Podcasts about independent publisher awards

What does it mean to be normal? What even is normal? It's a strange concept, dependent entirely on context and yet, in spite of this flexibility, it's an inescapable word. Try as we might, we can't seem to escape it, even as it seems to collapse under critical scrutiny. So again, what does it mean to be normal? And is normal even something we should try to be? This is an animating question for Phil Christman in his new essay collection How to be Normal: Essays (Belt Publishing, 2022), a collection of previously published writings of the last few years. A sort of companion-piece to his previous book Midwest Futures, these essays are simultaneously fascinated by and skeptical of all the ways normal dominates our public discourse, especially in the wake of the COVID pandemic, where a return to normal has loomed over us as the most important achievement we can aim for. Christman tries to get beyond this imperative, and in a series of reflections on masculinity and gender, race and whiteness, religion and faith, culture, irony, love and family he tries get beyond the existential and social imperatives of some presumed normality and think critically about what true flourishing would look like, about the sort of people we'd all actually want to be. Phil Christman teaches writing at the University of Michigan. His first book, Midwest Futures, was a Commonweal Notable Book of 2020, a finalist for a Midwest Independent Book award, and winner of the Independent Publisher Awards' 2020 Bronze Medal for Great Lakes Nonfiction. His writing has appeared in a number of outlets, including The Hedgehog Review, Commonweal, Paste, and Plough Quarterly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

What does it mean to be normal? What even is normal? It's a strange concept, dependent entirely on context and yet, in spite of this flexibility, it's an inescapable word. Try as we might, we can't seem to escape it, even as it seems to collapse under critical scrutiny. So again, what does it mean to be normal? And is normal even something we should try to be? This is an animating question for Phil Christman in his new essay collection How to be Normal: Essays (Belt Publishing, 2022), a collection of previously published writings of the last few years. A sort of companion-piece to his previous book Midwest Futures, these essays are simultaneously fascinated by and skeptical of all the ways normal dominates our public discourse, especially in the wake of the COVID pandemic, where a return to normal has loomed over us as the most important achievement we can aim for. Christman tries to get beyond this imperative, and in a series of reflections on masculinity and gender, race and whiteness, religion and faith, culture, irony, love and family he tries get beyond the existential and social imperatives of some presumed normality and think critically about what true flourishing would look like, about the sort of people we'd all actually want to be. Phil Christman teaches writing at the University of Michigan. His first book, Midwest Futures, was a Commonweal Notable Book of 2020, a finalist for a Midwest Independent Book award, and winner of the Independent Publisher Awards' 2020 Bronze Medal for Great Lakes Nonfiction. His writing has appeared in a number of outlets, including The Hedgehog Review, Commonweal, Paste, and Plough Quarterly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

What does it mean to be normal? What even is normal? It's a strange concept, dependent entirely on context and yet, in spite of this flexibility, it's an inescapable word. Try as we might, we can't seem to escape it, even as it seems to collapse under critical scrutiny. So again, what does it mean to be normal? And is normal even something we should try to be? This is an animating question for Phil Christman in his new essay collection How to be Normal: Essays (Belt Publishing, 2022), a collection of previously published writings of the last few years. A sort of companion-piece to his previous book Midwest Futures, these essays are simultaneously fascinated by and skeptical of all the ways normal dominates our public discourse, especially in the wake of the COVID pandemic, where a return to normal has loomed over us as the most important achievement we can aim for. Christman tries to get beyond this imperative, and in a series of reflections on masculinity and gender, race and whiteness, religion and faith, culture, irony, love and family he tries get beyond the existential and social imperatives of some presumed normality and think critically about what true flourishing would look like, about the sort of people we'd all actually want to be. Phil Christman teaches writing at the University of Michigan. His first book, Midwest Futures, was a Commonweal Notable Book of 2020, a finalist for a Midwest Independent Book award, and winner of the Independent Publisher Awards' 2020 Bronze Medal for Great Lakes Nonfiction. His writing has appeared in a number of outlets, including The Hedgehog Review, Commonweal, Paste, and Plough Quarterly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

