Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers -- April 7, 2017 Edition

> Can binge watching have a writing purpose? Reedsy editor (and novelist) Andrew Lowe thinks so, at least about a certain eight shows.

> Somewhat related: I learned about Belletrist, the young actor Emma Roberts's online book clue when she was on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Only mildly interested, I perked up when I arrived at her website to see she'd interviewed Joan Didion about her latest book, South and West: From a Notebook.

> Good listening: an episode of the #CNF podcast features Jennifer Niesslein, founder/editor of the online essay site, Full Grown People.

> Traveling? Or trying to organize a book promotion tour? Check out "The Best Bookstore in Every State," via Real Simple and Yelp.

> Find yourself torn between devoting time to writing, and making sure you are tending to business aspects of a writing life? At Catapult, Melissa Febos asks, "Do you want to be known for your writing or your swift email responses?"

>Speaking of Melissa Febos, I heard her read from her new memoir, Abandon Me, this week at Halfway There, a newish quarterly reading series in Montclair, NJ (my literary backyard), and was impressed by how, in the middle of what she explained was a weeks-long, cross-country book tour, she made the material sound new and fresh, even  (it seemed at least ) to herself. If I ever do readings from any book of mine, I'm going to find a video of her reading, and study it.

> Looking to get involved in behind-the-scenes work at an online literary journal? Hippocampus Magazine is in need of volunteers for several different posts.

> Every week, novelist Elizabeth S. Craig compiles a long juicy list of links to writing advice and writing-related articles and posts that appeared that week on the web.

> That collective groan you heard last weekend was thousands of essay, memoir, and other nonfiction writers upset over the demise of the Lives column which will, after 19 years, no longer appear in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. (And the scratching was all of us crossing it off our publication bucket list. Sigh.)

> Three cheers for these high school student journalists who understand the value and power of fact-checking.

> Finally, from the department of that-sounds-completely-crazy-but-it's-still-(alleged)plaigarism, comes this story about how cultish hip-hop musicians apparently stole a poet's work.

Have a great weekend!

Image: Flickr/CreativeCommons-Rusty_Clark

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers -- February 6, 2015 Edition

> Prolific writer Jordan Rosenfeld, in a video hangout with Estelle Erasmus, talks about how she churns out so many essays that get published in so many, many places. Worth the 14 minutes!

> Is being "sponsored" (meaning more or less not having to earn a paycheck) the brass ring for writers struggling to find/make/take enough time to seriously pursue their projects? Start at the Brevity blog with this post, and then follow the links back to the original Salon post that got the conversation started, and sideways to a number of responses, both yay and nay.

> Interested in exploring Canadian literary magazines and journals? Here's a handy round-up (the post date reads 2013, but it was just updated last week).

> The Freelancer offers 17 journalism conferences worth your time in 2015.  (Including the ASJA Annual Conference, where I'm pleased to be on a panel about writing groups.)

> Poet Jessica Piazza is submitting only to paying venues in 2015, and chronicling (tumbling?) her experiences (plus talking with other poets and editors) at Poetry Has Value.  (hat tip Erika Dreifus)

> Another great listening experience - Donna Talarico, founder/editor of the online creative nonfiction journal Hippocampus, on the Higher Ed Social podcast, discussing juggling teaching and editing, and some interesting Hippocampus behind-the-scenes re: submissions, selection, etc.

> Looking for "feminist/inclusive" places to submit writing? The Fem has a list.  (hat tip The Review Review)

> Finally, I don't know a lot about literary translation, but I know what's funny about words, and I love this: Idioms that cannot be literally translated into English. Well they can be, but hold no figurative meaning.  Like: "There's no cow on the ice" from the Swedish.

Have a great weekend!

Image: Flickr/Creative Commons (Filipe Soares Dilley)

Editor Interview with Marcelle Soviero, Editor and Publisher of Brain,Child Magazine

In Summer of 2012, many readers (and a huge swath of writers who value paying markets!) were upset to learn that Brain, Child: The Magazine for Thinking Mothers, was closing after 13 years publishing intelligent essays and fiction about modern parenting. (The ad-free magazine was often called "The New Yorker for mothers.") Its two founding publishers/editors were moving on to new stages of life and work (Jennifer Niesslein now edits an essay site, Full Grown People, and Stephanie Wilkinson established a farm-to-table restaurant in Lexington, VA.).

