Neal Kane, Nancy Williams Faris, Christine Kane, Jason M. Rubin
Alison Case, Sarah Jensen, Nancy Boissonnet, Natasha Waibel, Donna LeBlanc

Neal Kane
President

A widely respected messaging strategist, communications consultant, and business writer, Neal works extensively with major institutions, leading corporations, and distinguished nonprofits to shape their high-level communications strategy and translate key messages into compelling content. The founder of Libretto, Neal serves as creative director, oversees the firm’s operations, and manages the company’s collaborative relationships with leading design and interactive firms. Neal has received numerous awards for his work and brings decades of client experience in higher education, technology, healthcare, and other fields to his projects. Recent engagements include communications strategy and high-level messaging for The Earth institute at Columbia University, messaging and content for ING’S multi-generational 401(k) program, and communications consulting and content for Pathfinder International’s capital campaign. Neal has served on the board of directors for the Boston chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), and is a member of the chapter’s advisory board. He has served on the adjunct faculty of the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University, and as a guest lecturer at the Massachusetts College of Art and the Rhode Island School of Design. Neal is also chair of The History Project, one of the nation’s leading LGBT history organizations, and is the editor of Improper Bostonians: Lesbian and Gay History From the Puritans to Playland, published by Beacon Press. He holds a BA in comparative literature from Brown University.

Some favorite novels: Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson, The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, Middlemarch by George Eliot

Wordplay of choice: The Sunday New York Times double acrostic; he also admits to a brief membership in the Scrabble Club during college

Try saying this three times fast: “I’ll have it edited in an hour.”

Nancy Williams Faris
Strategist

During her more than 15 years at Libretto, Nancy Faris has developed, orchestrated, and executed numerous writing, concept development, communications planning, and naming and branding assignments. She has created information architecture and shaped content for clients ranging from startup companies to major industry leaders. A creative strategist with a passion for meeting business objectives, she particularly enjoys developing messaging platforms, sitemaps, brand identity programs and advertising campaigns. She has experience in a wide range of industries including education, high technology, financial services, and healthcare. Nancy has also taught advertising at Simmons College. She holds a BA from Kenyon College.

Work quirk: The scream stretch, made popular by domesticated dogs throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Nancy has cultivated this endearing habit into something that would make Tantric Buddhists envious.

Choice words: A big fan of the “woody” word (round, full) over the “tinny” word (short, nasal), Nancy finds herself looking for occasions to exercise her favorite: Blasphemous.

Sideline: Graphology, i.e., handwriting analysis. In letters and in life, it’s always helpful to be able to recognize a baseline shift.

Christine Kane
Senior Writer

Drawing on her early background in newspaper journalism, Chris has been involved in corporate communications since 1981. She works in a range of sectors, including technology, education, consumer products, financial services, and real estate. As a senior writer at Libretto, her project approach involves immersing herself in the details of the client’s business while offering the impartial and even-tempered perspective of an outsider. With solid creative skills and a clear, polished writing style, Chris works in many formats but especially enjoys annual reports, print collateral, and writing for the Web.

Favorite challenge: I enjoy mediating differing perspectives on the client side in a way that leaves everyone feeling “heard” and satisfied with the outcome. People often think they are in disagreement when, in fact, their viewpoints share a great deal in common.

Best advice to clients: Get clear buy-in from your key stakeholders early in a project, when the important thinking and decision-making happens. Otherwise you risk major, last-minute course corrections that wreak havoc with your budget, production schedule, and peace of mind.

Favorite quote for keeping it all in perspective: “The very stone one kicks with one's boot will outlast Shakespeare.” From To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf.

Jason M. Rubin
Senior Writer

Jason has been a professional writer for 25 years, 10 of which he has spent at Libretto. As senior writer at Libretto, Jason specializes in highly technical subject matter; his clients have included MIT, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Emerson College, EMC, RSA, CS Technology, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Over the course of his long and successful career, Jason has written just about everything, including websites, Flash scripts, development case statements, product brochures, technical and conceptual white papers, direct mail packages, ads, advertisements, and speeches. He holds a BA in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and serves as communications director and board member of AIGA Boston, the local chapter of the national association for graphic arts.

Key to understanding difficult books: Read a good biography of the author. It’s how I finally “got” The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner on the second try.