What does it mean to be normal? What even is normal? It's a strange concept, dependent entirely on context and yet, in spite of this flexibility, it's an inescapable word. Try as we might, we can't seem to escape it, even as it seems to collapse under critical scrutiny. So again, what does it mean to be normal? And is normal even something we should try to be? This is an animating question for Phil Christman in his new essay collection How to be Normal: Essays (Belt Publishing, 2022), a collection of previously published writings of the last few years. A sort of companion-piece to his previous book Midwest Futures, these essays are simultaneously fascinated by and skeptical of all the ways normal dominates our public discourse, especially in the wake of the COVID pandemic, where a return to normal has loomed over us as the most important achievement we can aim for. Christman tries to get beyond this imperative, and in a series of reflections on masculinity and gender, race and whiteness, religion and faith, culture, irony, love and family he tries get beyond the existential and social imperatives of some presumed normality and think critically about what true flourishing would look like, about the sort of people we'd all actually want to be. Phil Christman teaches writing at the University of Michigan. His first book, Midwest Futures, was a Commonweal Notable Book of 2020, a finalist for a Midwest Independent Book award, and winner of the Independent Publisher Awards' 2020 Bronze Medal for Great Lakes Nonfiction. His writing has appeared in a number of outlets, including The Hedgehog Review, Commonweal, Paste, and Plough Quarterly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

What does it mean to be normal? What even is normal? It's a strange concept, dependent entirely on context and yet, in spite of this flexibility, it's an inescapable word. Try as we might, we can't seem to escape it, even as it seems to collapse under critical scrutiny. So again, what does it mean to be normal? And is normal even something we should try to be? This is an animating question for Phil Christman in his new essay collection How to be Normal: Essays (Belt Publishing, 2022), a collection of previously published writings of the last few years. A sort of companion-piece to his previous book Midwest Futures, these essays are simultaneously fascinated by and skeptical of all the ways normal dominates our public discourse, especially in the wake of the COVID pandemic, where a return to normal has loomed over us as the most important achievement we can aim for. Christman tries to get beyond this imperative, and in a series of reflections on masculinity and gender, race and whiteness, religion and faith, culture, irony, love and family he tries get beyond the existential and social imperatives of some presumed normality and think critically about what true flourishing would look like, about the sort of people we'd all actually want to be. Phil Christman teaches writing at the University of Michigan. His first book, Midwest Futures, was a Commonweal Notable Book of 2020, a finalist for a Midwest Independent Book award, and winner of the Independent Publisher Awards' 2020 Bronze Medal for Great Lakes Nonfiction. His writing has appeared in a number of outlets, including The Hedgehog Review, Commonweal, Paste, and Plough Quarterly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

