Halloween Viewing Recommendations, How Hitchcock Beat Creative Blocks, and 20 Questions to Ask Kids About Ghosts

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10 stories we've enjoyed this week

Illustration of a woman wearing a pink top, wearing pink lipstick, with big black hair. Above her head are the words "Get out!"

Illustration by Camila Rosa - Work with her

Hi All,
Have you checked out the ReThink Quarterly, a publication we produce for ADP? Each quarter we tell fascinating human stories about an essential, but overlooked part of business - payroll. We love producing it and are really proud of the work we produce for it. The theme for Issue 3 is Place. - give it a read. If you're looking for interesting ways to get attention for a brand or product get in touch, we'd love to chat.

Friend of Storythings and frequent contributor to Formats Unpacked, Nick Parker is launching a Substack newsletter about tone of voice. It sounds perfect for many of our subscribers. "It’ll come out every fortnight, and each one will share an example of a brand with an interesting tone of voice, with some nerdy analysis about why they're cool and how they work." Sign up to get this first newsletter.

OK, enough from me. Have a brilliant and spooky weekend and enjoy this week's stories.
Hugh

The Short Story

5 Things I Learned From Asking Kids Questions About Ghosts
(7 min read)

Nice Work Week, If You Can Get It
(20 min listen)

What Happens When Your Favourite thing Goes Viral
(6 min read)

Hitchcock's Technique For Releasing Pressure That Impeded Creativity
(Tweet)

A Great Guide to Running Inclusive Meetings
(5 min read)

Television's Best Publishing Advice
(5 min read)

Tracey Thorn: "The present is everything, until suddenly it is the past"
(3 min read)

The Best Bookshops in the World
(7 min read)

Using Only Circles, Famous Films Turned Into Cleaver Minimalist Posters
(1 min read)

It's Nice That: What to Watch, Read and Listen to This Halloween
(5 min read)

How can we help you?

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Here's 3 reasons to get in touch.

1. You want to talk to us about content production: podcasts, videos, animations, illustrations, editorial.

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We do other things too. We're very friendly and always enjoy meeting people, so get in touch.

The Full Story

5 Things I Learned From Asking Kids Questions About Ghosts
A few years ago we were lucky enough to work with Reverand Dan Catt. Dan has worked in tech for years, is one of the smartest people I know, and is a lovely human being. But by his own admission, talking to children doesn't come naturally to him. So he devised a bunch of questions about ghosts to use as a tool for making conversations with kids easier. We asked him to write about them as part of the 5 Things I Learned series we were running at the time. It's a great set of questions and the perfect read for Halloween weekend.
(7 min read)

Nice Work Week, If You Can Get It
I enjoyed this episode of Planet Money. Actually, I enjoy most episodes of Planet Money. They look at the origins of the 40 hour work week and the reasons why it's been so hard to break away from the old 9 to 5. It's a great bit of history, especially at a time when the world of work is currently going through such upheaval. Also, is now the time to revisit Tim Ferriss' 'The 4 Hour Work Week', which was originally published in 2007. The New Yorker thinks so.
(20 min listen)

What Happens When Your Favourite thing Goes Viral
A 2002 song by the Mountain Goats about a doomed divorce is suddenly big on TikTok. The fact that some of the fans aren't too happy about it took me right back to my younger post-punk, birth of indie, college days. Particularly this: “As a 2010-era hipster in recovery from an insufferable superiority complex, I am constantly forced to reckon with unlearning the impulse to gatekeep everything I love from everyone.”
(6 min read)

Hitchcock's Technique For Releasing Pressure That Impeded Creativity
I love these kinda stories. It got me thinking about how much we try to avoid distractions to remain in flow, but sometimes we need to build in distraction opportunities that don't involve us looking at Twitter.
(Tweet)

A Great Guide to Running Inclusive Meetings
I love this from The Coop. At a time when a lot of people are working remotely, these seven guides will really help organisations ensure that collaboration is inclusive. It also comes in poster form.
(5 min read)

Television's Best Publishing Advice
We love and hate seeing our industry represented on TV. They often get it wrong, but occasionally get it right in an all too painful way. If you work in publishing, or are thinking about a career in publishing, Karen Gu has handpicked advice from TV shows and films such as 'Frances Ha', 'You've Got Mail', 'Bridget Jones's Diary', and more.
(5 min read)

Tracey Thorn: "The present is everything, until suddenly it is the past"
As one half of Everything But The Girl, it feels like Tracey Thorn has been ever-present in my life. It started back in 1982 with the classic Pillows and Prayers compilation album she featured on, continued through my years as a dance DJ, and now as someone whose writing I really enjoy. That's not something I imagined as a schoolboy listening to that album. Similarly, according to her very brief diary entry, when Tracey met her husband and other half of the group, Ben Watt, 40 years ago, she clearly didn't envisage the life and music they would make together. Here she reflects on that meeting and how differently we see time later in life compared to how we think about it in our teenage years.
(3 min read)

The Best Bookshops in the World
Some of these are stunning. FT writers nominate awe-inspiring places to get your literary fix, from Mumbai to Buenos Aires. The Dujiangyan Zhongshuge Bookstore in Sichuan is breaking my brain.
(7 min read)

Using Only Circles, Famous Films Turned Into Cleaver Minimalist Posters
These are very clever. It also doubles as a game. There were three of these I didn't get. Not guessing the Trainspotting one has really annoyed me.
(1 min read)

It's Nice That: What to Watch, Read and Listen to This Halloween
This is a real gift for anyone looking for some alternative recommendations this Halloween. I'd expect nothing less from a publication with such good taste.
(5 min read)

We hope you've enjoyed this week's newsletter. I'm sure some of your friends would love to read it. Sharing it would be really appreciated. If you've received this from a friend you can subscribe here and get it direct to your inbox every Friday.

Thanks for reading and see you all next week,

Hugh, Matt, Anjali and the team at Storythings