Last week, Ben offered a snapshot of another great month on WordPress.com. Our bloggers continue to bask in the spotlight, with viral hits and cross-platform success. Here’s a glimpse at what your fellow WordPressers are doing on the web.
Parenting blogger hits the New York Times
Parenting blogger and writer Kristen Hansen Brakeman is busy these days. We’re happy to see one of her pieces (“When Do ‘Family Rules’ Change For Teenagers?”) on Motherlode, the parenting blog of the New York Times.
She was also named a finalist in Blogger Idol, a contest where bloggers respond to writing prompts and are eliminated weekly. One of the posts for the contest, “Don’t Hate Me Because I Can’t Hear You,” made it to the Huffington Post.
Awards and mentions
Oliver Booth and the Evil Socialite, the book by The Rich Life blogger David Desmond, was selected as a finalist in the contemporary fiction category of the Electronic Publishing Industry Coalition‘s 2014 awards. (Winners will be announced in March — good luck, David!)
The folks over at Disney’s Babble named ML Philpott, the blogger at I Miss You When I Blink, one of the top ten undiscovered bloggers you should know about.
ML is a professional editor, writer, and book reviewer, and has penned a book of poems about lawyers called Poetic Justice. (The evidence is on WordPress.com, naturally.) Known for her humor and thoughtfulness, she’s a community favorite — be sure to follow.
Expert sound bites and recognition
Our users are experts in their fields, too. You’ll see psychology lecturer and therapist Meg Barker at Rewriting the Rules contributing to various outlets, like a Telegraph article on gender in the workplace.
Barker, who writes about relationships and sex, was also featured in the #36 slot of the Independent‘s 2013 Pink List, which compiled 101 influential people in the LGBT community making a difference in the world. She also recently gave a talk at TEDxBrighton 2013, in which she summarized her book in ten minutes.
Storytelling in science: the seahorse has its moment
We were thrilled to see the success of Ink Chromatography blogger Steph Yin’s stop motion animation on how the seahorse got its shape and her guest post at Scientific American. Using multimedia storytelling to bring science to life, Steph has a fresh approach to science writing, which you can see on her blog — and in this video:
Your writing, across the internet
It’s nice to see the work of our bloggers — and the conversations they spark — in a variety of publications. Consider this thoughtful post on the modernity of a Civil War portrait on The Frailest Thing, later published on The New Inquiry – a blog for ideas, critical analysis, and cultural commentary.
Or how about the astonishing popularity of Seth Adam Smith‘s “Marriage Isn’t For You”? In less than a week, Seth’s post racked up over 24 million views, over 4,000 comments, and a whole lot of discussion across the web, from Yahoo to BuzzFeed and hundreds of other sites.
We know so many of you are out there blogging and doing amazing things. Know of other WordPressers in the press? Are you proud of a publishing accomplishment? We’d love to hear your story — let us know in the comments.
If you’re interested in keeping up with what’s abuzz in the community — from a collection of top reads to publishing news and bloggers in the spotlight — subscribe to WordPress.com Weekend Reads, which we’ll deliver right to your inbox.
Filed under: Community, Congrats, WordPress.com