You are in for a treat today! We are delighted to be speaking to Ashanti Bentil-Dhue. Ashanti is the CEO of EventMind, which provides training and consultancy for businesses looking to engage virtually with their audience. She comes from the corporate world where she was Regulatory Compliance AVP for Santander Bank, Barclaycard, and the Financial Ombudsman Service. Ashanti co-created the UK's first nation-wide anti-racism and allyship project for women in Human Resources (HR), an industry that is 83% female and white. She is also a co-founder of 100 White Allies, Diversity Ally, and Black In Events, which are consultancies that provide support for organizations to be proactively anti-racist and inclusive. In this episode, we cover three main topics. They are diversity and inclusion, starting and running your own business, and online events. You will learn a lot from our fascinating conversation with Ashanti today. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did! Ashanti Bentil-Dhue's bio: Ashanti Bentil-Dhue is Founder and CEO at EventMind, a market leader in the virtual meetings and events sector. EventMind provides training, consultancy, and delivery for businesses looking to engage virtually with their audience and community. Ashanti is currently a judge on several awards panels, including the Eventex Awards, Independent Publisher Awards, and the Virtual Event Institute Awards. She is also a co-founder of 100 White Allies, Diversity Ally, and Black In Events, consultancies that provide support to organizations who want to be proactively anti-racist and inclusive, both internally and for their service users. You can connect with her on Linkedin.  Ashanti can bring the experience she gained from five years spent as a Regulatory Compliance AVP for the likes of Santander Bank, Barclaycard, and the Financial Ombudsman Service. This experience has given Ashanti an understanding of corporate governance and challenges associated with change management and workplace culture shifts. Diversity initiatives It was during her time in the world of compliance that Ashanti began to work on diversity initiatives, and she also started to use events as a vehicle to communicate the importance of being as diverse and inclusive as possible.  Arranging events When she was working for a bank, Ashanti did not see herself as an event planner. She saw herself as the compliance consultant who also arranged events. Building communities When she decided to start her own business, Ashanti naturally gravitated towards using events to build communities, her business brand, and her personal brand.  Racism Ashanti first encountered racism when she was four years old, and she was the only black child in her class. It was the first time she realized she was different because she got treated differently. She experienced bias, micro-aggression, and being stereotyped. An event to raise awareness During an awareness month, while she was in the financial industry, Ashanti decided to put on a diversity and inclusion event for the employees. She invited local school children to participate and help raise awareness and highlight the diversity in the area within which the bank operated. It all happened very naturally for her.  HR and diversity HR is a discipline in the UK where most of the stakeholders are female and white. Those individuals often influence the processes and systems that impact how much people are getting paid and who gets hired, fired, promoted, or trained, even though they may not have lived the experience of difference or being a minority. Ashanti's mission was to help those stakeholders understand how to contribute to becoming more diverse. Diversity Diversity can be attained by hiring different people, paying everyone on equal scales, and investing in people through resources and training. Ashanti Bentil-Dhue's visibility epiphany Ashanti Bentil-Dhue realized that her consistent visibility was a way to create more diversity. That realization prompted her to create 100 White Allies, Diversity Ally, and Black In Events.  100 White Allies, Diversity Ally, and Black In Events She created those consultancies with a mission to simplify things. She wanted to make it accessible for organizations and companies to become more diverse. And highlight to people of color that there is a place for them in the events industry. Encouraging more diversity  Ashanti understood that to encourage more diversity she needed to show up consistently, be good at what she does, and add value for other people. Starting her own business Ashanti always wanted to start a business. Having learned enough from the corporate experience to add value to tech startups, she thought she would have more freedom, independence, and control of her income by starting a business of her own. Instead, she discovered that being an entrepreneur is like being an employee squared. Ashanti Bentil-Dhue's entrepreneurial challenges As Ashanti Bentil-Dhue discovered, being an entrepreneur is not easy. The challenge in owning a business is that you have to be astute, you have to make decisions under pressure, and you have to love what you do. You also need to be driven from within and able to cope with uncertainty and rejection. Monetizing your experience and skills It is vital to know how to monetize your experience and skills. Without knowing how to do that, you will struggle with starting a business. Mindset Ashanti maintains a healthy mindset with the help of several coaches and the support of a community of other entrepreneurs. She has also done a lot of work on her personal mindset.  Scaling Scaling your income is very different from scaling your business. They require different skills, resources, time, and energy. They will result in different outcomes for you as the business owner. Making more money You don't have to create or scale a company to make more money. You need to understand how to make that happen and how to manage all the elements.  Ashanti Bentil-Dhue and online events Ashanti Bentil-Dhue got into creating online events before COVID. She started with live streaming to teach people how to do various things and sell her service. Then, other companies started asking her how to live stream and sell. That was how she got into helping companies create online experiences and events to build communities.  Since COVID  Since COVID, there is much more technology available, and the rest of the world now understands the sustainability benefits and the low cost of the online launch.  Post-pandemic Online events will become a part of a digital and social strategy. They will become more informed and sophisticated than pre-COVID. What's new You can now have global insights on attendee behavior at online events. Online events can now get integrated into a marketing strategy, a recruitment strategy, or a brand-activation strategy in a way that they were not getting done readily, pre-COVID.  A global directory Ashanti has decided to launch an accessible global directory. She feels that her company is in a position to do that because they are unbiased. They will be listing every event technology company out there in one place.  Connect with Eric On LinkedIn On Facebook On Instagram On Website Connect with Ashanti On LinkedIn

On today’s episode, Corey Blake and Jon Dwoskin talk about what storytelling means today. Corey began his storytelling career as an actor, starring in one of the 50 greatest super bowl commercials of all time (Mountain Dew, Bohemian Rhapsody) and in campaigns for American Express, Miller Beer, Mitsubishi, Wrigley's Gum, Hasbro, and other name brands. Today, Corey is the founder and CEO of Round Table Companies (RTC). He has been featured on the cover of the Wall Street Journal and his work in storytelling has been quoted/featured in the New York Times, USA Today, and Inc., Forbes, and Wired Magazines. Corey pioneered the business comic book, packaging and publishing dozens of titles—including best sellers by Tony Hsieh, Marshall Goldsmith, and Robert Cialdini—and has spent over a decade guiding CEOs, founders, and thought leaders to set up a storytelling ecosystem around their brand, including writing the book they were born to write. He is an avid supporter and sponsor of Conscious Capitalism, and the publisher of Conscious Capitalism Press. His work has yielded 15 Independent Publisher Awards, a Belding, a Bronze Lion, and a London International Advertising Award. Connect with Corey Blake Website: https://www.roundtablecompanies.com/ Twitter: @RTcompanies LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coblake/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rtcompanies/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RTCompanies/ Connect with Jon Dwoskin Website: http://jondwoskin.com/ Twitter: @jdwoskin Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.dwoskin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Thejondwoskinexperience/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondwoskin/ Email: jon@jondwoskin.com  

