About/FAQs

I craft copy and campaigns with the care of a poet...because I have a master's degree in poetry and can't help myself. I love language, storytelling, and teaching—especially about language and storytelling. If you let me, I'll annoy you endlessly with "fun" facts and my fervor for Oxford commas (which I will begrudgingly omit when adhering to AP style). 

Abridged version not cutting it? I got you. Here are some questions I seem to get a lot, along with my (let's be honest, probably snarky) responses. Enjoy! 

Q: What's with your name? 

A: My mom claims she just liked the name Nathan but that my father wanted his sons to have LJE initials like him and his dad. However, she did once confess she wanted to name me Leighton, which was the last name of a guy she had a crush on, altering it to conceal this fact from my father. She now denies she ever said that. 

Q: How'd you get into this line of work? 

A: As I remember, I once had a tiny toy gun to go along with a G.I. Joe. I mean, this thing was almost microscopic. Anyway, I was playing with it by the bathroom sink. My father walks by and asks where I got it. I say, I just thought of it and plucked it out of the thought bubble above my head. He shakes his head and tells me to be careful with that by the sink. Sure thing. But ya know, G.I. Joe had a tough fight with the BBEG (big bad evil guy), and BBEG ended up knocking the gun out of Joe's hand...and right down the drain. When my father later inquires about where the microscopic gun went. I tell him I put it back in my thought bubble because we're supposed to put things back where we found them. Instead of giving me a spanking, he just shakes his head again. And I realized, a good story can really save your ass. 

Q: Is that really true?

A: It is 100% true to the best of my recollection. But, memory is inherently fallible. So, most of our childhood memories are probably half truths. Sorry if that ruined you a little. 

Q: Why did you capitalize words like "of" and "for" in the subheads of your home page?

A: I spend a comically (perhaps cosmically) large amount of time adjusting the capitalization on lines in title case...because AP style is nonsense when it comes to title case. If you don't know parts of speech, you'll never get it right. And I don't think you should have to be a writer just to be able to capitalize a freaking header. We should all use start case, meaning the first letter of every word in the title gets capitalized. It's easy. It's better. Please join my cause! 

Q: Is there anything you can't write?

A: Probably not? I like to think if it can be written, I can write it. I'm at least willing to try. I'm pretty sure I've written most things, but if you've got something new, hit me up.

Q: Hit me with a fun fact! 

A: Not really a question, but OK. The prevailing theory on the origin of the word "OK," dates back to 1839 Boston. In vogue at the time was a habit of abbreviating nearly everything. SP for small potatoes. KG for know go, an intentional misspelling of no go. Then came OK for oll korrect (all correct). Most of these playful abbreviations vanished with time. But OK got a bit of staying power thanks to the 1840 re-election campaign for Martin Van Buren. Van Buren was from Kinderhook, New York, and came to be known as Old Kinderhook. The copy practically writes itself. Old Kinderhook is OK, or vote for OK. Fast forward to today, and it would be nearly impossible to get rid of OK.