Autumn Bylines
Work has been picking up lately, so I have a few new bylines to share from September and October. These days I’m doing some content marketing work that doesn’t generate a byline, so what you’ll see here is all from Earth911.com, Parentmap magazine – and a book!
Book!
Okay, this is actually a November 1 publication, but it’s too exciting to wait. I’m in a book! I didn’t write the book or even edit it. But I wrote part of it and I’m almost as excited as if the whole project were my own baby. (Project baby, not literal baby, but still – excited.)
Editor Extraordinaire Elisa Murray compiled “52 Seattle Adventures With Kids” from articles that I and a bunch of other local ParentMap writers have written about – you guessed it – Seattle adventures with kids. It will be in some local bookstores, and it’s already on Amazon. Organized by season, it’s a week-by-week guide to affordable, awesome and nearby adventures to help families spend a #yearoflivingadventurously. Obviously, I’d love it if you bought a copy. I think those of you with kids would love it, too.
September
My only ParentMap publication in September was this piece, giving advice for dealing with Back to School Blues.
I was a little more active over on Earth911.com, where I had several garden and landscape-related pieces:
- Gardening with Goats
- What to do with Autumn Leaves (if only my next door neighbors had read this one)
- Exotic Natives – Growing Hardy Orchids
- Designing a Wildfire-Resistant Landscape
It’s hard to follow that without a lady garden joke, but I did also write about How to Green Your Period.
October
Dang! No wonder I’m tired. Check out this list of publications in October, in no particular order because it would take too long to sort them:
- Livable Housing – for Birds
- CITES Protects Endangered Species
- Eco-Friendly Halloween Costumes
- Don’t Put the Garden to Bed Yet
- Design for the 90% Exhibit at the Gates Foundation
- How to Get Rid of Your Old Grill
- Got a Girl Gamer? It’s Time to Talk – It turns out that girls play almost as much as boys, but they don’t get the same access to the benefits (and yes, there are benefits to be had from gaming).
- Girl Rescues River – I am always amazed by the things young people accomplish.
- Not-Creepy Mixer for Single Parents – It has nothing to do with Halloween. Apparently the dating scene is pretty creepy and this event was designed to help actual grownups with kids make meaningful connections with other actual grownups with kids.
- Pick Sustainable Music Festivals – I’ve written a lot about how awesome the Pickathon music festival festival is. This article looks at their awesome environmental ethic.
- Plan Ahead for Extreme Air Conditions – Because smokestorms are regular thing now.
- The Future of MRFs Post-China Ban – China stopped accepting recyclables from other countries for processing, and it’s wrecking recycling systems in the U.S.
- City Art Scavenger Hunt – You can find art everywhere in Seattle if you know where to look.
- Six Family-Friendly Museum Exhibits – But if you prefer your art indoors, our local museums are killing it with special exhibits this fall.
- STEM Resources for Girls – I knew we were a science-y town, but I was surprised how many resources there are to encourage girls.
- Trick or Eco-Treat – The Candy Quandary. I’ve got about 6 pounds of processed sugar lying around my house right now. How about you?
- World Food Day
Blog
I was feeling bad about not quite sticking to my posting schedule the past couple weeks, but after that monster list I feel better. Especially since I didn’t exactly quit blogging the last two months either. When I publish a post here, it automatically generates a tweet with the link. I usually tweet each post a couple more times, too. I set up my Twitter account to automatically post everything on Facebook, too, since that’s the platform a lot of my friends and family prefer. But a while back, Facebook stopped accepting posts from Twitter. I tried to set up my blog to post directly to Facebook, but they only let you do that with business pages, not personal ones. So if I want to autopost my blog to FB, I now have to build a whole new page just for that. I’ve managed business pages before, and the time is not trivial. So far I’ve resisted.
But ugh. Between posting less often and Facebook deciding not to let outside platforms autopost, my traffic in the last couple months has almost dropped in half.
Visitors
Most of my visitors are still from the U.S., but last month the Philippines made a strong 2nd place showing. I don’t know why, but welcome! And I’m still seeing the tail of interest from Pacific Northwest Ballet’s tour to France. Bienvenue!
Top Posts
My top posts for October were:
- Punishment of Counterfeiting – Constitution Article 1 §8.6
- Little Mortal Jump at Pacific Northwest Ballet
- Missing The Turn (of the Screw)
Search Terms
There were a bunch of search terms, but they mostly clustered around three topics covered by these posts:
Counterfeiting – Hmm, maybe someone is considering a new career. It’s the one crime I didn’t think old 45 was accused of; I’m surprised the post on birthright citizenship didn’t get more hits.
A potential outlier was “dominik chenes”, but I’m going to guess that the tenor recently performed in Figaro somewhere.
Top Posts
Top posts for the past couple months were:
At El Corazon: Amorphis, Dark Tranquillity, Moonspell, Omnium Gatherum, Blood and Thunder
Jerome Robbins Festival at Pacific Northwest Ballet
Should You See Porgy and Bess?
The Looney (Tunes) World of Marriage of Figaro
Punishment of Counterfeiting – Constitution Article 1 §8.6
About The Author
GD
I'm a freelance writer in Seattle specializing in parenting, arts and the environment.