Stories, ideas, and perspectives to spark your next creative move. Be Inspired features profiles, essays, and thought pieces that celebrate the work of media and creative professionals and remind you why you got into the industry in the first place.
239 articles
6 steps to writing, marketing, and selling a book that reaches the masses.
There are plenty of authors who write for love of the craft. But most of us also want our carefully crafted words to be read by the masses—and maybe rake in some royalties along the…
Andrea Williams
As an official judge for the Erma Bombeck Writing Competition, I read a lot of essays, the quality of which fluctuated from powerful to pointless. Despite this range, what struck me most were the handful-and-a-half…
Joel Schwartzberg
Television has been in Nina Parker's blood from an early age. "I remember getting a cardboard box and making a TV, cutting it out and getting in it," Parker said of her childhood. "I was…
Marcus Vanderberg
Significant news stories aren't necessarily guaranteed a space in the annals of public memory -- they're emblazoned there by gifted reporters. Soledad O'Brien is one of those journalistic storytellers who uses human interest pieces to…
Janelle Harris Dixon
If you live in Any Metropolis, USA, coming out of the neighborhood coffee shop with a frappuccino and a cheese danish for less than $20 can be a study in quantitative economics. So buying an…
Janelle Harris Dixon
The thought of zit-filled yearbook photos, SAT anxiety and awkward interactions with the opposite sex are enough to banish any and all high school recollections to the farthest corners of most people's minds. The thought of…
Andrea Williams
There are some TV personalities who, perhaps unbeknownst to them, become "friends" to their fans and viewers. You know how it is -- the rational part of you realizes they couldn't pick you out of…
Janelle Harris Dixon
"Mogul" in its present overuse, is like the retired boxer of dictionary words: it used to pack a lot of punch, but now it's gotten kind of flaccid and nondescript. Cathy Hughes doesn't care much…
Janelle Harris Dixon
As a publicist, Marvet Britto's roster is deep with celebrities (Angela Bassett, Kim Cattrall and the NBA's Tyson Chandler), blue chip companies (Motorola and Microsoft) and an entire island (Anguilla). And while many in the…
Andrea Williams
When David Karp was 15, he dropped out of high school to be homeschooled on New York's Upper West Side. At 17, he moved to Tokyo to work for UrbanBaby, an online parenting advice site…
Sammy Davis