Every creative act is influenced directly and subconsciously by the creative acts of thousands of other artists. As Pablo Picasso put it: Author, blackout poet, and cartoonist Austin Kleon’s best-selling book, Steal Like an Artist, explores this part of the artistic process in fascinating detail. Similarly, the writer Cormac McCarthy said, “Books are made out of books.” The key…
Did a wildfire help inspire Thoreau’s most important works? Hi, I’m Jason McBride! I’m a poet-cartoonist, and Weirdo Poetry is a reader-supported publication. You can find my books and zines over at the Weirdo Poetry Shop. Tips are always appreciated! Click here to leave a tip with PayPal Click here to leave a tip with…
The defining emotion of my early childhood was fear. My first memory is a recurring nightmare I had where a Lou Ferrigno-style Hulk burst out of my closet and terrorized me. As an adult, I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. Looking back, I have probably had an anxiety disorder since I was a very young child. I was afraid…
One thing that sets great email marketing apart from average email marketing is the ability to write simultaneously for different types of readers. When sending cold email sequences or autoresponders as part of a sales funnel, especially in B2B marketing, you have to account for the fact that some people will read every email and…
What’s the purpose of marketing? It’s a simple question, right? Or maybe not. Something’s changing. You’ve felt it. And it’s not just AI — though AI is a big part of it. Once anyone can push a button and instantly write and send 10,000 emails, everyone will be sending 10,000 emails, and nobody will be…
The opening line of Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is a world-building masterpiece Hi, I’m Jason McBride! I’m a poet-cartoonist, and Weirdo Poetry is a reader-supported publication. You can find my books and zines over at the Weirdo Poetry Shop. Tips are always appreciated! Click here to leave a tip with PayPal Click here…
What if the fortune cookie serving you self-help tips and bits of encouragement were depressed? The fortunes might look something like this:
We find a lot to rage about on our small planet. Right now, wars are raging between peoples who have much more in common than they have things that set them apart. Europe is currently rediscovering the brutality of modern warfare, something much of the rest of the world has not had the luxury of…
The history of the universe shines down on us each night. My dad only took me camping one time in my life. I was eleven, and we huddled in our sleeping bags and looked up at the sky. It was littered with stars. Being a creature of the suburbs, I’d never seen that many stars…
A deep dive into “Brutal”, the first song on Olivia Rodrigo’s brilliant album, “Sour”.