Blog : Page 2 of 44 : Nace Phlaux

Creative Writing News Week of March 19

Posted: March 19, 2018May 23, 2021

Wyoming is a poor state that exports talent. Will that ever change?

Nathan Martin | High Country News

“(Wyoming is) a poor, friendly, hard-working state that exports everything, especially talent. The state leaks brain power like thin tea through a colander.”

10+ Witty Webcomics You Should Read to Brighten Your Day

Emma Taggart | My Modern Met

For many artists with a sense of humor, comics are a no-brainer when it comes to visually expressing their ideas and feelings. Taking the form of sequential images with overlaid captions and speech bubbles, the narrative art form first became popular in America and Japan during the mid-20th century. Though comic illustrations were traditionally printed in comic books, graphic novels, and the “funnies” section in newspapers, today many artists are publishing their own webcomics online using popular platforms such as Instagram and Tumblr.

‘This country has been so unloved. People go on about 800 years of oppression, it’s 800 years of rejection’

Cormac Fitzgerald | TheJournal.ie

Keegan’s personal struggle at this time was the same as the struggle felt by hundreds of thousands of Irish people as the country worked through the economic collapse and recession. The personal was the political.

In his role as an instructor, he works to help people realise their own ability and to find their means of artistic expression – whatever helps them deal with and respond to the world around them.

The immediate world around them is Ireland – but it’s a different Ireland for everyone.

No Mistakes In Digital Marketing

by Nace Phlaux

Posted: March 15, 2018May 23, 2021

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There are no mistakes in digital marketing, or so I often say during my 9-to-5 job, mostly when a campaign hasn’t spent well or paced oddly. With the right analytics, even the worst campaign can provide details into user demographics and creative appeal. But it’s different when it’s your own money, right?

Recently I ran a short Facebook campaign to promote St. John’s Media. I hadn’t run anything in years, as I chronicled back in this post, and Facebook’s a whole new beast since then, with sponsored posts and the acquisition of Instagram.

This time, I decided to try boosting a simple post that linked to the SJM site. Facebook asked if I’d like to promote on Instagram as well, something I’d never done before. Sure, I said. After making a quick and dirty account, it started the campaign.

Then came the problems

Reports said the post was getting great engagement, but I wasn’t receiving any notifications of Likes. I certainly wasn’t receiving any calls or emails. When I dug deeper, it turned out all of the engagement was coming from Instagram. Nearly every impression was followed up with a Like, but only one person clicked the link to learn more.

I tried to play with the settings in Ads Manager, but couldn’t find any that would stop the money going to the Instagram Likes. That is, until the campaign had gone through 95% of its funds. By the time I found the correct page to modify the campaign, it was too late. And even then, it turned out there was a final approval I didn’t notice and therefore never finished.

The results

There are no mistakes in digital marketing. Since the campaign, I’ve been posting daily on Instagram on my own, slowly building engagement and followers and hoping, in the long run, they’ll turn into leads. In the end, the entire budget went into mobile devices on Instagram. When I do my next campaign, I’ll make sure to avoid Instagram entirely, despite Facebook telling me it targets the placements and devices its algorithms believe will work best. There are no mistakes in digital marketing because, at the very least, you can learn what not to do next time.

Creative Writing News Week of March 12

by Nace Phlaux

Posted: March 12, 2018May 23, 2021

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“Authors, as role models, can be transformative”: Pop Up Projects on engaging kids with books

Molly Flatt | The Bookseller

Children are not, should not have to be and perhaps never were passive listeners, sitting quietly while the novelist reads at them. This is a noisy, intertextual world, and at Pop Up we encourage children and authors to make noise when they engage with one another.

I thought having a baby would hurt my career. I was wrong.

Joy Lanzendorfer | The Washington Post

I almost didn’t have a child because of my career as a writer. Everything I read about motherhood and creativity said that a baby would sap my energy, divide my attention, give me something called mommy brain and make it almost impossible to continue working. As an ambitious person, this scared me. Having a child is a big enough mystery, and the idea that it could stop me from doing what I most desired felt like a huge risk — one I wasn’t sure I wanted to take.

What an ‘infinite’ AI-generated podcast can tell us about the future of entertainment

James Vincent | The Verge

Sheldon County is a podcast that will never sound the same twice. Every time someone listens to it, they’ll begin by typing a random number into a website. This “seed” will set in motion a Rube Goldberg machine of calculation that will create characters, relationships, jealousies, betrayals, and maybe even a murder or two. These plot points will be turned into a text narrative, read aloud by a voice synthesizer, and then zipped up into an audio file. Each time it will be a unique version of Sheldon County’s story. A podcast made just for you.

Web Comics Bookmark Dump

by Nace Phlaux

Posted: March 6, 2018May 23, 2021

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A Softer World

Girls With Slingshots

Scary Go Round / Bad Machinery

You Suck (Definitely NSFW)

Scenes From A Multiverse

Creative Writing News Week of March 5

by Nace Phlaux

Posted: March 5, 2018May 23, 2021

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Egyptian writers use history to highlight the present

Muhammed Magdy | Al-Monitor

Abdulatif, 39, who wrote “Hossn al-Turab” (“The Earthen Fortress”), is already known in the literary world as a prominent Spanish translator. He said that working as a translator had enabled him to learn new skills that helped him as a writer. “I am first and foremost a novelist and my mission in life is to look at the world and describe it,” he said. “Translation widens the author’s perspectives, just like reading. But it can damage [the authentic style of an] author as well because he has to [use the words and style] of another writer while translating.”

This workshop inspires young writers in a new way: What does sandstone taste like?

Reuben Wadsworth | St George News

Washington County’s incomparable landscape, which includes places such as Zion National Park, Snow Canyon State Park, Red Cliffs Desert Reserve and many others, has been inspiring writers for over a century. A new workshop in the area applied the power of the region’s majesty and complexity to challenge students to see things in a new way and then translate their observations into writing creatively.

Razzies 2018: ‘The Emoji Movie’ wins award for worst film

Gael Fashingbauer Cooper | CNET

The Razzies also named Tom Cruise as worst actor for “The Mummy,” and Tyler Perry claimed the worst actress award for “BOO! 2: A Madea Halloween.” Kim Basinger won worst supporting actress for “Fifty Shades Darker,” and Mel Gibson won worst supporting actor for “Daddy’s Home 2.” The “Baywatch” film received the award for the “Razzie Nominee So Bad You Loved It.”