Just when most were resigned that yet one more print magazine was gone forever, Connecticut resident Marcelle Soviero, owner of Erielle Media LLC, purchased and revived the magazine, which is now published quarterly, plus one special teen issue per year. Soviero, a memoir author, essayist, former executive at several tech start-ups, and writing teacher, has also redesigned the magazine, expanded BC's online presence, added a Brain, Mother blog, and just recently published  a book of essays written by many of Brain, Child ‘s bloggers. Last week, I asked Marcelle a few nosy questions. (Disclosure: I am an occasional freelance editor for the magazine, helping writers to revise essays and short stories.)

Lisa Romeo:  Many people (myself included) were thrilled when you re-launched Brain, Child magazine. I believe many longtime subscribers stuck with it. Were you worried about the first issue you published being accepted?

Marcelle Soviero: Our subscriber base has grown significantly in the last two years, so that is a good thing. I worried about the first issue, but I worry about every issue – that it is the best it can be and stands up to our mission of publishing the highest quality literary magazine available.  

LR: Had you always wanted to run a magazine, or was buying Brain, Child more a matter of, "Someone ought to keep that magazine going," and then taking the plunge?

MS: I always wanted to run (or be an editor-in-chief) of a magazine since my first stint as an editor of Popular Science.

LR: In the early stages, what did you decide to keep the same, and what did you decide to change?

MS: My big push was to update the design of the magazine, to add poetry, to produce an expanded digital version, and to grow our online and social media presence. We kept the Brain, Child departments the same but created icons for each department in the print issue. And we’ve commissioned many new artists. My goal was to capture the feeling of the essay with the art as well as the words. In our digital issues we offer bonus content not available in the print edition, and we plan more and more of that in the future.  

LR: I'm thinking there has likely been some inevitable backlash to some of that evolution?

MS: We received the 2014 award for best overall design of a literary magazine from Boston Bookbuilders, which was a nice validation of our effort and the efforts of our amazing Art Directors Mike Lombardo and Nancy Anderson. We’ve received so many letters from readers saying how much they love the updated, redesigned magazine and our website and social media readership has grown exponentially and our digital products are selling really well. I can’t complain.

LR: You have been working hard to develop the BC web presence and spread the BC "brand" across social media platforms. Can you talk about some of these ventures, and why and how that's helping to support a subscriber- and newsstand-supported print magazine in 2014?

MS: We’ve decided for the most part not to include ads in the magazine for now to preserve the editorial quality and look of the magazine. We do however save space each issue for a pro bono ad for a nonprofit cause we care about. We are really fortunate in that our subscriptions support the magazine.

LR: One interesting partnership is the cross-posting of some BC content on the Huffington Post. Obviously, this brings BC to the attention of thousands, perhaps millions of readers who might otherwise not know of it. What are the residual effects of that, and is it something that your writers have embraced?

MS: We work with Huffington Post, Mothering.com, and other select content partners to expand our reach and showcase our writers. We’ve helped our writers republish their work as well, in places like The Washington Post, UTNE, and Babble. Writer Rebecca Lanning showcased her Brain, Child piece "The Nap Year" in The Washington Post; Catherine Buni just republished an abridged version of her Brain, Child feature story “Conversation Starters” in The Atlantic. And I was fortunate enough to see Claire DeBerg perform a shorter version of her Brain, Child essay “Finding Gloria” as part of Listen to Your Mother 2014 in Minneapolis.

LR: Many writers covet a byline in BC (because of its reputation and cache, and also because it's a paying market!). Can you give a peek inside the editorial process?

MS: We have an editorial team who read every submission. We receive several hundred submissions a month. We publish 20 short pieces on the blog, 8 - 10 pieces on the website monthly, and 6 - 9 pieces in the print magazine quarterly. In addition we have special issues that offer additional paid opportunities for writers. We receive submissions on an ongoing basis. Our submission guidelines can be found here. I like essays that tell a unique story or take a new angle on a common topic. I personally look for strong dialogue that moves the story along while characterizing the speaker.  And I am in love with metaphor.

