You Fall Off, You Get Back On. The 204-page book is published by Liberator Press and is available through local booksellers or online. According to her website marystobie.com, the volume is “an unusual and just plain joyful…
