Blue Star Press’ Post

Huge props to the Submittable Marketing team for crushing their goal of creating an #impactreport that's not another boring PDF 🙌 hats off, team 🎩 👇👇 check out the impact the Submittable community made in 2023, and get a glimpse of what's on deck for 2024 🤩 PS. #dearmarketing, more Hugh Grant puns, please! 🤞iykyk 

Check out these 3 articles you’ll be amazed

REVIEW: Robyn Hood: Blood in the Water “Robyn Hood: Blood in the Water” is well worth the price of admission. This story has much more of an all ages theme than some of the other content we get from this publisher. #indiecomicsreview #comicsreview #

I'm delighted for Onke Mazibuko and his debut novel, The Second Verse. This was a novel I championed at Penguin Random House: I imagined thousands of young South Africans one day reading it and absorbing its compassionate, cool wisdom about handling hardship - and here we are! Well done to you, Onke. The book: The second verse of any song always has to be more killer than the first. Always. The rhythm has to slap. The lyrics must be on point. The feeling intense. And the impact mad definitive. It’s just the way it is. In the same way, if you do well once in life, then you always have to be better from that point onwards. No doubt. East London, aka Slummies, circa 1998. Bokang Damane is a dreamer and an outsider with mad problems. Things only get worse when everyone thinks he wants to off himself just because he wrote an essay on suicide. Really? Talk about d.r.a.m.a. Life at the moment is just a sorry son-of-a-checklist of insolvable problems. Problem #1: Not black enough for the black kids and too black for the white kids. Yep, that’s what happens when you attend a mad pompous all boys’ college and live in the burbs. Problem #2: Family finances are a joke – they can’t even afford Bokang’s initiation. Now he can’t get props like any decent Xhosa man. Problem #3: An alcoholic, gambling attorney for a father who expects the world to bend to his will. What’s a man gotta do? Apart from freaking the hell out? Bokang just wants to rap, sketch and be left alone. Everyone keeps yacking on about Bokang reaching his true potential but everyone keeps getting in the way. So what happens? Boy meets girl. It wouldn’t be much of a story otherwise.

"This book also takes a look into the cultural and emotional connection that humans have with storytelling and popular culture in all its forms, as well as how we form bonds with each other and the world around us through them." - Down The Tubes Do you have a Google alert for you favourite band going on tour? Or maybe you have a pull list at your local comicbook shop? Or perhaps you’ve got a season ticket to your sports team of choice? That would make you a fan, whether you realise it or not, and there’s a lot more to fan culture than you might think. In the 21st century pop culture is everywhere; you can’t move for a new superhero film or major franchise appearing in our lives and we love it. We’re just jumping into the media landscape headfirst in order to get more of our favs, track down spoilers and deep dive about plot lines on social media. It’s hard to deny fan culture as part of the world now, there’s a fandom for everyone, but what does that actually mean, and where did it come from?From ancient times to modern media humans have shared their love for the stories that mean something to them and brought in others to be fans of them too. We’ve written ourselves in, made art of, and celebrated with others who love the same things as us all in the name of being a fan, even before the word fan existed. There’s a whole lot of who, where, what, when, why, how and huh to look into when it comes to fan culture. From Shakespeare to Superman, Dickens to Daleks, and fanfiction to Frodo there is so much more to fandom than meets the eye. And a whole lot of references to pack in too. https://lnkd.in/eUr3a_cW #author #fandom #popculture #outnow #videogames #scifi #sff 

Meet Our Founder 👋 The vision behind Company Cue comes from Paul Parreira. Born in the Azores and raised in Lowell, Massachusetts, Paul started Co. Cue in 2013 after leaving his position as editor-in-chief of Muze Inc. Paul wears many hats that all celebrate his passions: He’s also a restaurateur, deejay, and founder of the indie record label The Sound of Sinners. A longtime New Yorker, he lives in Westchester County with his wife and their two teenagers. Here is a bit more about Paul, in his own words: ∙ When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? "Seeing firsthand the struggles my parents endured working in factories 12 hours a day, seven days a week, I knew pretty early on that I didn’t want to do that. I also knew I wanted to be my own boss and work in the sphere of music and culture. Now, here I am." ∙ What does your ideal day in NYC look like? "Going to the MoMA or the Whitney, sitting outside at the Smith & Mills Tribeca location with friends nursing a martini (straight up with a lemon twist), and then heading to a show at Brooklyn Steel or Webster Hall." ∙ What is your most treasured possession? "My record collection, although I avoid calling it a ‘collection’—it’s really just vinyl I’ve been buying and obsessing over since I was 10 years old." ∙ When and where are you the happiest? "Last summer holiday in Portugal with my family, both in Lisbon and in Terceira on the Azores where I was born." ∙ What is Co. Cue’s mission? "To be great at what we do. Quality over quantity. Editorially, it’s always been my main motivation to start a business and to deliver great copy at scale."   ∙ What does “effective communication” mean to you? "Listening." ∙ How has the industry changed since 2013?  "Generative AI. We’ve been lucky and guilty in the process. We’ve been part of some really great initiatives in the space working and teaching different CAT tools specifically and voice tools generally." ∙ What piece of advice do you give the most? "‘Listen to your instinct.’ I’m also a strong believer in inspiring our teams to be themselves. I’m constantly reminding them to level client expectations and to remember that our clients want and need our professional opinion, not simply a ‘yes’ man." Want to know more? You can see what Co. Cue is all about here: https://lnkd.in/gvNGdwF3

A behind-the-writings look at the opening dozen chapters of Con Version, https://lnkd.in/e4TEsywE blog post #498: Characters Restart #Multiverser #novel #fiction #game #roleplaying #ConVersion #BrianBarrelmasterCooper #TomikoTakano #DerekBrown #behindthewriting

The Most Dangerous Game anthology: What happens when a game gets out of hand? The most dangerous games are the ones that lead to murder. Chess simulates war, the high stakes of professional sports, mind games, trapped in a board game… Rules of the Game: Stories should be related to games and gaming There must be a crime The villain should pay for their crime, but you get to decide who the villain is and how they pay No children or animals should be harmed Stories should not violate trademarks or copyrights of branded games Word count should be below 5000 words Deadline September 30, 2024 CHECK IT OUT: https://lnkd.in/gQBV6JCV #writers #crimewriters #publish #shortstories #crimebooks #anthology

Save your seat for our next Authors Speak on July 24th at noon MST! Transform your understanding of failure and harness its potential as we discuss “The Right Kind Of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well” with award-winning author and Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson. ✅Please share with your network. ✅Registration link below👇 #leadership #teams #psychologicalsafety #culture #authorsspeak #learning #professionaldevelopment #amyedmondson

I have been heavily influenced by Edmondson’s work and explicitly build her research into any strategy that I’m leading. No one wants to fail or make mistakes (especially in #safeguarding #children) but with such a nuanced practice that applies individual need and best interests to limited local support structures and national statutory guidance - sometimes mistakes are made. Only with the safety to own mistakes knowing they will be responded to for the collective learning of the organisation, rather than to blame and punish an individual, will we all become better. This is entirely different to the willful harm of a child which must be responded to differently. In my research into 12 lens on a culture of safeguarding it becomes clear that the expertise and knowledge to differentiate these two situations is equal in importance only to that of the professional bravery of the organisation and its leadership. The sweet spot for leading a #culture of safeguarding sits in the overlap between the titens of leadership Brené Brown Education and Research Group and Edmondson for anyone wanting to look into it.