Category Archives for Writers’ Rough Drafts
Writers’ Rough Drafts – Episode #39 With Debbie Greig
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Debbie Greig is a blogger, contracts lawyer, and professional triathlete. As of August 2018, she is the current sprint, standard, and long distance Scottish women’s triathlon national champion. Sponsored by Speedhub and Aqua Sphere, she recently raced for Team Stirling in the UK Mixed Cup Relay triathlon in London. She’s been invited to international triathlons and ironman races, placing in most and winning quite a few, while retaining championship titles year after year across the British Isles. Not bad for a woman who was on a training ride four years ago, got hit by a car, and ended up with a blood clot in her leg that moved to her lung and caused permanent damage.
Debbie has been writing and sharing her training, her racing triumphs, and her losses openly for years, originally on her own site, Debbie Moore Tris, and now on Kyle Runs & Deb Tris, a blog that she shares with her husband, Team Great Britain runner Kyle Greig.
Writers’ Rough Drafts – Episode #38 With Abdi Nor Iftin
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Abdi Nor Iftin is a journalist, translator, and author living in Maine. But his writing journey didn’t start there. Abdi’s recent book, Call Me American, chronicles his life growing up in the African country of Somalia, and the transition from the peaceful pastoral place it was to the war-torn area it became. One of the escapes he found early on was learning English through American movies, which eventually led him to master the language well enough to become a legit secret war correspondent for outlets like National Public Radio and others.
After fleeing to Kenya to further escape the violence and military recruitment, he earned a green card to the U.S. through the Diversity Visa Lottery. Here, he was interviewed on This American Life about the program and his life as a refugee, and the conversation touched so many people that he eventually came to write about it in his memoir, which debuted earlier this year. When he isn’t touring parts of the U.S. as a respected and published author, Abdi works with the Somali refugee program in Maine, serving as a translator, to help others find similar opportunities to what he’s been able to find through his own storytelling and writing career.
Writers’ Rough Drafts – Episode #37 With Rand Fishkin
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Rand Fishkin is the founder of SparkToro, a PR-style software company that helps people create better marketing by making the publications, people, and sources that influence a certain audience more transparent to organizations. Previously, he was the co-founder, CEO and Wizard of Moz.com, a multi-million dollar software and content company that was based on his own writing and ramblings while learning SEO in the early 2000s.
In addition to his extremely popular posts and Whiteboard Friday videos, Rand is also an author with a number of titles under his belt, most notably Lost & Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World. Always more supportive of others than he is of his own accolades and success, he notes in his “official bio” that he is most proud of his prominent appearances in his wife Geraldine DeRuiter’s first book, All Over the Place.
Writers’ Rough Drafts – Episode #36 With Amy Clover
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Amy Clover is a writer, fitness personality for Cyberobics & McFit, motivational speaker, and mental health advocate, who runs the website and movement Strong Inside Out. While many in her industry are all about no-pain, no-gain, and either restricting yourself into melancholy or pushing yourself into exhaustion, Amy has carved out a unique space and message where she helps people find and create the resolve and fulfilment within themselves to then focus on strengthening and conditioning the rest. She helps people find individual health without scales and without judgements.
In addition to regularly writing for her own site and participating in various speaking engagements, she hosts multiple events and bootcamps throughout the year. Recently, she launched the coaching programs Strong Inside Out Health Essentials & Mental Optics. In her own words, “If you’re tired of feeling, like you’re not enough all the time, or maybe you’ve been waiting until you’re FILL-IN-THE-BLANK to start living your life, you’re in the right place, baby. No qualifications necessary.”