Author

Eric S. Townsend grew up in an Italian household. His grandmother was the matriarch who brought the family from Dragoni (via the port of Naples) to the United States (via Ellis Island) after World War I and before the Great Depression. She was just 7 years old on her journey.

EARLY YEARS

Eric S. Townsend learned to crawl and draw at the same time. His first scribble was a rabbit. His mother regularly drove him to the Museum of Natural History and Hayden Planetarium in New York where his imagination ran wild. He drew animals and gazed upon star shows for hours. At Lyncrest Elementary School (Fair Lawn NJ), he wrote a lengthy poem on the fall of Pompeii (Italy) and published haiku in the local newspaper. His first exposure to technology was building robots in the school’s Gifted & Talented (G&T) program, where he was a group mate with fellow author Jeff Gothelf.

COLLEGIATE YEARS

Townsend earned his first dollar in advertising as a student at the University of Richmond (1992). He designed music packaging for local groups. During a rare snowstorm, when he was prepared to present to his sculpture class, he instead walked the class to a nearby field where they could experience music being performed among the falling flakes. The band again joined him in a Japanese art and culture class to perform “Circle,” a musical reworking of a beloved renga poem. Townsend was a regular contributor to The Messenger, a Richmond-based literary magazine. One of his short stories, “To Satisfy the Sky,” was runner-up for the Margaret Owen Finck Award in Creative Writing. He was mentored by the Zen poet and painter Dr. Stephen Addiss, who was a pupil of the avant garde music composer John Cage, who was guided by the incomparable visual artist and contemporary of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, Marcel Duchamp. Townsend’s background in art, music, and writing hits all the notes of that lineage.

MARKETING CAREER

Townsend’s agency career began at Landslide Creative Services (1994). A former classmate saw his potential and offered an internship-to-hire arrangement when he was a junior in college. He then contributed at a division of The Martin Agency (Richmond VA), Zinc Agency (Washington DC), SQN Branding, Billy Casper Golf (Tysons Corner VA), SplashKit (with Max Gousse of Universal Music Group), and Glimpse Digital (parent company of Go Booklets, Seattle WA).

Townsend has provided marketing services to more than 400 brands over the last 25 years. This has included members of the Dow 30, Fortune 100/500, startups and challengers. Here are 20 household names you’ll recognize: Pfizer, Navy Federal Credit Union, First National Bank, Absolut Vodka, Universal Music Group, Sotheby’s, Mitsubishi, Saab, Skanska, Cort Furniture, Leo A Daly Architects, American Institute of Architects, American Red Cross, Goodwill, Catholic Charities, B’nai B’rith, National Rifle Association, University of Richmond, University of North Carolina, Rutgers University, and James Madison University. Nearly all of these organizations were founded 75 to 275 years ago.

INNOVATION

Townsend has always been driven by doing things better. His modifications to a line of beanbag chairs for Gold Medal Products (Richmond VA) directly lead to today’s loungers for gamers. He transformed a bulky annual report for Pact International (Washington DC) into a menu you could unfold and read in minutes. To challenge architects, he once portrayed Washington DC as a plain ice cube tray (turned upside down) on the cover of the American Institute of Architects’ monthly magazine. He was an early adopter (and later opponent) of Flash technology on websites. He has contributed meaningfully to “small books” in the epublishing revolution.

TABULA RAISA

Townsend’s first children’s series, Tabula Raisa, was successfully funded on Kickstarter for $12,879 in 2015. It was recognized as a Staff Pick, tagged “New & Interesting” and was showcased on the home page of their website (#1 among 418 live publishing projects). The Staff Pick program was initiated by the crowdfunding platform in 2009. It recognizes particularly compelling, fun, creative, and exciting new ideas with fair-priced rewards and a great story. The Showcase program features one project on their home and product category pages until deemed unseated. Tabula Raisa was registered as a trademark through the U.S. Patent and Trade Office in 2017. There are now 9 books in the series plus multicultural dolls, learning games, and handmade crafts for sale.

Townsend has been a leadership mentor with Torch (formerly Everwise) since 2013. The organization connects rising professionals with the influencers and insights that help them advance as senior professionals, managers, executives and founders. He has guided high-potential protégés to develop their leadership acumen and make the most of their capabilities. Protégés have included a national online organizer for Sierra Club Outdoors (UAW Local 2103), a senior marketing manager at Lyft, and a product manager at LiveRamp and Google — all in San Francisco, a chief marketing officer at FOMO Media in Portland OR, a senior product designer at Twitter in Boston, and the founder of Dave Arcade in Midvale UT.

Townsend’s most recent publications begin with the episodal sketchbook Blue Cloudz (2021), which explores the childhood development and early career of Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Prince Rogers Nelson. The Sun Hangs Low and Enzwell both feature poetry and creative writing inspired by the author’s favorite destination: Iceland. These will support an ongoing series called Poems Across Iceland. He is prepping two projects as his next releases. Tahoma Falls is a semi-autobiographical novella set near Mount Rainier in Washington state. Crimson Runaway is a three-part sci-fi thriller set first in the United States, then Egypt, and finally Antarctica.

Preview these projects and others toward the bottom of the author’s writing portfolio at Carbonmade.