Recently, I had the pleasure of conducting a Discovery Session through Janice Beetle Books with Charlene Moses of Laconia, New Hampshire. She is working on a memoir about painful events that occurred in her family when she was growing up.

Charlene has taken some correspondence courses in writing for children and teenagers, but she has not had formal training or experience, and as she worked on her manuscript, that fact concerned her. She sought me out to serve as a resource and an objective voice. I told her to keep writing. She is well on the right track.

“I’ve always had the urge to want to write,” she says. “It just never really happened. I’ve written songs or poems in the past, but this book is my first biggie.” 

Indeed, it is.

I am grateful that Charlene took the time to answer the below questions about our Discovery Session. 

What are you working on as a writer at this time?

I am working on my life story as a child and young adult. The dramatic experiences I went through.

What prompted you to have Janice review your memoir-in-progress?

I knew I would need help because of my inexperience. When I saw Janice’s ad in the Laconia Daily Sun, it caught my attention. Her picture indicated to me that there was something special about Janice. She had a spiritual look and honesty in her eyes. My instincts were right on.

What were you hoping to achieve in the session?

I was hoping to feel a sense of accomplishment and to hear that I did have the ability and compassion to continue my journey. The session taught me just that. I received the encouragement I needed to proceed.

What did you learn that was helpful?

I received some wonderful critiques that could help make my story come more alive and exciting for the readers.

Any other specific tidbits that will help you to self-edit your work?

The suggestions that were given were so helpful that I can’t wait to go back and review my work and make it even better.

Did you feel you made a connection with Janice? If yes, in what way?

I definitely felt a connection with Janice. I felt as though we have known each other for a long time. I felt she could actually feel my experiences with me and knew where I wanted to go with my story. Her sensitivity showed she cared about who I am and that she wanted to help me in every way possible.

Anything else that might be helpful feedback for Janice or someone thinking about working with her?

Janice is a very knowledgeable and professional person. She is also very caring and compassionate. She makes you feel right at home and makes you feel that you can accomplish anything your heart desires. Even though I have not had a lot of experience in writing, she made me feel that I was already a successful writer and could reach beyond what I ever hoped for. I can see why other people have asked for her help, and I am so glad that I found her. I wouldn’t have gotten even this far without her. Anyone else would be blessed to work with her.

The post Coaching a Writer in Progress appeared first on Beetle Press.

It’s official. Today is the second day of the 20th anniversary year for Beetle Press! It’s kind of amazing to me, and I’m excited to spend some time reminiscing in 2018 as well as working hard at moving forward!

I launched Beetle Press in 1998 after working as a journalist for 15 years, first as a beat reporter for the Springfield Republican and then as a writer and editor at the Daily Hampshire Gazette. That training well informs the work I do with clients in connecting them with the media via press releases. It informs almost everything I do, actually.

Working as a journalist taught me to excel as an interviewer and to read people and understand what they are trying to communicate. It also gave me great skills in storytelling and editing.

I use those talents now with a diverse range of clients from the nonprofit and private sectors. I write for—and edit—print pieces such as magazines and annual reports. I create editorial calendars that include print and online media channels, and I support digital marketing efforts for clients, writing blogs, enewsletters, and website content.

In 2013, I introduced book development to my roster of services after working on several books for clients, and I’ve since helped launch many authors’ publications.

To mark the 20th anniversary for the business, Alison Winkler, a graphic designer native to Northampton who now lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., adapted the original Beetle Press logo design by Lisa Stowe of Florence, creating an anniversary version. Ali is my dear friend’s daughter and my younger daughter’s dear friend! I’ve known her since she was born. It was a pleasure to work with Ali as a professional; her approach and her results impress me!

For many years, I promoted Beetle Press as a “one-stop shop,” offering writing, editing and graphic design services. Since meeting my colleagues in The Creative, though, I have been able to return to my roots and focus on writing, editing, and PR services. When clients need more comprehensive services, I partner with Ruth Griggs, a marketing strategist, and Maureen Scanlon, a graphic designer. I thoroughly enjoy working with these wise and wonderful women.

