Blog Archives

Glad to Be a Grad of the Ray Moscowitz School of Journalism

8/24/2014

Sometimes as we wander aimlessly along our little path, if we’re lucky, a special person comes along to help us reset our compass. If we’re smart, we pay attention. This post is about the man who helped me reset mine and who I consider my mentor as well as my friend, Ray Moscowitz.

Throughout his long career, Ray, a life-long newspaperman, mentored hundreds of cub reporters, some of whom went on to achieve great things in their careers. They called it the “Ray Moscowitz School of Journalism.” I was lucky to be one of his grads.

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And Now a Word From Ms. Crystal Cropper

8/17/2014

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Thank you, brave soul, for clicking the link to the first-ever blog post by me, Crystal Cropper, editor-in-chief of the Elmwood Gazette, a daily newspaper serving Elmwood, Indiana, since 1893. I’ve been a professional news writer for going on forty years, but this social media hullabaloney is still news to me. Despite my Internet illiteracy, I was told that, because the novel--Dust Bunnies & Dead Bodies-- featuring li’l ol’ moi comes out in less than two short months, I needed to establish my platform, increase my tweets, enhance my Facebook presence, and write a blog ... STAT!

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Write anyway

8/11/2014

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The other day, I commented on a Facebook posting made by one of my former high school teachers. In his response to my comment, he digressed from the topic at hand (Roy Rogers vs. Gene Autry) to add, “By the way, congratulations on the completion of your first novel... there are many of us who are jealous because we did not have the self discipline or will power to complete the novel that is within all of us.”

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Title Wave

8/4/2014

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A book title is a workhorse that pulls a ton of weight.

The title, like the cover, must immediately communicate the story’s genre, hint at the plot, and generate curiosity that quickly entices readers to pick it or click it. Besides that, it must be original, clever, memorable, and unique enough to appear at the top of the list when a potential reader does an online search for the book.

Choosing a book title that does all of this is not for the faint of heart. I now know this firsthand, as I chose the title of my first novel, Dust Bunnies and Dead Bodies, only after I was swept up by a veritable “title wave” of ideas.

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