LR: Can you tell me more about the Brain, Mother blog, another paying market for writers?

MS: Brain, Mother has given us the opportunity to publish more great work by incredible writers. Senior editor Randi Olin, who joined me two weeks after I bought the magazine, manages the blog and makes sure the posts are thoughtful and tackle topics mothers care about. We look for a wide range of voices and edit every piece.  One of our contributing bloggers, Lauren Apfel, just won a BlogHer award for her outstanding op-ed pieces.  We pay our contributing bloggers, those who post for us regularly. (Blog guidelines are here. - LR).

LR: Though the tagline for BC, has always been "The magazine for thinking mothers," do you run pieces by fathers and others in parenting roles?

MS: Yes. We’ve had plenty of essays by fathers – the amazing Jon Sponaas is a contributing blogger. Jack Cheng, Joe Freitas, and a dozen others have written for us. We welcome male voices, and we are not shy about showcasing voices from all types of families all over the globe. 

LR: What's in the future for BC? 

MS:  We have more books and special issues underway (we just published our first book -- This is Childhood: Book & Journal), audio and video programming are in the works, and some terrific partnerships.

LR: Has publishing the magazine turned out to be what you expected?

MS: It has been better than I ever expected. Outside of marrying my husband and raising my five children, buying Brain, Child is the best thing I ever did. I couldn’t be happier.

LR: You've published one memoir yourself, An Iridescent Life. Are you working on another book length project, or has the business of running the magazine left little time for your own writing?

MS: My writing centers me; I am always at work on new projects. I write every morning from 4:00 – 6:00 am, it’s who I am.

LR: I think contributors like to hear that you are also "in the trenches," so to speak, trying to find time in your busy day to work on your personal writing project(s). Any advice in that area?

MS: For me it was important years ago to cut out TV time and also wake up really early. I enter writing times into my calendar, and I never miss an appointment with myself. Last, if I have an engagement (lunch with a friend for example) and it gets cancelled, I steal away and write for that time instead. And I always have my notebook. I’ve written many an essay while in waiting rooms, or at sports practices!

Note from Lisa: One blog reader will win a free one-year subscription to Brain, Child magazine, as well as a full set of 2013 issues. To be eligible for the random drawing, just leave a comment here on the blog by midnight, Tuesday, June 3. (Must have a U.S. postal address.) 

You can find Brain,Child on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest.

Not exactly qualified for that writing award? Apply anyway.

This is a story about freelancing, a wild chance, nostalgia, looking back in order to go forward, friends with blogs, and a little luck.

A few months ago, I was fortunate to be awarded a scholarship (in the category of Nonfiction Article Writing) by the Education Foundation of the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA), to attend ASJA's annual three-day conference in Manhattan.

I knew I would gather plenty of terrific advice, tips and knowledge from the panels and seminars, and I looked forward to spending a few days around fellow freelancers, exchanging inside info and trading (a few) horror stories. But the real reason I wanted to go to the ASJA conference was that I hadn't been to one in about 20 years. Before that, attending the ASJA event had been an annual outing for me, beginning with my first, the year after graduating from college with a journalism degree.

At the time, I was struggling to support myself as a freelance writer, and saw the conference fee as a necessary investment. I was right – from that first conference, I made important contacts with editors who sent work my way for many years. After that first attendance, I made the ASJA meeting a fixture on my calendar, even after I began working in public relations a few years later (another story!).

The conference slid off my annual agenda at some point. Until this past winter, when I got the idea in my head that, living just across the river, and wanting to expand the freelance journalism arm of my career, I really had no excuse not to attend again. Except of course, the fee. I visited the ASJA site a half-dozen times, filled out the registration form, and then let it languish. That money, I kept telling myself, would be better spent on my son's tuition. Or the other son's cello lessons. Or groceries.

One late winter morning this year, I was doing one of the online things I do every day – reading my friend Erika Dreifus's great blog, Practicing Writing. That day, she reminded readers that the deadline for the ASJA Education Foundation scholarships was that very afternoon. I thought for a moment about applying, but immediately dismissed the notion; I figured the selectors were probably looking for someone either (take your pick): younger, with less (or more) publishing credits, in worse financial circumstances, with less (or more) experience.