I have a bachelor’s degree in English and a minor in journalism from Westfield State College, earned in 1985. (It is only thanks to my journalism professor that my writing career was launched at all! Read that story here.)

I am still connected to what is now known as Westfield State University. I’m the editor of the University’s alumni magazine, and have been since 2002. And since 2003, I’ve mentored dozens of interns from Westfield State as well as the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

I also employ four former interns on a freelance basis: Shelby Ashline, a graduate of UMass; Shannon Grossman and Ashley Pond, graduates of Westfield State; and David Kennedy, a current Westfield State student.

Current clients of Beetle Press include Glenmeadow, Florence Bank, Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech, Sports Travel and Tours, and the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.

In some subsequent blogs this year, I will tell you about some of my earlier clients, as well as how the PR and communications industry has changed in 20 years!

I put out a monthly newsletter, highlighting stories about my clients and offering resources and tips as well. You can subscribe on my website by scrolling down to the footer! If you sign up, you’ll get a free white paper on how to connect with the media!

The post Celebrating 20 Years in Business appeared first on Beetle Press.

I always thought that I would be a high school English teacher after I finished college.

I’m a senior at Westfield State University, and one semester shy of graduation, I decided that teaching—with the core competency requirements in this day and age—wouldn’t be satisfying. I want to teach people something special, because they want to learn rather than because they have to.

I have always liked to write, and I realized that I can educate through my writing, reaching people of all ages with my words and help them through good times or bad. So, I changed my major to English, rather than education.

As I deepen my journey as a writer, I want to try different writing styles and explore the various careers in which I could use my degree. That’s what led me into my current internship at Beetle Press, where I’ll write press releases and blogs, copy edit client manuscripts, and raise awareness about the company through social media —all while keeping my studies organized and on track.

My favorite genre to write about is creative nonfiction. I’ve written short stories that I could expand into a novel one day and journal entries that could become a memoir.

I am also very passionate about my work in the Westfield State University English honor society, Sigma Tau Delta. My role in the honor society is to help raise money for our annual convention each spring.

Members also like to help others in the wider community in various way. For instance, we are collecting items to donate to refugee families in the Westfield area.

We also use our English skills to assist others; we tutor English majors at the university, helping them with midterm and final papers. In this way, Sigma members develop relationships through their writing skills, and we encourage others to grow as well.

After graduation, I’d like to work for a book publishing company or focus on my own writing project. In my spare time, I’d also like to find a way to continue to be helpful in the community, outside of my honor society group. It’s important to me to be kind, caring and compassionate and to spread goodwill to everyone I meet.

My support system is my family. My mother is always finding new ways to help encourage me, even when I’m uncertain of my direction, and she assures me that I’ll know it when I find the right path.

My two sisters, Samantha, 19, and Cameron, 8, both help me develop as a writer, too. Samantha passes on writing tips from her teachers. (She’s an engineering major and doesn’t realize that I may already know these things.) And Cameron asks me to read my writing to her, even if it is just my homework, after she has curled up with her favorite blanket.

I hope one day, I can read my own book to her, even if she’s already heard all the stories a million times.

The post Teaching with Words appeared first on Beetle Press.

I have loved to write since I was in fourth grade, and my teacher put a picture on the board and asked us to write about it. He said he would display the best pieces, and mine was one of them. He told me privately that I had talent, and he began to allow me 40 minutes of class time to write. Once my stories were completed, my teacher invited me to read them to the class.

I had only recently been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder and put on an individual education plan at that time, but my teacher didn’t dismiss me. He helped  me identify my superpower.

I left fourth grade inspired, confident and passionate about writing. So, I never stopped. It is what I know I want to do.

I am a junior at Westfield State University, majoring in English with a concentration in writing. I mostly write creatively—short fiction stories, novels. However, I wanted to branch out of my comfort zone and look at professional writing, so I connected with Janice at Beetle Press to express interest in an internship that will give me experience in PR, blogging and other writing styles.

After graduation in 2018, I see myself living in an apartment in a city, working for a publishing company, editing manuscripts by day, and writing my own novels by night.