Corey began his storytelling career as an actor, starring in one of the 50 greatest super bowl commercials of all time (Mountain Dew, Bohemian Rhapsody) and in campaigns for American Express, Miller Beer, Mitsubishi, Wrigley's Gum, Hasbro, and other name brands. Today, Corey is the founder and CEO of Round Table Companies (RTC). He has been featured on the cover of the Wall Street Journal and his work in storytelling has been quoted/featured in the New York Times, USA Today, and Inc., Forbes, and Wired Magazines. Corey pioneered the business comic book, packaging and publishing dozens of titles—including best sellers by Tony Hsieh, Marshall Goldsmith, and Robert Cialdini—and has spent over a decade guiding CEOs, founders, and thought leaders to set up a storytelling ecosystem around their brand, including writing the book they were born to write.  He is an avid supporter and sponsor of Conscious Capitalism, and the publisher of Conscious Capitalism Press. His work has yielded 15 Independent Publisher Awards, a Belding, a Bronze Lion, and a London International Advertising Award. His articles have been published in Writer Magazine, and on FastCompany, Forbes.com and The Huffington Post. He is also the creator of the Vulnerability Wall—whose clients include Microsoft, ADP, Marketo, and Workday—and the Vulnerability is SexyTM card game. His documentary of the same name won 2017 ADDY and HERMES awards for branded content. Corey travels around the country delivering keynotes and facilitating storytelling workshops for organizations of all sizes.

Corey Blake began his storytelling career as an actor, starring in one of the 50 greatest Superbowl commercials of all time (Mountain Dew, Bohemian Rhapsody) and in campaigns for American Express, Miller Beer, Mitsubishi, Wrigley's Gum, Hasbro, and other name brands. Today, Corey is the founder and CEO of Round Table Companies (RTC), the publisher of Conscious Capitalism Press, and a speaker, artist, and storyteller. He has been featured on the cover of the Wall Street Journal and his work in storytelling has been quoted/featured in the New York Times, USA Today, and Inc., Forbes, and Wired Magazines. Corey pioneered the business comic book, packaging and publishing dozens of titles—including best sellers by Tony Hsieh, Marshall Goldsmith, and Robert Cialdini, and has spent over a decade guiding CEOs, founders, and thought leaders to set up a storytelling ecosystem around their brand, including writing the book they were born to write. His work has yielded 15 Independent Publisher Awards, a Belding, a Bronze Lion, and a London International Advertising Award. His articles have been published in Writer Magazine, and on FastCompany, Forbes.com and The Huffington Post. He is also the creator of the Vulnerability Wall—whose clients include Microsoft, ADP, Marketo, and Workday—and the Vulnerability is SexyTM card game. His documentary of the same name won 2017 ADDY and HERMES awards for branded content. Corey travels around the country delivering keynotes and facilitating storytelling workshops for organizations of all sizes.  In this episode, Corey shares from two early career transitions that helped him reframe some personal beliefs and eventually helped him go from victim to creative agent.

Corey Blake began his storytelling career as an actor, starring in one of the 50 greatest super bowl commercials of all time (Mountain Dew, Bohemian Rhapsody) and in campaigns for American Express, Miller Beer, Mitsubishi, Wrigley's Gum, Hasbro, and other name brands. Today, Corey is the founder and CEO of Round Table Companies (RTC). He has been featured on the cover of the Wall Street Journal and his work in storytelling has been quoted/featured in the New York Times, USA Today, and Inc., Forbes, and Wired Magazines. Corey pioneered the business comic book, packaging and publishing dozens of titles—including best sellers by Tony Hsieh, Marshall Goldsmith, and Robert Cialdini—and has spent over a decade guiding CEOs, founders, and thought leaders to set up a storytelling ecosystem around their brand, including writing the book they were born to write. He is an avid supporter and sponsor of Conscious Capitalism, and the publisher of Conscious Capitalism Press. His work has yielded 15 Independent Publisher Awards, a Belding, a Bronze Lion, and a London International Advertising Award. His articles have been published in Writer Magazine, and on FastCompany, Forbes.com and The Huffington Post. He is also the creator of the Vulnerability Wall—whose clients include Microsoft, ADP, Marketo, and Workday—and the Vulnerability is SexyTM card game. His documentary of the same name won 2017 ADDY and HERMES awards for branded content. Corey travels around the country delivering keynotes and facilitating storytelling workshops for organizations of all sizes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://megaphone.fm/adchoices (megaphone.fm/adchoices)

