Join Me at the Alabama Women’s March

On Saturday, January 21 thousands of women from across the country will gather for the Women’s March on Washington. News reports indicate that at least 1,200 buses have applied for permits to park at RFK Stadium in Washington, DC., on the day of the march. If you’re in the Birmingham area and unable to make it to Washington, D.C., you can stand in solidarity at the Alabama Women’s March scheduled for 2 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 21 at Kelly Ingram Park.

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Bloggers’ Night Out

It’s time for women writers of Birmingham to have a ladies’ night out, or better yet, a BLOGGERS’ NIGHT OUT!

Step away from your computer for a few hours and come mingle with successful, emerging, and aspiring female bloggers in the Birmingham area at this free event set for Thursday, February 9 at 5:30 p.m. at the Wine Loft. (Men are welcome, too!)

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Personal Branding Tips for Writers

Chances are you hate to hear the words, “You need to build your brand.” Thinking of yourself as a brand may feel gross or even wrong. But it’s not. Building a personal brand simply means defining and clearly conveying what you’re all about — who you are, what you do, and why you do it. 

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The Virtues Project

I call it The Virtues Project.

Every year in the Early American Literature class that I teach, I assign my students a project for which they emulate Benjamin Franklin’s renowned self-improvement project. In his Autobiography, which we study in my class, Franklin details his attempt to “arrive at moral perfection.” Franklin made a list of 13 virtues and a book of charts to track his efforts to maintain these virtues perfectly.

Franklin’s project went on for many months, but I challenge my students to pick 7 “virtues” that they will track for 7 days. They usually pick bad habits they want to break like biting their nails or cursing or good habits they want to adopt like exercising and eating vegetables. It’s so fun to read about their results!

But I recently realized that I could use a revised version of Franklin’s project to keep myself on track for 2017.

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