Welcome to Hot Pepper Communications. My name is Kim Siever, and I’m the face behind Hot Pepper Communications. I’m a freelance writer based in Lethbridge, Alberta. I’ve been freelancing since 2013, and prior to that, I was an in-house copywriter for a small business here in Southern Alberta.
In 2020, I transitioned from doing commercial writing to independent journalism. I still take on commercial and academic writing and editing work from time to time, as well as social media management.
While you’re here, check out the most recent writing topics I’ve blogged about below.
- How to write ages in a sentence
I recently received this reader-submitted question: Hello Kim, I stumbled upon your website while looking for something I found hard to even google, so here I am with a question! For the travel website me and my partner own, we are writing a feature article about someone, and I’m puzzled about which one is the… Continue reading How to write ages in a sentence - Reader question: When do you capitalize “husband”?
A reader recently emailed me this question: A woman who is a columnist for our local San Luis Obispo Tribune always capitalizes the word husband when it precedes his name, i.e. Husband Richard. She also capitalizes Son Sean. When I grumbled about it to a friend who edits books she claimed that was proper. Wondering… Continue reading Reader question: When do you capitalize “husband”? - Difference between evoke and invoke
This is part of the difference between series. I recently encountered a document that misused the word invoke, confusing it for evoke. So I thought I’d do a post on the difference between the two. Evoke Evoke is used when the speaker wants to communicate a calling forth or a calling up. For example, if you want… Continue reading Difference between evoke and invoke - Difference between more than and over
This is part of the difference between series. Last month, Unifor, a union in Canada, held an online writing workshop for their research and communications team. Related to this was the following tweet they sent out. Here’s the thing though: using over instead of more than isn’t a writing mistake. I quote tweeted their tweet saying as… Continue reading Difference between more than and over - Should I capitalize husband?One of my readers is writing a work of fiction and needed to know whether to capitalize “husband”. Here’s my answer.
- Sopping wet, not slopping wet
I was recently searching for something, when I came across the phrase “slopping wet”. But this phrase is actually wrong.