Notes on class held Monday, Sept. 9

Oh no! Another postcard!

Hi everyone,

Thanks for a fun class last night. Week 2 already behind us! And on we go...

I'll try to summarize what went down last night. Here goes.

• I reviewed a few updates to the class schedule.

Turns out Veterans Day is Monday, Nov. 11, and UNH is closed that day, so no class for us.

Instead, we have a class added onto the end of the semester. This means our final class will now be Monday, Dec. 16.

Also, no class on Monday, Oct. 7 as I expect to be out of town on that date.

• Matt Mowry of Business NH magazine visited us to speak about the "Young Reporter's" collaboration between his journal and us.

During the semester, we'll work with Matt to write business brief stories that he may choose to run in his publication.

The first step is to be on the lookout for a business that you'd like to write about.

We'll talk more about this in the next couple of classes.

Matt returns on Monday, Sept. 30 for "pitch" sessions in which you'll try to convince him to greenlight your story.

(Yes, "green light" is one word when used as a verb.)

Thanks for welcoming Matt and let him or me know if you have questions. Matt's e-mail is mmowry@businessnhmagazine.com.

• We had some fun analyzing the postcard recipes you all sent in. The message: many barriers will come between you and a reader. Some are physical, like the ink splots and bar codes the post office added to your cards. Others are in your writing itself, including poor sentence organization, disorganized thoughts, and so on. These are just as much barriers to reader comprehension as blindness.

A good lesson to keep in mind, and one to which we'll be returning time and time again.

• Reading assignments for next class: Chapters 4, 5, and 6 in 'The Inside Scoop,' and Chapter 12 in 'Media Writing.'

• Our writing assignment this week is to draft a press release for the 'Fall Down' event described in Chapter 3 of 'The Inside Scoop.'

I've sent out some samples to use as a guide. Try to include all necessary elements in your release, including the -30- at the end.

Would like to get press releases to me no later than end of day on Friday, Sept. 13. Thanks!

• Blogs: please try setting up your blogs and send me the address once you do.

All for now. Will check in later in the week with updates.