ASJA PACIFIC NORTHWEST NEWSLETTER
For ASJA members in
Alaska, British Columbia, Idaho, Oregon and Washington
April 2023
https://asjapnw.org
In This Issue
From the Prez, Making Meaning, M. Carolyn Miller, ASJA PNW President
How to Create a LinkedIn Banner of Client Logos, Joanna Nesbit
Managing the Mass of Emails, Bruce Miller
Member News and Announcements
Join Us At Our April Meeting!
Rosemary Keevil is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
ASJA PNW Monthly Meeting
Time: Wednesday, April 19, 2023: 01:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
To Join Zoom Meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86512803398?pwd=MXV6QVBkWFJmY21aZjVSMUh6VTZ2QT09
Meeting ID: 865 1280 3398
Passcode: 796447
From the President
by M. Carolyn Miller
ASJA PNW Chapter President
Making Meaning
Victor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, chronicles his Holocaust experience and how he was able to survive by finding meaning in the experience. “He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how,” he wrote. It is a quote that has been with me these past few months during cancer treatment.
Initially, as the treatment began, I found meaning by reframing what lay ahead as an initiation to a new life, complete with lessons to learn, old habits to let go of, and priorities to rearrange. Then followed a stint in the forest of my personal dragons, unable to do little more than eat, sleep, meditate and fall apart emotionally and physically.
But this week, I am coming back to myself. Chemo and daily radiation are done. The tumor has disappeared from the MRI. All that remains is a final two weeks of targeted radiation. And I’m writing again, working on the book I set aside a few months ago, and finding renewed meaning and delight in the process.
Cai Emmons, an Oregonian fiction writer, died by assisted suicide in January after living with ALS for some time. Prior to her death, she was writing and publishing prolifically, attending book signings and posting about her ALS journey. I often wondered why she did it in the midst of such a perilous disease. Now, I understand.
M. Carolyn Miller, MA, spent her career designing narrative- and game-based learning. Today, she consults and writes about narrative in our lives and world, the inextricable link between the two, and the critical role of self-awareness in transforming both. www.cultureshape.com
Lichen © Sharon Elaine Thompson
by Joanna Nesbit
How to Create a LinkedIn Banner of Client Logos
If you’re not maximizing the real estate of your LinkedIn banner, you’re missing out on a vital passive opportunity to promote your work. One way to do that is to create a banner that showcases the client/publication logos of outlets you’ve written for.
Canva is a free design tool with templates for all kinds of professional documents, and the tools are pretty simple, offering a million ways to customize your banner.
I focus on logos here, but you can also add other elements—color, graphics, etc.—with the available templates and custom elements. For banner help, I used YouTube: this tutorial and this one (Canva looks a little different since they were made, so you may have to fiddle around).
Step 1. Before opening Canva, create a file folder and upload the logo images that you want to feature in your banner. Type [publication name] + vector to get the logo’s vector version (vectors are scalable without losing resolution). Save the images so they’re available when you create your banner.
Step 2. Create a free account in Canva.
Step 3. On the Canva homepage, search “LinkedIn Banner” (not to be confused with Banner, which gives you different dimensions). For some reason, landing on a blank canvas isn’t intuitive. Here’s a Canva explanation as a starting point. Click on the “Start Designing” bar to pop into a blank canvas.
Alternatively, search free LinkedIn banner templates, select one, and delete unwanted elements to customize the banner.
Step 4. Upload your logos. Your logos will appear in a tableau below the upload toolbar.
Step 5. Click on the logo images to import them into your blank banner. Then simply drag them around and resize them as you want.
Step 6. Leave the lower left corner blank because this is where your profile picture will appear after you pull the banner into LinkedIn. I played around quite a bit with this part to get it right.
Step 7. Click the small “lock” image in the upper right corner to save your banner. Simply “unlock” to edit.
Step 8. To import into LinkedIn, download and save your banner onto your computer. Go to LinkedIn and click on the pencil icon in the banner corner to import your new banner.
And voilà, now you have an eye-catching banner that highlights your work to possible new clients. Good luck!
Joanna Nesbit is a content marketer and service journalist who covers personal finance, higher education, family, and aging. She lives in Bellingham, Washington. Learn more at joannanesbit.com
by Bruce Miller
Managing the Mass of Emails
Getting bombarded with email is super easy these days. It seems like every organization and more has an email list.
