franecdote

A few weeks ago, I started a new Thursday tradition on the blog’s Facebook fanpage called “THAT year in French history.” It was designed to be a fun way to recruit new fans on Facebook and tell an interesting story at the same time. The idea is that every Thursday, I’ll check to see how many “likes” je parle américain has on Facebook, and I’ll treat the fans to a “franecdote” (an interesting fact or story from French history) that happened that many years ago. For example, the first “franecdote” was published on June 20, when je parle américain had 319 fans, so …

2013 (this year) — 319 fans (that day) = 1694 (THAT year in French history)

If you know me well, the “franecdote” will never be just a simple fact. I’m a bit of storyteller, so what starts out as a two- or three-sentence anecdote very quickly turns into a short article. Looking at the last two franecdotes I’ve written, I thought it was a real shame to do that research and draft little articles but not publish them on the blog itself. Of course, the idea behind the “franecdote” is that Facebook fans will see them first, but there’s no harm in sharing them more broadly after fans get the first read, right? So that’s exactly what I’ve decided to do. I will continue to publish “franecdotes” for the Facebook crowd every Thursday (provided we get a change in fan numbers to move us back in time to another year in history), but once they’re old news, I’ll publish them here as well.

You can read the first franecdote here, or see the whole archive here.

If you’re intrigued (and if you’re a Facebook user), make sure to go over the fan page and click “like” to get je parle américain‘s updates in your newsfeed. That way, you’ll get each and every “franecdote” when it’s hot off the virtual presses!