Then I remembered something I'd read a while back on another great blog, where novelist Tayari Jones wrote a post meant to encourage young writers to think big and be a bit reckless in seeking out opportunities. Tayari passed along advice she was once given (and I'm paraphrasing here): Every day in the writing world, someone is awarded something for which he or she may not seem especially qualified. The trick is to keep applying for things, because one day, why can't it be you?

The ASJA application, including links to published articles, a CV, and cover letter explaining why the scholarship was being sought, was due in a few hours.

Why can't it be me? I hit send.

Here's what was so interesting to me, sitting in on ASJA discussions again, some 30 years after having attended my first conference: How much has not changed, and how much has. On the one hand, everyone was discussing the very same things that we worried about in 1982 – the best way to query editors, how to attract an agent's attention, negotiating rights and fees, interviewing difficult people, keeping clips organized and presentable. But that was fine, because in the intervening years, everything else had changed, and so doing all of those basic things that propel a freelance career, now requires an entirely different set of skills, tools, technology.

Back in 1982, I recall wide-eyed, eye-rolling, grudging reactions in some sessions to certain ideas of changing up the way one does business. In 1982, a panelist suggested that five years hence, everyone in the room would own at least one computer on which we'd all be writing our articles. Having seen computers being installed in the journalism classrooms at Syracuse University just before I graduated the year before, I believed it, but I noticed quite a few crossed arms and shakes of the head around the room.

It was a similar scene several years later, when in those same ASJA sessions I heard another speaker declare that in just a few years, we would no longer be printing out word-processed articles and stuffing them into envelopes to send off to editors. At another ASJA I attended, probably around 1990 or so, I remember someone said the words electronic communication and web page. Some people seemed excited, but others clearly were not happy to contemplate the coming changes.

Fast forward to this past April, when there was a lot of talk about online activities -- creating a great website and blog, building a Twitter following, knowing how (and how not) to use Facebook and other social media, writing for online venues, SEO skills, developing e-newsletter lists, building an online portfolio of clips. Mostly, audience members welcomed information on these topics. But then in some sessions, where the conversation veered to video blogging, podcasts, writing for phone apps, formatting ebooks, and other issues, I could sense some reluctance (could some of that have been coming from moi?), and suddenly it felt just like old times: Can all this newness really be coming our way, be here already? Yes, and how wonderful. Yes, and oh no!

One way the conference also felt familiar, for me at least, was in the way these gatherings are good for one's career, and the soul of the work-at-home freelancer. I got to talk, in the flesh, with other writers – some with more experience than I, whose tips I appreciated, some with less experience, whose questions I was happy to answer. I met editors face-to-face and gathered useful intel on what might get an assignment nod. I was able to listen to others ask the questions I was either too hesitant to ask, or would never have thought of – and heard the answers in real time. I shared a meal, a drink, a coffee, with people I might not have sought out – a design blogger, a pet columnist, an education writer -- but whose company, and insights, I enjoyed.

And, I got to write this blog post – which I hope will encourage other writers to go ahead and ask for that scholarship, apply for that residency, enter that contest, go after that job. Why can't it be your turn next?

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers, August 5, 2011 Edition

► Over at Shelf Awareness Pro, young adult novelist Mal Peet talks about the necessary musicality of prose and how reading one's work aloud can help a writer develop rhythm. "A sentence that clots in your mouth is unlikely to flow in your mind," he notes.

►NPR Books has a short interview with Marion Roach Smith and an excerpt from her new book, The Memoir Project.

► Kerry Cohen's helpful article from The Writer, "Not Hurting People With Your Words," is now available over at Gotham Writers' Workshop.

► At HTML Giant, Blake Butler shares "22 Things I Learned From Submitting Writing." He's blunt.

►A puzzle constructor whose creations often appear in the New York Times, talks about his craft. Puzzle lovers, follow the other links in the piece to more great stuff, too.