Some favorite first lines of novels:

• “You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter’s night a traveler.” – Italo Calvino, If on a winter’s night a traveler
• “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. – Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
• “Mother died today. Or, maybe yesterday; I can’t be sure.” – Albert Camus, The Stranger

In honor of Abraham Lincoln’s bicentennial in 2009: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Alison Case
Senior Writer

Since joining Libretto full time in 2005, Alison has led several major website overhauls, including those for Ipswitch, the Robert F. Kennedy Children’s Action Corps, and Pace University Law School. She has also built a large portfolio of print work, including advertisements for the Boston Design Center, brochures for Berkeley Investments and FedEx, and admissions viewbooks for Hackley School and Beaver Country Day School. Prior to joining Libretto, Alison worked in the development office at Lesley University, where she gained experience writing fundraising materials. She has drawn from that experience to develop successful annual appeals for educational institutions such as Wellesley and Emerson colleges. Alison holds a BA in English literature from Fairfield University.

Favorite typographical mark: &. Not because I like to use it, but because I like to say it.

Great books recently received from friends: A brilliantly written comedy of errors, The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse; validation for a disheveled lifestyle, A Perfect Mess by Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman;and cute comic strips that only a cat-lover would understand, Cat Getting Out of A Bag and Other Observations by Jeffrey Brown.

Best bands to write by: Queens of the Stone Age and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. (The more it rocks, the faster I write.)

Sarah Jensen
Writer/Editor

Sarah is a writer and managing editor for diverse projects and is responsible for editing and proofreading components of virtually every Libretto engagement. Recent work has included a series of travel publications for the Harvard Alumni Association, RSA’s Vantage magazine, and annual reports for the RFK Children’s Action Corps and the New England College of Optometry. She particularly enjoys conducting interviews and determining how personal stories illuminate an organization’s mission. Before joining Libretto in 2006, Sarah was an award-winning journalist and copy editor for the Ludington Daily News in Michigan, for which she continues to contribute a biweekly op-ed column. A recognized poet, she was founding editor of the Boston-based literary journal atelier. Her Libretto Nightstand review of poet Jack Ridl’s collection Broken Symmetry was recently reprinted in the college textbook Approaching Literature. She holds a BA in anthropology from Michigan State University.

Literary passion: The expatriate era of 1920s France, as evidenced by an extensive library of literature and biography, and the ability to recall trivial minutia about Alice B. Toklas on command.

Best advice received from another writer: “You must look at your own life for the myth and archetype there that may have nothing to do with reading or writing of poetry, but what make your life the material of poetry.” – Diane Wakoski

The one book I’d want if I were marooned on a desert island (Besides How to Build a Boat): The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. A perfect novel that’s got everything: love, hope, champagne and stardust, cufflinks made of human molars – but mostly heartbreakingly beautiful writing.

Nancy Johnston Boissonnet
Associate Creative Director

Since joining Libretto in 2007, Nancy has been involved in diverse projects including a messaging engagement for The Earth Institute at Columbia University, the relaunch of the website for MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL), and development communications for Pathfinder International. She is responsible for new business and manages complex projects with multiple deliverables. She also participates in planning and strategy engagements, with a focus on education and nonprofit projects. Prior to joining Libretto, Nancy pursued graduate studies and taught French and contemporary theory and culture at New York University and CIEE’s Centre d’Etudes Critiques in Paris. Nancy holds a BA in Comparative Literature from Brown University and an MA in French literature from New York University.

Some favorite books: White Noise by Don Delillo, Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos, The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem.

Favorite wordplay: Bananagrams. It's an obsession.

Guilty Pleasure: The Approval Matrix, every week in New York Magazine.

Natasha Waibel
Writer

Since joining Libretto in 2007, Natasha has built a varied portfolio of print and Web work that includes a suite of admissions materials for Bucknell University, messaging and Web content for NEFA (New England Foundation for the Arts), and donor communications for Brigham and Women’s Hospital. An adept interviewer, Natasha particularly enjoys translating stakeholder input into relevant and compelling content. Prior to joining Libretto, Natasha was a freelance writer for the lifestyle publication City Living Magazine and a contributor to the student travel guidebook When in Madrid. She holds a BS in journalism from Boston University.

Some favorite authors: Barbara Kingsolver, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Marianne Wiggins, Wally Lamb.

When I feel most inspired: Early morning and during long runs

Favorite part of my job: Becoming well versed in unexpected subjects such as photovoltaic energy, Inuit culture, and the Rosetta Stone.

Donna LeBlanc
Bookkeeper

Donna LeBlanc has been helping Boston companies keep track of their finances for over twenty years. Before enlisting her financial savvy at Libretto in October 2004, Donna held accounting positions at numerous agencies including Hill Holliday, Emerson Lane Fortuna, and Polese Clancy. Donna holds a BS in Accounting from Northeastern University as well as an associate degree in Business Management from North Shore Community College. Even though Donna is a self-described numbers person, she enjoys working with “crazy artistic” types since they enliven her sometimes-dull accounting duties.

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