Fusion Wins Franklin Award of Excellence for Books/Hard Cover/Neographics

We were pleased to learn, at Fusion, that the book we had researched, written, designed, and (taken all photos for) won the Franklin Award of Excellence for Books/Hard Cover Category from the Mid-Atlantic Region of Neographics.

Read more...

Seeing our book project through, at Epic Litho

We left the house at the 7 AM hour to attend a press check at Epic Litho. Around here, at Fusion Communications, press checks are our Christmas times. They are our Santa Claus. They're what we work for.

The project on the press was a book created to tell the story of the extraordinary "refinery that could" (American Refining Group). Of the man—Harry Halloran, Jr.—who, in buying the once-endangered plant for a dollar (and the promise of considerable other investments), saved the jobs of employees and strengthened the surrounding community. Of the people who were trusted to lead. Of management's great respect for the environment. Of the town itself that has rallied, in recent years, thanks to committed educational, cultural, and health care visionaries.

I had the pleasure of researching and writing this book. My husband took the exquisite photography and designed the book with his trademark care. The company's leadership and administrative team (including Harry, of course) were there at every turn to help us bring the story to life.

To print and bind this cloth-bound project, we turned to an old friend, Jarred Garber, with whom we have worked for many years. Jarred is the senior account manager at Epic Litho in Phoenixville, PA. He and has team have delivered—time and again—stellar projects. They are not just knowledgeable and personable; they work with some of the best equipment around, all in a building, by the way, that once housed a roller skating arena. These people know their stuff. They're trusted by clients ranging from Godiva, Ferrari, and Dansko to Bucknell University to Dunwoody Village to the little communications company that also can, Fusion Communications.

When it's press check time, they open their doors and let the eager writer/designer in.

A post, then, to thank Harry Halloran, Jr. and his entire team. A post to thank Jarred and Epic Litho for taking such great care of us.

Read more...

Telling the Truth (apparently I've been obsessed with this for awhile)

Our heating system broke—kaput. We had nothing, nada. And so an odyssey began to weave an entirely new air-handling system into a nearly 100-year-old house. I was grateful for all those corporate jobs as I wrote the checks. I was also grateful that the men who came (at 7 AM each day) were quiet, careful, and knowledgeable. Also, most of them wore those sterile booties.

But I was also grateful (in retrospect) for the way the little house crisis forced me to do what I'd not done for too many years—attack the closets, sort the wheat from the chaff. You know how it is—the old journal shows up, the twenty year old story, the photograph of your son on Santa's lap, a pair of mittens someone sent you, a gift still in its box—the one you meant to give to Jean. Also, some very ancient corporate work, which proved to me that I am utterly one beat and narrowly dimensioned.

For example: Asked some fifteen years ago to help lead the Novartis communications team toward more meaningful outputs, I prepared a presentation. This, above, is page 1, illustrated by my husband.

Finding a Voice.
Avoiding Distancing Mechanisms.
Telling the Truth.

Telling the truth? Apparently, this has been my life-long obsession. Maybe because I'm still learning how it's handled.

Tell no one.

Read more...

Fusion Communications: one example of what we do

Most of you know me as a blogger, a critic, a teacher, a sometimes author, a grateful mother and wife. A smaller subsection of the world knows me as the strategic writing partner of Fusion Communications, a job that consumes a substantial fraction of my days (and nights). I interview and write about business people, patients, dreamers, visionaries. I work on news magazines, annual reports, commemorative books, employee communications, histories. I spend a lot of time trying to understand those very technical things that so many successful people do, so that I can somehow make that work accessible to many, many readers.

The best projects are those that afford me the chance to collaborate with my artist husband, William Sulit (who also illustrated Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent, which will launch next Tuesday). Over the last several years, our biggest collaboration has come on behalf of AmTrust Financial Services, Inc., a hugely successful niche insurance company operating in countries all around the world. I travel to Wall Street, spend time with the company's leaders, suggest themes, interview, write. My husband turns the written stories into visual ones. This year, he used his 3-D illustration talents to produce a beautiful, several-page series.

This, then, is me. Often. This is us.

Read more...

Fusion Communications: where the end is not the end

Several months ago, a change in one of my key corporate accounts left me wondering just what my future would be.  It was a rocky few days, and I had a choice—to succumb to panic or to choose to believe in myself. 

Surprising things happened because I believed.  Determined and maybe a tad feisty, I worked with my design partner (who is also my husband) on a new web presence, then sent out a few notes here and there.  Within weeks (it seemed quite sudden)—in one of the hottest summers on record, in one of the most uncertain economic times I can remember—new work roared in. Former clients returning with new dreams.  Existing clients seeking new vehicles.  Absolutely-new clients with large-scale projects that demand, of their writer, a love for history and a passion for interviewing true experts. Re-branding projects. Book projects. Think papers. Employee magazines. Client publications.  The chance to sell our photographs. It all presented itself to our boutique marketing company, Fusion Communications, and we at Fusion turned toward it.