►Tired of glare on your computer screen while writing outdoors? (You do write outdoors sometimes, don't you?) Not sure if you can buy this computer sun shield in the U.S., but it looks interesting. (And I'm betting you can also rig up something similar for a lot less.)

► Consulting editor Alan Rinzler with some new thoughts on – yes I'm going to write that dreaded word: platform.

►When that "complementary" hotel newspaper isn't really free. Yikes.

►Finally, what ensues when a college journalism class attempts to put together a newspaper 1970s style, sans computers, digital cameras, etc.

Have a great weekend.

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers - November 12th Edition

A little light on links this week. Hope you enjoy what's here.

► Over at the Columbia Journalism Review, what happened when one experienced journalist worked a few weeks for a content mill.

► Natalie Whipple at her Between Fact and Fiction blog, on the "agreement" writers makes with readers, and how and when to break it.

►Literary agent Nathan Bransford, whose blog and online forums are wildly popular, is leaving the biz.

► Writers who have something to say about sports, check out Sport Literate, the print literary journal which publishes nonfiction and poetry. An essay about tennis from a recent issue is currently available online.

► What do you do when you're Facebook-exec-rich and still very young? You start a venture like Quora, a "continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it."

► Finally, The printed word, already endangered, seems to have a new foe: folks who want to ban magazines in certain places because they spread germs. Yep.

Have a great weekend.

Guest Blogger Jennifer Gresham on The Alien Interview: How to Get a Scientist to Speak Human

Jennifer Gresham is a poet and the author of the popular blog Everyday Bright, focused on personal and professional fulfillment (and occasionally fascinating science). She also holds a PhD in biochemistry, and has had a long career in the Air Force, where she continues to work as a reservist and consultant. Her duties have often included writing, and along the way, she's developed an ear for a good scientist interview.

Please welcome Jennifer Gresham.

In my first job as the head of an optical microscopy group, my supervisor asked me to attend a meeting at Lawrence Livermore National Lab. Despite listening very hard and asking a few basic questions of those near me, I couldn't even determine the topic of the discussion, much less the recommendations. These were scientists talking about what they did day-in and day-out, but to me, the words were completely alien. I drove home in tears.

Back in February of this year, the New York Times reported that based on their own metrics, readers were more likely to share articles about science than almost any other topic. As writers, that's good news, because there's so much exciting science that goes unreported. But even if you only write fiction, knowing the details behind the spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria on gym floor mats or how inspectors catch nuclear proliferators can open up novel story lines your readers will love.

The tricky part is not finding scientists willing to talk to you, but getting them to talk intelligibly.

When I was ultimately tapped to be the Chief of Corporate Communications for the Air Force Research Lab, I knew what I was up against. I'd have to devise questions as elegantly as a scientist’s experiment if I wanted good results. Here are a few tips I picked up along the way to transform even the most alien interviews into an engaging conversation:

- Play “dumb”: Many interviewers prep their subjects by asking them to “speak as if they were chatting with their grandmother.” Unfortunately, this often only results in them spelling out acronyms. Asking your subjects dumb questions early in an interview can release your subjects from what Chip and Dan Heath, authors of the book Made To Stick, refer to as the "curse of knowledge." I once interviewed a scientist who was working to enable hypersonic flight. After two questions where I'd gotten a lot of talk about scramjets and an absence of oxidizers, I interrupted to ask "What does 'hypersonic flight' really mean anyway?" He was taken aback (since I was in the Air Force), but his answers after that were, thankfully, more geared towards the lay person.

- Begin with the personal: I spent a lot of time with tribologists, whose far-reaching work on lubricants for everything from satellites to fighter jets was often overlooked by the mainstream media. But the best story came when I happened to ask the lead scientist, who had immigrated to the US from Russia, about his experiences in graduate school. He told me a fascinating story of how he transformed his skills in coating technology to produce beautifully colored spoons and glassware to support his family after the fall of the USSR, and ultimately escape the mob. I couldn't believe I'd never thought to ask about his history in the four years I'd been working with him. Now I try to begin with these questions to add the more interesting human element from the get go.

