Down memory lane with Troll newsletters

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• posted: Sep 23rd, 2009
• under: Daily Life

I’m in the middle of packing. Well, sorting really more so than packing I should say.  I’m dividing up the contents of my file cabinet into keep and shred piles. Ruki is having a hayday with this part of it. She runs across the room and lands on top of the pile of paper, then slides. Total paper surfing! I could swear she’s even smiling. Crazy cat.

While sorting, I came across a few samples from my days back at Troll Communications. Wow, that’s going back more than a decade. The company no longer exists. It was eaten by Scholastic. I started working there in an entry level position along part of the downward spiral timeline. I can’t even remember who owned it at the time. It changed hands repeatedly before Scholastic finally picked at it. By the time I left, I was covering the jobs of no less than four people and reporting to three bosses (all in different departments of course). Crazy times. I didn’t last ’till the end. My sanity wouldn’t let me.

It wasn’t all bad though. Through Troll I was reminded of how much I love kids books and how important getting kids to read is to me too. Not to mention that it started the seed for wanting to write kids stories myself.

Anyway, on to the samples. Since the editors were short handed, I was asked to write the newsletters that were included in monthly home club kits. These were themed packages of books, tchotchkes, posters, and activities that were mailed to the kid’s home every month. Looking back on them now I can’t help wanting to get out a red pen and edit away. Haha. Aah, well, that’s how it goes.

Girl Connection

This one was the bane of my existence. Really. I mean look at it. It’s purple and pink and has a purple/pink rainbow like swoosh. I almost expect to see butterflies and unicorns too. The word search was fun to make though. I created it by hand. We didn’t have easy websites back then to whip them up with just a click of a button.

Weird World

This one, of course, intrigued me. Very X-Files feel to it. Only when I started this, it had been running for a long time. Case# 1072 you see? I kept having to come up with more and more obscure ones. Oy!

Wacky World

This one is a younger version of Weird Word. Each one is a stack o’ themed facts. Funny, I look at it now and it’s not like I changed my vocabulary to match the age or anything. I don’t think I ever even thought about that. Duh.

Mystery Adventures

This one I got to write from the beginning of its run. Detective tips and puzzles. Mysteries inside with hints that are cracked via a decoder the kids would get in the first package too. Makes me think of “Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.” Can’t be helped!

I know, they’re old. Some of them have worn out ink so you can’t read the text well any more. S’ok. You get an idea enough. That’s that for this memory lane trip though. Maybe next time I’ll share some of the campaigns I worked on. Who knows?

Off to return to packing…er…sorting. You know what I mean.

Have a happy day!

tagged: newsletters, Publishing, Troll Communications

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