You can enter to win a free copy of Margot Bloomstein’s new book, Trustworthy: How the Smartest Brands Beat Cynicism and Bridge the Trust Gap, by leaving a comment on this blog post. Tell us what brand you trust and why. You’ll then be entered into a random drawing to be held on Saturday, May 8, 2021. One lucky winner will be sent a free copy of this terrific new release. To regain the trust of consumers and citizens, marketers talk about empathy and authenticity, transparency and accountability. But how do you get beyond those buzzwords? Margot Bloomstein offers an actionable framework focused on voice, volume, and vulnerability. Voice is the personality and style which should be consistent across time and channels. Volume is how much you communicate and knowing when enough is enough. Vulnerability is the risk you take in telling the truth, reaching to connect with your audience, prototyping in public, and taking responsibility for mistakes when they happen. Bloomstein shows with dozen of case studies how to employ concrete tactics to regain trust, respect, and customer loyalty. Airbnb, Zoom, the FBI, TED, the United Kingdom Government Digital Service, The New York Times, America’s Test Kitchen, local election commissions, and other organizations have all embraced strategies of content and design that transform their audiences into empowered decision-makers. Smart organizations teach their audiences to evaluate product options, engage in continuous self-education, and make more informed choices. She believes business can be a force for good. And she provides practical advice…

Bett Dorion Fitzpatrick grew up in Newfoundland when there wasn’t a child alive who didn’t know the story about the tragic shipwrecks of the USS Truxton and USS Pollux. In this small mining town along Canada’s craggy shores, local villagers mounted a rescue operation and carried up the cliffs the 186 U.S. servicemen who survived the shipwrecks in the midst of a blizzard in February of 1942. This history of her hometown left an indelible impression on Bett, and she returned to it as an author when she retired from teaching. She conducted interviews with eyewitnesses, dug into the historical archives, and read every published account. She came to know the story inside and out. When Bett first contacted me in 2017, she had written her manuscript in verse. Yes, verse. I loved it. Like the ballad about the shipwreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior, the poetic form suited the subject matter. But I recognized how challenging it might be to sell it to a commercial or trade publisher. This was hard news to deliver to such a talented author. A bit of a unicorn, the manuscript didn’t fit easily into an identifiable niche in the market. Several memoirs in verse had done well, but there didn’t appear any recent releases based on historical events. Bett bounced back like one of those cute yellow rubber ducky bathtub toys! She had hopes that this amazing history would be kept alive in a new book for the next generation, so…

Jeannine Ouellette’s new memoir, The Part That Burns, has garnered critical acclaim since its release on February 1. Joyce Carol Oates called it “simply beautiful. Precisely imagined, poetically structured, compelling, and vivid.” Last week Ouellette joined Jo Ann Beard, Katherine Angel, Dantiel Moniz and Michele Filgate for a panel discussion on “Desire” for the Red Ink Series, sponsored by Books Are Magic bookstore in Brooklyn NY. Kirkus gave The Part That Burns a starred review and describes it as “A textured remembrance of a traumatic childhood that also offers affecting moments of beauty.” Ouellette continues her virtual book tour this week with an event sponsored by independent bookstore Magers & Quinn in Minneapolis. Heidi Seaborn will moderate a discussion with Jeannine Ouellette, Lilly Dancyger (Negative Spaces) and Gina Frangello (Blow Your House Down: A Story of Family, Feminism, and Treason). This virtual event will be live on Facebook and YouTube. The following week, Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor hosts a conversation with Ouellette and author Jennifer Pastiloff on Zoom a week from Thursday on March 25 at 8 pm ET. Jen is the founder of the online magazine, The Manifest-Station, and author of the On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard. Register to get the Zoom link here. Stay tuned for dates and locations to be announced for April events with Jeannine Ouellette and Ethel Rohan who has a new story collection coming out (In the Event of Contact) and with novelist Keisha Bush…