- Break the rules: Most writers don’t share their questions with their subjects prior to an interview for fear of getting stilted, stock answers. But when inquiring about subjects that may extend well beyond what you learned in your high school science class, it’s also easy to miss the best material simply because you don’t know to ask about it. John Ohab, whose popular blog Armed with Science began as a podcast, found that allowing his interview subjects to submit five questions they wanted to answer reduced stress and made them more comfortable. For the writer, these answers likely won’t be quotable gems, but they will provide insight into what the subject feels are the most important and interesting points—providing a platform you can jump from with your own questions. Just be sure your subject isn’t guessing as to the purpose of the interview, or the submitted questions might be too unrelated to be useful.


- Ask "so what" until you get the right answer: Most scientists understand the value of their work in the context of the scientific community, not society, so it can be hard to pull out the impact (and interest) of their work. It might feel a little rude, but don't be afraid to ask your subjects why you should care about their results. I once invited a young scientist at an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle conference to tell me about his work. He focused on the resolution benefits of a new camera he helped develop. I asked him, “So what? What will intelligence personnel do with the improved resolution?” To him, better resolution was simply…better. It wasn’t until we’d gone through this kind of exchange five times that he revealed the real game-changer was the weight savings, which allowed the Air Force to collect more data by adding more sensors.

Writing about science can be intimidating, and while you may never need to write a pure science piece, the time may come when you will want to talk to a scientist about something you want to incorporate into your work. If you follow these tips, you can at least be confident you won't drive home in tears--and your readers won't be shedding any from boredom.

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers, July 30th Edition (+ a book give-away)

►Over at The Awl, good reading for those who love copy editors, those who have worked as copy editors, those still working as copy editors, and those who, like the writer, have been there/done that and don't want to again. (Phew, 150 comments!  And who said copy editing is boring?)

►I hadn't ever thought about publishing anything on Scribd, but after reading about Hyla Molander's experience (via Jane Friedman's There Are No Rules blog), it makes me wonder.

►For writers curious about opportunities to supplement income and/or build a small portfolio of online freelance pieces, MediaShift looked at one editor's experience at a hyper-local news site. 

►I've loved the writer Beth Kephart since reading her memoir A Slant of Sun, about raising her developmentally challenged son, a decade ago. So I was happy to recently discover her blog, and this short but oh-so-true post for memoir writers, about how we remember.

►Today is the 75th anniversary of Penguin Books, and to help celebrate, the publisher asked bloggers to help them give away some books. I'm happy to oblige, because hey, where would we readers be if not for that little penguin on the spines of all those books we read as kids?  If you'd like to win a copy of Kathleen Flinn's memoir, The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry (about her year at a venerable Parisian cooking school), leave a comment on this post only (and be sure there is a way for me to contact you via email if you're chosen). Comments for the give-away will close on Friday, August 7 at midnight.

Have a great weekend.

Missing a Writing Mentor: RIP Bill Glavin

When I learned last week that he had died, I had not seen Bill Glavin in about 26 years. I had tried- sort of – to see him about 10 years ago, but the colleague in the office next door to his told me I’d missed him by 20 minutes. I had his home number, but didn’t use it, figuring my one-time college magazine journalism professor would not want to swap tales with me when I had my husband and two young sons in tow. I was wrong of course, he would have, I know, welcomed the whole tribe because he was much more than a teacher – Bill Glavin was a mentor.

Three times I was privileged to sit in Bill’s classroom at the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, where for 37 years he taught in the magazine journalism department (part of that as department chair). It’s still sort of astounding to me that, nearly three decades since graduation, when I sit down to write and especially when I edit, so many of the most important aspects of craft at my fingertips were first learned in Bill’s classroom. It’s often his booming voice and incisive advice I hear in my head even now. Plus, he was riotously funny, a rare and wonderful commodity in any teacher.

Bill was still in his 30s, a relatively new face at Newhouse in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and, though he’d worked for more than a dozen years by then in newspaper and magazines, he was still closer in age to his students than most of the other faculty. This kept things interesting in the classroom, where Bill strove to recreate real-world journalism scenarios for the wannabe feature writers and magazine editors he taught. But he did so with a twist.

