And, we’re back!
Gah, I’m a terrible blogger. I apologize, Internet, for being such a slacker over the last few months. To be quite honest: I’ve been stupidly busy with a day job (writing) and working on my graphic novel. This has led to little time and little desire to blog and/or maintain this site.
But, things are starting to relax now, so you’ll see more content from me coming soon. For one - KYPO over on BleedingCool.com will be starting up again next week, as will Geek Girl on the Street Reports.
I also have some interesting quasi-personal things I want to write about on this site in the near future. So stay tuned…
In the meantime, I leave you with this amusing photo which marries two of my favorite things (Doctor Who and LOLCats) to give you the Friday lol:
Event Shout-Out: National Association of Professional Women Midwest Conference on 11/18
Hey y’all - remember last week when I gave the shout-out to Ms. Career Girl Connect this Thursday and I talked about the importance of networking? I also mentioned I was doing public relations for a great group which was holding a Chicago area conference *the-very-next-day* after MCGC?
Yup well this post is about them: I’ve been working with the National Association of Professional Women to publicize their 1st Annual Midwest Conference in Naperville this coming Friday. NAPW is a national organization which is designed to empower women for professional success. While it’s targeted at mainly those in marketing and sales, NAPW has something to offer and teach all professional women about leveraging “assets” (not what you’re thinking, you pervy monkeys!) they already have (expertise, contacts, skills) to create meaningful business relationships. I know that in the short time I’ve been working with them, I’ve even had my skill-set sharpened (as I’ve had to start thinking again about writing in a completely different way than I do when writing about pop-culture funness like comics and Doctor Who and geek dating).
Here is what our buddies at GeekMom said about NAPW:
“The National Association of Professional Women (NAPW) is a group whose goal is to help professional women overcome those challenges. This nationwide organization holds meetings and events across the country through local chapters and gives women the chance to meet professionals both online and in person to support and encourage their professional success.”
(Thanks Nicole!)
If you’re in the Chicago area and are interested in attending, you can register here: http://www.napwmidwest.com/
If you’re a journalist or blogger and are interested in attending, if you write about the event before Friday or pinky-swear you’ll write about the event FROM the event via your blog or Twitter, you can even attend for free… Granted this is only open to the first five bloggers to hit me up via email.
Plus there will be swag. I know how you jokers love swag. This stuff is GOOD STUFF (including a cashmere scarf courtesy of J. Hillburn, which if you don’t want, I’ll happily divest you of.)
Event Shout-Out: Ms. Career Girl Connect on Nov. 17th
So, one of the things about being a freelance writer (and freelance communications professional - PR, marketing and content services available for reasonable rates, hit me up via email if you’re interested) is that you CONSTANTLY have to be networking to get your next job.
This means I attend a lot of press events and networking cocktail hours, coffee sessions, dinners, lectures, etc. Armed with a stack of business cards, you never know when you’re going to meet the person who is going to connect you with your next job.
Recently I’ve become aware of an AWESOME site: Ms. Career Girl, run by Nicole Crimaldi, is a blog and educational resource for business women across a variety of career segments - helping women to refine their ideas for small businesses via an incubator, get employed via career coaching and connect with other Chicago-area business women to create business relationships with tangible benefits.
Next week Ms. Career Girl is hosting a “Ms. Career Girl Connect” networking event at Proof Chicago (networking is always best done in a cocktail setting, IMHO) where the following panelists will be speaking about how to use social media to boost your sales around the holidays:
Further, there will be free food and complimentary champagne:
Food provided by Chicago’s top food trucks!
- Homage Street Good
- Gaztro Wagon
- Tamalie Foodie
- Ste Martean Vegan Food truck
- Mama Green’s Gourmet Goodies
Complimentary champagne and cash bar!
Pickup tickets via Eventbrite: http://mcgconnect.eventbrite.com/
Sadly, I won’t be able to attend as I’ll be prepping for the NAPW Midwest Conference the next day (which I am doing PR for, more on this tomorrow) — but, I’ll be there in spirit, for sure.
(FYI - this is why 2011 has been one of the hardest business years for me ever, as I have had to miss two HUGE networking events due to family obligations - San Diego Comic Con and NYC Comic Con - my work has suffered immensely. If any of you youngin’s out there were wondering how important those events are, I’m just saying - 50% of my business comes from attending those two shows.)
What I’m listening to and other stuff:
You know what the library has in addition to books and DVDs? Music… lots and lots of music, surprisingly good and hip music. Also cheesy music, that only I like… Here’s what I have in my CD player right now (some are mine, some are property of the library…)
Mmm, dreamy late-90s Chris Cornell… :)
Other than that, not much new… still being a broke-ass, but doing it in style. Had a great interview with an innovative advertising agency yesterday (LimeGreen), hopefully I’ll be joining their team soon! Doing some freelance/contract pr work for the National Association of Professional Women… on a tight time frame, but doable and it’s really testing my ability to work under pressure. Fun stuff.
Back to writing KYPO on Bleeding Cool, you can see my solo column here: A Tale of Two Dates
Will be back writing GGotS Reports next week.
Until then… l8r, sk8rs!
Books I have read in October:
Since I’m broke and don’t have the Internets at home (or cable, for that matter) I have been reading at the pace of about three books per week. Here is a list, in no particular order, of what I’ve read in the last month and my brief thoughts on each title.
- Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman — This was the spring 2011 “One Book, One Chicago” selection and I actually had never read it before. I really enjoyed Richard Mayhew’s tale, which was really no surprise as I like Gaiman’s other books, such as American Gods. Though I found the eventual unraveling of the mystery of Door and the execution of her family a little anti-climatic and predictable. I was willing to overlook that because the meat in the middle of the book was so wonderfully written.
- Finny by Justin Kramreon — For the most part, I enjoyed this book. I found the 20+ year relationship between Finny and Earl quite compelling, almost an allegory for a relationship I’ve had with a particular man for half as long. The end made me cry. However, I felt like the character of Judith was somewhat unnecessary. And, at times I felt like the book changed voices (first to third) unpredictably, which caused me to be jarred out of the story. It was pretty clear this was a first novel (a fairly good one at that) - so I’ll look forward to seeing what Justin Kramron produces next… hopefully holding onto the charming aspects he has nailed already as a writer and improving upon where his structuring could really use some solid foundation work.
- Smokin’ Seventeen by Janet Evanovich — Light, fluffy, predictable. I enjoy the fact that you can pick up any Stephanie Plum mystery and be caught up on who Stephanie is, what has happened in books previous and what is currently happening in her life within the first chapter. I mostly read this because Joan Hilty suggested that perhaps Evanovich would be wise to turn her varied series into graphic novels to grab a female audience… and, honestly I’d not read her work until that came up, so I was curious.
- The Last of the Savages by Jay McInerney — A disappointing, fairly predictable, Holden Caufield-esque novel from an otherwise talented writer. Don’t bother.
- An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin — This was a re-read. I read it when it came out last fall and was disappointed in it. I wanted to give it a second chance, because I thought I might have been predisposed to dislike it by having recently read Shopgirl. But, no, it was still not very good. Felt like Martin was phoning it in. Which he’s entitled to do… but… yeah I was a little bummed I spent $25 on the hardback of the book.
- On Writing by Stephan King — Another re-read, I think that writers or anyone interested in becoming a writer should read this book at least once per year. The autobiography portion of the book holds up to being interesting the second time around, and the writing advice is interesting to look back on after a whole year of trying to apply said advice to your craft. A+ non-fiction, go buy it now.
- States of Confusion by Paul Jury — Jury, a Northwestern film school graduate, struggles to find himself while on a 48 states in 48 days roadtrip across America. I tore through this book (I started it last night and I finished it around noon this afternoon.) It’s funny, insightful, annoying in the way that 23-year old type-A overachievers (like my brother, Matthew - this book TOTALLY reminded me of him) can be and a pretty fun read. I hope Jury writes more. I enjoyed the hell out of this book.
Up next: The Fall 2011 OBOC title, The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellows. I’ve heard from a reliable source that this book is dry and humorless, but we’ll see… I’ll give it a shot.
Despite rampant rumors, I’m not dead. Just been dealing with some crunchy personal stuff lately and haven’t been writing much. However, new with me is this: I am looking for a “day job” because I’m sick of being broke (and just learned that Wizard is discontinuing the weekly feature they hired me in August to write. Boo, Wizard. No wonder people complain about working for you.) Ergo, here is my updated LinkedIn Profile link. If y’all hear of anything… let me know. Look for columns from me on Bleeding Cool and the GGN starting again next week. xoxo, KK
I am one of the feature writers on WWD’s new Daily Dozen feature. So far “Awesome Superheroes That Don’t Get the Spotlight” and “Titles That Should Be On Your Pull List” are mine… keep an eye out for more content by me later this week/month.
David Tennant in eyeliner makes me swoony…
#2 of 5 in the first set of interviews with women in comics for Bleeding Cool. Enjoy!
Bullet Points of Life: Crazy stinkin’ bizzay, yo!
I have been stupidly busy since I got back from Baltimore. Here’s a short summary of what’s been going on with me…
- I’ve been heads down working on two projects right now. First, I’ve been trying to get into the swing of writing the Daily Dozen feature for Wizard World Digital. This is a new gig that I got via my pal, Ethan Kaye. It’s basically what it sounds like — writing lists of cool shit to publish on a daily basis. I like it, it’s fun, the best part? When they pay me the money.
- The other project I’ve been working on is a series of interviews with women in the comics industry for Bleeding Cool. Last week the first of about ten of these interviews ran (with Louise Simonson, link in the post immediately below) and this week an interview with former DC editor, Joan Hilty is going to run. This is blending itself into the panel I’m mod’ing at Geek Girl Con in a few weeks… it’s exciting stuff with the potential to turn into a book or something not far off on the horizon.
- And, of course, Elliott and I are still plugging away on the geeky-dating advice column which is KYPO. We had two columns run last week: One about friends with benefits and one about the horrible anti-geek Gizmodo article which blew up the net last week…
- I’ve had some changes to the landscape of my personal life recently, too. Don’t really want to talk about it, so I’m not going to - but suffice it to say that I’ve been a little down in the mouth in recent weeks. HOWEVER: That is about to change, as one of the people I love the most - Dave - is coming to visit me this weekend. I haven’t seen him in way-fing-too-long. I am giddy at the thought of spending a weekend with him getting up to no good (because that is what we do). There are burlesque and roller derby plans in the work. Plus I imagine a goodly amount of time will be spent dicking around Chicago…
- Following Dave’s visit I will be bivouacking to Ohio for my nephew’s FIRST BIRTHDAY. Craziness, right? I’ll be hunkered down at the parental’s until the 25th, then back to Chicago — then to Seattle for Geek Girl Con and NYC for NYCC, respectively. THEN back to Ohio for Mid-Ohio Comic Con. Then I am going to curl up in the fetal position and take a long-ass nap.
