Photo by Vicko Mozara on Unsplash
The last few months have been fun but incredibly busy. What with celebrating the final year of my 20s with a weekend at Latitude, buying a house and moving with a two week holiday to Ibiza in the middle, writing (outside of work, of course!) has been the last thing on my mind
As well as struggling to find the time (and WIFI) to write myself I have spent little time over the last three months looking at others content. Which is why I thought I would roll this round-up into one, with a summery content corner.
So, here are a few things I have enjoyed reading and watching during July, August and September.
Vandals and Visionaries
I love the street art in Bristol, so much so that while at UWE I wrote several of my essays on it focusing, of course, on Banksy. So I really enjoyed watching this BBC documentary on graffiti in the city.
‘On the eve of Upfest, Europe’s biggest street art festival, Miquita Oliver explores the creativity and criminality of street art in Bristol.’
86 Year Old Becomes Oldest University Graduate
86 year old, Peggy Styles became the oldest person to graduate from university showing that it is never too late.
“Entitled Old Wives Tales? Changing my Perception of the World, Styles’ dissertation is just as interesting as the woman herself. It explores society’s evolving attitudes to women in education. Being born just before the war, the wife and mother has used her own life as a timeline to compare how attitudes to female education have changed through history.”
In a Heartbeat
This beautiful animated short film about a gay kid ‘outed by his heart‘ was created for a senior thesis project by two college students.
In just four minutes and without dialogue the creators evoke many relatable emotions: ‘the helplessness of puppy love, the adolescent dread of being outed as LGBTQ, the judgmental gaze from peers when you are outed as LGBTQ, and the comfort of finally learning you’re not alone.’
Prescription Literature
There are some great books here that should be on your reading list, split up for different occasions and emotions. There are books for when you feel alone, angry, anxious, heartbroken, envious, sad, uninspired and so on. On the list you will find the likes of Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.
Career Advice From Britain‘s Most Successful Women
You know what they say, hindsight is a wonderful thing and these women give us the benefit of theirs. From the co-founder and creative director of made.com to the commercial director at John Lewis, some of Britain’s most successful women offer career advice they wish they had had in their 20s.
How Long Would it Take You to Earn a Footballers’ Salary?
BBC Sport: find out how many years it would take you to earn a footballers’ salary and how long it would take them to earn yours. Lets just say it would take far, far longer than my lifetime for me to earn Ronaldo’s salary, while he could earn mine in a matter of minutes.
The Ultimate Guide To Blogging For Your Brand
Our content team have put together the ultimate guide to blogging for your brand which includes a free eBook! https://t.co/5RhKE4eQon #eBook pic.twitter.com/5T7m5QGhlj
— Zazzle Media (@ZazzleMedia) 25 August 2017
I wouldn’t usually promote my own work on this post but the whole content team at Zazzle Media have worked really hard on this. We are in the middle of creating The Ultimate Guide to Blogging for Your Brand’ The first volume is live now – it helps you with what to do before you start a blog. Volume 2 is out soon which talks you through writing the content for your blog and finally volume 3 will help you with what to do after you have written it.
Girl vs Cancer: The Come Undone
“I will highlight my cracks because I am much more beautiful for being broken”
Lauren from Girl Stole London, set up Girl vs Cancer while she was going through treatment for the deadly disease. She aims to raise awareness and in this post gives a raw and honest account of what it was like to go through chemotherapy.
Granny’s Sleeping on the Moon
Stu Heritage writes in The Guardian about the death of his mother shortly before the birth of his son: ‘This is how families work. You gain members, you lose members.’ I think the loveliest part of this story is finding out the name of his new baby at the end, which links back to what you may have just read as a passing comment near the beginning.
In The Pool his wife explains how they told their two-year-old that ‘Granny is sleeping on the moon.’
Disney’s New Photo Campaign
Disney, which often reinforces gender stereotypes, has broken them down with their new photo campaign.
“For the #DreamBigPrincess campaign Disney enlisted in 19 female photographers from all over the world to create portraits of strong, inspirational and, most importantly, real girls – from a Paralympian in China to young girls who are learning how to code on their computers – in the hope that girls will not fall into gender stereotypes later in life and that the notion of ‘princess’ becomes fully redefined.”
A Positive Birthing Video
I have followed the Michalak’s vlogs for over a year now – during that time they have documented life with a toddler, shared their experience of miscarriage and finally given birth to their second son. They opted for a home birth and this You Tube video gives a glimpse of the very special moment.
Fighting Cancer Taught Me About Self Love
Sadly LGBT activist and journalist Dean Eastmond died last month aged just 21. Earlier in the year he wrote this beautiful piece: “Cancer will not affect my style. My scars will reclaim themselves. When I look in the mirror now, I try to focus on the parts of my body that I love. I take a moment every day to be grateful for the parts of my body that are working perfectly. No matter how short the list is, there’s always something.”
Learn How To Speak ‘Elephant’
You might have guessed from the name of this blog that I like elephants. For annual World Elephant Day in August David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust launched the global campaign “Say Hello in Elephant” with the aim of enabling the animals to be “truly heard”. So, would you like to speak elephant?
Money Diary
In these Money Diaries: “we’re tackling what might be the last taboo facing modern working women: money. We’re asking a cross-section of women how they spend their hard-earned money during a seven-day period – and we’re tracking every last penny.”
We might wonder what others earn and how they spend it but we just don’t talk about it, do we? It isn’t the ‘done’ thing. This section of Refinery29 gives us an insight into the salary of various job roles as well as how the person earning it pays their bills, saves and spends the rest.
One Night, New York
The Pool ran a competition this year in conjunction with Virago to find a new crime writer. I really enjoyed reading the opening of the winners story; One Night, New York.
“I’d been researching the American photographer Berenice Abbott and had come across her famous 1930s city-scape Nightscene, New York. The photograph, taken from the top of the Empire State Building, of illuminated skyscrapers emerging from sprawling tenements, seemed to sum up America in an instant. Rich and poor, visionary and exclusive, luminous and apocalyptic. When I realised Abbott could only have taken that photo at a single time because of the necessary combination of electricity and fading light – the winter solstice, 1932, between 4 and 5pm – and that she’d bribed the guard to get to the top of the building, I was amazed. The story was too good. I knew I wanted to write about it.”