Here are a few ways to help from being buried in emails. These tips are based on a browser interface, not an app.
Different accounts: Create different email addresses for different purposes.
Use different browsers for different email addresses: Chrome might be used for Gmail.com; Firefox for Yahoo.com; or Opera for GMX.com. Consistently applying specific browsers to specific email accounts will help organize and prioritize.
Sort and segregate emails by sender: In Yahoo and Gmail, filters can be set up to automatically sort and segregate messages. In Yahoo, emails can be directed to specific folders. In Gmail, folder-like segregation is done through “labels”.
In Yahoo, manually selected emails from the same sender can be “Moved” into folders.
In Gmail, manually selected emails can be assigned a “label”. Use the “Archive” option to remove the “Inbox” label.
Mass delete old emails: Both Yahoo and Gmail have methods to do this. Yahoo is more straightforward.
In Yahoo, hover over the “From” name and a magnifying glass appears, as in the image below. Click on the magnifying glass to search for and list all emails from the same sender. Once all the emails are listed, select all and delete.
In Gmail, the method is to use a filter.
Open an email that represents the sender. At the top, click on the three dots and select “Filter messages like these” as shown in the image below:
A list will appear, but behind a window, to set up a persistent filter. Press “Escape” and the window goes away. Then select all and delete.
Although the techniques here are illustrated with Yahoo Mail and Gmail, most email programs and browser interfaces have similar abilities and functions.
Seattle resident Bruce Miller has numerous email addresses for various purposes. Filtering and mass deletion are his friends. One of his Yahoo email addresses (not using a custom domain) has morphed into his account for Amazon and other retail orders.
BRUCE’S BONUS SNIPPET:
If you are a Windows 10 or 11 user and find the font size too small for the names of files in File Explorer, try OneCommander. You can set the font size! And many other settings. It works well. https://www.onecommander.com/
Member News
and Announcements
Michelle Rafter:
The 2023 ASJA annual writers conference takes place June 13-15, with all activities happening online. Watch the ASJA website for more information on sessions and registration, which is now open to members and nonmembers. As in years past, the 2023 conference will feature keynote speakers and be divided into three tracks that match ASJA members’ writing specialties – books, content marketing writing, and journalism. The conference will feature sessions on the craft, business, and marketing sides of making a living writing, along with informal “snack chat” sessions on timely writing topics and trends. If you can’t attend in person, sessions will be recorded and will be available to stream for anyone who registers for the event. Michelle Rafter is chairing this year’s conference and would love to hear from PNW chapter members who are willing to volunteer in any capacity, including participating on the conference planning committee, helping with social media promotion, or acting as an emcee for a session speaker. Reach her at michellerafter@comcast.net.
L.M. Archer (lmarcher@lmarcher.com) is helping with the ASJA Spring Conference Membership drive as co-organizer of the recruitment contest for Client Connections 2023, slated for June 5th and 6th.
In March, The Drinks Business published Lyn’s article about Taste Washington, the largest US single-region wine and food festival, that returned to Seattle March 6-13 after a three year hiatus. La Dolce Vigna showcased her 5 ITALIAN WHITE WINES PERFECT FOR THE WINTER and in the Spring 2023 issue of Washington Tasting Room Magazine, she has “Growing Biodynamic, With few biodynamic wineries in the state, will younger buyers help shift the balance?”
Fred Gebhart recommends a nice piece on bias in reporting. “I came across the link in the daily National Press Club email, under Craft. What caught me was the reference to a Birmingham screwdriver. It’s using the handy tool you know instead of the right tool, like using a hammer to whack a screw.”
NEWSLETTER PRODUCED BY
EDITOR: Maxine Cass maxinecass@gmail.com
ASSISTANT EDITOR FOR APRIL ISSUE: Fred Gebhart
ASJA PNW monthly meeting coverage: Darlene West
PROOFREADER: Catherine Kolonko
TECHNICAL EXPERTISE: Bruce Miller
*All stories are copyright by their respective writers.
*All photographs and illustrations are copyright by their creative makers.
*All rights are reserved to each of them for their own material.