What had seemed like a threat in the end set us free, and this, I think, is the way of things, my reason for this post.  Endings are only purely endings if we allow them to be.  Choose, if you can, to see that seeming-end as the space ahead of the new, quite better next thing.

Read more...

Small Damages, a horse named Tierra, and a recap of a crazy week

This has been quite a week here at the old household.  Our son returned from his six-week stint abroad, regaled us with photos and stories, then promptly began his internship at a remarkably innovative advertising agency (while filling the coffers with night work at the local theater; last night's midnight showing of the new Harry Potter was, he reports, sold out).  On the Fusion Communications front, six new client possibilities and projects floated in, thanks to our new website, while familiar (and much-loved) clients kept us occupied, too.

In the world of books, both YOU ARE MY ONLY and SMALL DAMAGES came in for page proofing within 24 hours of each other.  YOU ARE MY ONLY (Laura Geringer, Egmont USA, October 25, 2011) is two weeks shy, I'm told, of being sent off to the big printing presses.  SMALL DAMAGES (Tamra Tuller, Philomel, Summer 2012) is headed toward bound galleys.  Both books took me on a journey and hold an immeasurably special place in my heart. I am grateful.

In the hub-bub of it all, we at Fusion created a very small Berlin book for a photo contest we wanted to enter. We didn't have the time, but we had the desire. Let's just say it went down to the wire.

Finally, in the midst of searching for photographs for assorted other purposes, I came again across the picture above, taken earlier this summer at the Devon Horse Show.  She is the living incarnation of the horse, Tierra, who takes a star turn in SMALL DAMAGES.  She'd been out there, it turns out, all along.

Read more...

Honoring caregivers through the Shire BRAVE Awards

As many of you know, we at Fusion Communications launched our brand new website over the weekend—a labor of love, as they say.  A big thank you to all of you who have taken the time to visit the site and to let me know.  Some of you have asked about that home page photo.  The answer to that question is:  I snapped the shot while sitting in a tiny plane headed toward Chicago from Appleton, Wisconsin.

One of the companies that is featured on the Fusion Communications site is Shire plc, a global specialty biopharmaceutical company that is led by people who continue to look for ways to make a real and meaningful contribution to the many communities in which it has a presence.  I have worked with Shire for many years; I have been grateful for the honor.

One of the newest Shire initiatives is the BRAVE Awards, designed "to acknowledge ordinary people who give of themselves by caring for others in a meaningful, dedicated and selfless manner."  Each recipient of a Brave Award will be given $10,000 USD.

Essentially, Shire is seeking stories about real caregivers. I post this here because I read your stories, learn from your convictions, marvel at your courage, and know first-hand that selflessness pervades the readership of this blog.  There are, no doubt, deserving caregivers among you.

I present the BRAVE Awards to you here, then.  Find out more by visiting this site.

Read more...

Launching our brand-new company website

Thanks to the very hard work of a certain illustrator/designer, Fusion:Communications, the boutique marketing communications firm that occupies most of my waking hours, has a brand new website.

I am happy to share that with you here.

Read more...

Our Holiday Greetings

The holidays give me an excuse (and I love having this excuse) to work with my artist-husband on a homemade card, something we've been doing for what seems like a good forever.

This year, Bill, who has been working with complex software to model and en-robe fantastical figures, decided to create a juggler who, it seemed clear to us, was a master of joy.  And so on this One Day Past Thanksgiving, I send his joy (and ours) out to you.

Happy Holidays!

Read more...

Fusion Communications (the daytime me)

I am often asked what it is that I actually do: What is that daylight-hour work of which you speak? What do you mean, a boutique marketing communications firm?

Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words, and since we at Fusion recently assembled a few snapshots of projects completed over the past few years, I thought it would be fun to share that with you. In some cases we took the photos. In other cases we hired the right teams. Behind the words are long conversations about industries, trends, corporate cultures, and objectives. Behind the chosen designs are multiple iterations of the possible.

Read more...

Novel Submission

Here's the thing about submitting a brand-new novel to editors:

You don't know what will happen.

My first novel for adults has gone off today to a handful of editors, thanks to my agent, Amy Rennert. The very best thing for me to do right now is to keep that novel out of my mind. By paying attention to clients. By focusing on my YA Seville novel. By making room in the world for the two books due out in 2010 and room in me for the books of others. By continuing to plumb recipe books for recipes I can manage, and by keeping the house nutsy-quality clean. By dancing. By laughing. By gathering my dear friends near, and chilling.

What will be will now be. One must live in the meantime. Tonight I'll watch 500 Days of Summer, something I've long wanted to do.

Read more...