Randy Cassingham's Blog

Sue in the U.K. writes, "Just wanted to ask if it would be possible when writing 'This is True' if you could write exactly which state in the USA the stories are located. Instead of CA could you write California? (I'm hoping this is the right state for the abbrev.) I know the majority of readers are from the U.S., but for those of us who aren't and who love knowing where these people are from, it would help rather than us trying to guess which state has been abbreviated."

Actually, when speaking of California I use "Calif." Since True is run in a number of papers, I use the abbreviations set forth in the Associated Press Stylebook, which is what most U.S. papers use. If you're unsure of a state, the story sources page not only has a list of the states, but also a brief rundown of where the state is and what it's like.

When I write, I actually try to do a mix of half stories from the U.S., and half from everywhere else. Since the U.S. has more reporters than the rest of the world combined (which is not necessarily a compliment), and I only source stories that are published in English, it's rare that I meet that goal. So if you find a particularly good story in English on a real newspaper's web site that happened outside the U.S., I'd like to hear about it: see info on submitting stories.