Three Bloggers Making a Splash

WordPress.com bloggers continue to leave their mark both online and off — here are three notable stories from recent weeks.

We often say that blogging is about community. The blogs we feature today show just how big that community can become. From award-winning essays to creative infographics, these stories connected with audiences the world over.


Mary Laura Philpott, an author and the editor of online literary magazine Musing, often reserves her funniest material for her blog, I Miss You When I Blink.

mary laura philpott

Mary Laura Philpott, in a photo taken by her son.

Last month, she wrote a piece for the New York Times’ Motherlode blog, “Raising, and Understanding, the Class Clown,” where she talked about humor, parenting, and how both she and her son use laughter to cope with stressful situations.


Kenan Malik, who blogs at Pandaemonium, teaches, writes on culture and politics, and is a presenter on BBC Radio 4. In a blog post published last Fall, In Defense of Diversity, he discussed the recent history of racial tensions around immigration in Britain.

So bedazzled have we become by the existential fear of immigration that migrants have come to be seen less as living, breathing human beings than as so much flotsam and jetsam to be swept away from Europe’s beaches.

Kenan’s thoughtful essay was just awarded the annual Politics and Social Science Prize by respected online journal Three Quarks Daily.


If a picture’s worth a thousand words, how about a really well-made infographic? Engineer and “data storyteller” RJ Andrews transformed the daily schedules of exceptional individuals like Mozart and Darwin into smart, easy-to-compare charts.

infographic daily ritual mozart chart

Based on information from Mason Currey’s book, Daily Rituals, these charts have become an internet-wide hit, attracting attention from the likes of Huffington Post, The Daily Mail, and BuzzFeed, among others.


 Has a blog you follow — or your own blog! — made a splash recently, too? We’d love to hear about it.


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17 Comments

Comments are closed.

  1. Shane Francescut

    Very nice, thanks for sharing. I am very curious about Mary’s blog and will be checking that out for sure.

    I have to agree that the community-building aspect of WordPress is second to none. I have used social media quite extensively over the past few years, and have made some tremendous connections with like-minded people, but I continue to be blown away by the bloggers using WordPress.

    After all, isn’t community building the primary responsibility of bloggers?

    Like

  2. Dickinson Eddy

    Inspiring and refreshing.Three bloggers who make us all pride!!! Good Job.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. dancinmoma

    Love hearing great stories like this!

    Liked by 1 person

  4. golfpoet

    My blog (golfpoet.com) was in the news yesterday on the Sports Page of the New York Times. Here is the link http://nyti.ms/1jSUcm9. Thanks for looking.

    Leon S White, PhD

    Like

  5. holdenlyric

    It’s funny, when I see a blog I want to follow and realize they’re hosted by someone other than WordPress, I get a little sad.

    WordPress pride!

    Like

  6. Jean Reinhardt

    Brilliant post on infographics, I love what RJ Andrews did.

    Like

  7. Joe

    My blog was mentioned on Salt & Light Radio ‘s SLHour. My blog Joe Sales Writes was the first blog they chose to highlight. I had written a post about Hearing and it caught the attention of the Radio Host of the show that I had been interviewed for. The interview can be found here My part starts around 24:16 http://saltandlighttv.org/radio/sl-hour/hockey-and-faith

    Like

  8. gweneegrace

    I saw the infographics RJ made on Facebook and I thought that was a really neat way of making us realize that even the geniuses have pretty much the same schedule that we follow! “Not having enough time” wouldn’t be such a good excuse now, is it? 🙂

    Like

  9. Carolina De Martino

    Very interesting! I have recently started a blog myself and people like them inspire me to keep going!!

    Liked by 1 person

  10. Christine

    I love the one about the infographics! I’m such a geek for those things. Now I have a new favorite blog to follow!

    Like

  11. jdent5936

    I live in Taiwan. Just for the hell of it, I e-mailed the director of a very famous movie here: Taiwan Beyond Beauty. I asked him if I could interview him. I was brutally honest about the fact that my blog gets minimal attention. Sure enough, he said he would be happy to do it: ) – You can read the article here if you are interested. http://wanderingwildman.com/2014/04/02/taiwan-beyond-beauty-letter-director/

    Like

  12. Michael McCabe

    I’m new to blogging and I’ve just started posting on WordPress. Thanks for sharing these interesting blogs, I look forward to seeing more of who’s out there.

    Liked by 1 person

  13. Rebecca Fieldhouse

    Fantastic shares! Looking forward to checking them all out.

    Like

  14. philip_wikel

    As always, helpful and useful insights.

    Like

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