At the time a major country music fan, Bill once assigned us to fact check, restructure, line edit, copy edit, lay out, and write headlines and subheads for a disorganized piece about singer Willie Nelson. The Willie Nelson who was Bill’s idol.

He must have written the piece himself and then dismantled it, because even in its chopped up form, it was loaded with so much obscure information about the super star, that the fact-checking portion of the assignment alone sent many into paroxysms. It turned out the information was not so obscure, but buried under the more well-known prattle that was normally written about Nelson. In those pre-Internet days, however, that much fact-checking research meant dozens of hours, and not only in the library, but also in record shops (where we went, two or three at a time, to read every word on the backs of Nelson’s albums), and in one insane afternoon (resulting in a sobering bill), on the phone with assorted secretaries and one confused PR person in Nelson’s manager’s office. Ferreting out the easily confirmed facts from the less-easily-confirmed, and from the apparent untruths Bill had tossed in to challenge us, became a contest as much as an exercise in completeness.

Nelson was a singer I enjoyed but didn’t think much about and yet acing that assignment meant more to me than a lot of other more traditionally "important” college projects. In hindsight I can see that it was one of Bill’s gifts to not only teach the fundamentals of magazine writing and editing, but to mold students into the kind of curious, meticulous, insatiable, probing people who would not only be good at, but be happy, to work with words for the sake of shaping them into stories that in turn are gifts to readers.

Bill was honored as the Meredith Professor of Teaching Excellence—Syracuse University’s highest teaching honor—the first year it was awarded. His office door was forever open, his schedule always flexible enough to handle any student’s urgent question, perceived dilemma, or half-baked idea, and it seems nothing changed since I was a student. He got excited any time a student landed a real-world magazine article assignment, and made himself available as a pre-submission editor, if that’s what the student wanted. When I was about to graduate, students were making the strange transition to computers and word processing, and I recall Bill attacking that with both eager curiosity and a curmudgeonly resistance which I always suspected was a bit of a show. No matter what was happening around Newhouse, in technology, or the media world, when you talked to Bill, it was always about helping students learn how to tell the story.

Later, when I was living in Syracuse training for the horse show circuit and working as a freelance writer, Bill briefly dated a friend of mine, and a group of us each weekend tried out one country music club after another, over the course of one particularly languid summer. To cap off that halcyon time, Bill scored tickets for us all see Nelson perform at the New York State Fair, and while I can’t remember how it transpired, we found ourselves, after the show, in Nelson’s trailer for 10 minutes, sharing a drink and listening to his stories. And while I never knew Bill deeply or for long, it was one of the few times in my life (pre-motherhood), when I was truly, completely, incomprehensibly happy watching someone else grabbing life.

After a few years of full time freelancing (and part time worrying if I’d clear enough for rent AND food that month), I took a more lucrative job in public relations in Manhattan. When I told Bill he sighed a little, but never chastised me for abandoning journalism or my writing goals, and ever the mentor, gave me this advice: Just remember, always find the real stories and tell them with art, honesty and grace. Not always an easy thing to do in PR, but his words stayed with me, even as our contact grew more sporadic and then pretty much ceased.

Twenty years later, when I did return to my writing roots to pursue an MFA in my 40s, I let Bill know and he wrote me the most effusive, supportive email, which of course I failed to print out and is now lost. In the low residency MFA program I attended, one is assigned to work with a single faculty member over the course of a semester, and that faculty member is called, officially, one’s mentor. Bill wasn’t officially my mentor, he was simply my professor, and then later, for a short time, my friend. But I like mentor. When someone taught you, guided you, cared about your life as well as your writing and your career, that’s a mentor, and even if you haven’t spoken to or seen that person in years, you miss him when he’s gone.

Stuff I Like and You Might Too. You know, writer stuff.