In the five months I will spend working with Janice at Beetle Press, I will write press releases for clients, pen blogs for beetlepress.com, help manage Janice’s various social media efforts, and copyedit and provide feedback on several authors’ manuscripts, and perhaps even one of Janice’s own books.

I am excited with the opportunity to grow as a writer, and I think it’s incredible that I will have my hands in work produced for business people and nonprofit organizations as well as for creative writers. That is a broad scope of real-world knowledge to glean in one semester, and I can take it with me.

When I am not working with Janice, I am the fiction editor for Westfield State’s literary magazine, Persona. I have been on the staff since freshman year, helping to produce the creative publication. I’m originally from Mansfield, a small town 40 minutes from Boston.

I have an interesting family. My dad, Rick, works as a certified mental health counselor at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge and has his own private practice in Watertown. My mom, Devon, is a nutritionist and will soon work in my dad’s practice. My older sister, Jenna, is going for her PhD in microbiology at University of California Berkeley. I also have two cats and a black lab at home.

A fun fact about me: I wrote a 100-plus-page novel with a local published author in my senior year of high school for my senior project and only had six months to write it. I designed a cover for the piece, and put it together in a binder. I am currently working on getting my short stories published and then maybe I’ll go back to that novel and edit it!

The post Growth of a Writer appeared first on Beetle Press.

Joan spent much of her childhood reading and making up stories for her dog. As she got older, she became unhappy and introverted. In high school, she discovered the world of journalism.  “It changed my life,” she says. “Instead of looking into myself, I looked outside of myself and focused on other people. I got a front seat view of life. Journalism saved me.”

Over the past 30 years, Joan has contributed much to journalism. She has been telling stories about others in newsprint and also in her own books, many of them dedicated to children.

At Beetle Press, Janice has many connections to Joan. For many years, when Janice critiqued children’s books for the Daily Hampshire Gazette, Janice had the pleasure of interviewing Joan and reading and reviewing her books.

Most recently, the interview tables were turned; Joan got to question Janice for a piece Joan is writing about business networking and development for the Boston Globe. (We’ll let you know when that is published.)

Joan recommends that all writers find themselves a community. Also, she says, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Instead of obsessing about one thing, I have different projects to work on. I look at my writing as a stove. I always have two things on the front burners and two things on the back burners, simmering.”

While a stint as editor for her high school paper got Joan interested in journalism, she majored in history at Boston University instead. “Journalism is modern history,” she says. “I’m a geek for history.”

After graduating in 1980, Joan took a freelance writing class that took her back into the journalism realm. While working at a community newspaper, she met her soul sister, Ann Malaspina, and they both became freelancers for The Boston Globe in 1982. Over the years since, Joan has freelanced on and off for the Globe, writing for a variety of different sections.

Joan married a fellow writer, Fred Contrada, a longtime reporter for The Springfield Republican, and the couple had two children. As Joan read to them, she became fascinated with children’s literature. She began writing books for kids, with a focus on reluctant readers and those with reading disabilities.

“I was a very slow reader and still am,” she says. “I loved reading, but I couldn’t read too much without getting a headache. So, I feel like I can relate to that kind of audience. I think my style of writing is natural for their needs and mine as a writer. It’s been a good fit.”

In recent years, Joan earned a master’s in fine arts from Vermont College of Fine Arts in July 2015. While there, she worked on a draft for a picture book about Sylvester Graham who invented the graham cracker. (It’s the same Sylvester Graham that the restaurant in Northampton, Massachusetts, Sylvester’s, is named for. The book release party, to be announced at a later date, will be held there and copies will be sold at the restaurant.)

Joan is currently working on an essay for the March issue of a monthly magazine called The Writer. The essay is titled “Do Writer’s Need Thicker Skins?”

Joan has also helped coordinate The Write Angles Conference for writers off and on for over 20 years, and she will gear up soon for next year’s event, the date for which will be posted soon on http://writeanglesconference.com.

The post This Writer has Multiple Projects on ‘Simmer’ appeared first on Beetle Press.