Theodore Richards is a philosopher, poet, and novelist. As the founder of The Chicago Wisdom Project, editor of the online magazine Re-imagining: Education, Culture, World, and a board member of Homebound Publications, his work is dedicated to re-imagining education and creating new narratives about our place in the world. He has received degrees from various institutions, including the University of Chicago and The California Institute of Integral Studies, but has learned just as much studying the martial art of Bagua; teaching in various settings and students; and as a traveler from the Far East to the Middle East, from southern Africa to the South Pacific. He is the author of seven books and numerous literary awards, including two Nautilus Book Awards and two Independent Publisher Awards. His most recent book is The Great Re-imagining: Spirituality in an Age of Apocalypse, a Forward Reviews Book of the Year finalist and Nautilus Book Award winner. His next book, A Letter to My Daughters: Remembering the Lost Dimension & the Texture of Life, is slated for release in Fall 2018. He lives in Chicago with his wife and daughters.You can find out more about Theodore by visiting the show notes at Remarkable-Educators.com, and by joining us at Patreon.com/Remarkable Educators as Theodore will be featured in an upcoming newsletter, one of the many rewards available for a small monthly contribution.Links:https://theodorerichards.comhttps://chicagowisdomproject.orghttp://reimaginingmagazine.com  Click here for a transcript of the podcast.

New York City based Comedian Nancy Lombardo,  Nancy Lombardo has performed her unique comedy from coast to coast.  TV credits include The Colin Quinn Show NBC, Saturday Night Live “All my Children” PBS, network and cable television Comedy Tonight, Nickelodeon and the Comedy Channel. She can be seen weekly on The Nancy Lombardo Show channel 56/83/34 NYC and live worldwide on www.mnn.org. She has written for Penthouse and Cracked magazine and created Ms. Quotable, a comic strip for Lady's Circle Magazine. Nancy was a winner of the Toyota Comedy Festivals "Laughter in Motion” and a Cable Arts Insight Comedy Award." Spot-lighted more than once in *Backstage, as both comedian/writer, she currently indulges her taste for the irreverent in her Stand Up Comedy and show, "Jazz Housewife." Nancy is creator of MOMEDY™, part of the International Mamapalooza Festival. She is a member of The Friars Club. www.comedyconcepts.com  downloads available at www.cdbaby.com/Artist/Nan Harmon Leon is a journalist, comedian, and the author of six previous books, including The Harmon Chronicles and Republican Like Me, which both won Independent Publisher Awards for humor. Leon has appeared on This American Life, The Howard Stern Show, MSNBC, Penn and Teller: Bullshit!, Last Call with Carson Daly, and the BBC.He has performed critically-acclaimed solo comedy shows at venues around the world, including The Edinburgh Festival, Melbourne Comedy Festival, and Montreal's Just for Laughs. His writing can be found in Vice, The Nation, Esquire, Ozy, National Geographic, The Guardian, Wired, and more.

It's easy to forget sometimes, with our city's accelerating downtown development boom and the associated exponential increase in activity and buzz, but the Spartanburg that birthed back in 1995 was a very different place from the one we see today. Decades of decline had turned what once had been a dynamic upstate urban core into a hollowed-out shell, its vibrant post-war bustle replaced by a turn-of-the-century malaise, with shuttered storefronts and crumbling facades serving as the only reminders of what once was. With that as their backdrop, a group of local writers intent on giving Spartanburg a new sense of itself (and reviving a long-dead nickname in the process) met in a coffee shop and created what is now one of the South's premier publishing houses, along the way selling over 150,000 books, winning 14 Independent Publisher Awards, and adding some downtown brick and mortar to their ink and paper in the form the fantastic Hub City Bookshop. Steering the ship through that remarkable run has been Betsy Teter, Executive Director of Hub City Writers Project and one of Spartanburg's greatest champions of local arts and culture.  This year, in recognition of the enormous place-building cultural contributions she's made to Spartanburg and to literature throughout South Carolina, the South Carolina Arts Commission , our state's highest arts honor. Today on the podcast, we sit down with Teter to talk about the award and about the pivotal, decades-long work she's spearheaded to earn it.