>Women writers in the New York City area might want to think about this October weekend conference/workshop. Saturday, a full day of intensive discussion on one key issue – “Plot: The Structure of Story in Fiction, Memoir, and Narrative Nonfiction” and Sunday, it's Meet the Agents.
>I love this new-to-me blog, Three Guys One Book. So much great advice for writers, plus author interviews, reviews, and some fun.
>Ellen Neuborne, ghostwriter, editor, and almost-there-novelist, has a fun new blog in which she is chronicling her quest to (at least once in her writing career), command one of the most coveted pieces of literary nonfiction real estate – the Modern Love column in the Styles section of the Sunday New York Times. Ellen is forthright, open, and sometimes hilarious. Her Monday Morning Quarterbacking feature is a must-read for nonfiction writers everywhere who already spend a portion of their Sunday evenings dissecting what ran in that day’s column. (For those who don’t know, scoring a Modern Love clip often leads to serious agent inquires and book deals.)
>And finally, some days I feel like a relic. Like when my 11-year-old teaches me how to use the shortcut to some feature on my cell phone which I didn’t even know I had, much less ever used. Other times, it's because, as much as I love my computer (and my blog, my Facebook page, LinkedIn, Twittering and all of that) I can also actually still remember the sound of typewriter keys and putting -- 30 -- at the end of an article. So that might explain why I occasionally enjoy checking in over at When Editors Were Gods, where even I get to feel kind of young in comparison.

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Tech Tasks for Writers, Literary Roads not Taken, Poetry in NJ, Memoirs & More

• This list, found at the 10,000 Words site (“where journalism and technology meet) is designed to keep recent journalism school graduates busy sharpening skills while job hunting. But I think it’s even better advice for anyone who graduated from J-school more than ten years ago (uh, that would be me). I groaned at some of the suggestions, but by tackling at least half, I’ll be more valuable to future editors and clients in any area of media or literary life. And I might add, it wouldn’t hurt any newly (or soon-to-be) published authors to try their hands at these skills for the sake of savvier do-it-yourself book marketing.

• Some rare literary insight over at Daily Finance: the career road not taken, tweaked for writer types.

• Working on a To Be Read list for summer? If memoirs are of interest, this list of 50 suggestions might be useful, from Library Journal, where I often find gems, and not just about libraries.

• Crowd-sourcing a book. Hmm.

• I live in New Jersey. (Yes, not far at all from those hideous Bravo housewives, but please, hold the condolences.) When people ask where in New Jersey I live, I say Montclair. Not because it’s true, but because almost everyone has heard of Montclair, the urban-like suburb, known for its racial-, social-, cultural- and economic-diversity, the liberal little cityburb full of literary types, media elites, artists and low-key celebrities, a hip hamlet with a thriving downtown, nightlife, and direct 30-minute train service to Manhattan. The tiny obscure town where I live, which borders Montclair? None of the above. Now, it looks as if Montclair has a good chance to be the new home of the Dodge Poetry Festival (the largest poetry event in North America), which is vacating its usual venue some 20 miles west.

• Write Young Adult fiction? Eileen Cook’s blog will be of interest, and be sure to check out her link list to find more blogs of YA (and other) authors.

• Read these Five Common Flaws of Memoir Projects. Actually, it’s not all about you.

• If you are on Twitter (like me @LisaRomeo) and you are a magazine junkie (again, me), and you want to add some magazines to your Twitter feed, you might find want to check this out.

Have a great weekend.

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Memoir Pitfalls, Literati Write the News, Your Summer Submission Schedule, and a bit 'o fun

Welcome to all my new readers!

It's the end of the week (okay, technically it's already Saturday, but humor me) and that means Friday Fridge Clean-Out. Unfamiliar with the term? It's what I call "dinner" when I manage to pull together a meal of sorts from a refrigerator overloaded with leftovers (home cooked or take out), scraps, tidbits, and, if I’m lucky, a few delicious but overlooked fresh items hiding behind the ketchup. On the blog, Fridge Clean-Out means it's time to pass along a selection of what I found of interest around the web recently, and hope you find a few gems along the buffet line.

> First up is this piece in the Los Angeles Times' Books section, by Marion Winik, aptly titled, "The pitfalls of one's recall," and addresses the thorny issue of the other characters in memoir; the relatives, spouses, friends, former lovers, ex-friends, and others who find their way into a memoir, and who may or may not like it. One of Winik's many excellent points is:

"This was the beginning of my understanding of the most serious moral principle of memoir: The act of writing about another person occurs not just in the world of literature but in real life. It cannot help but change your relationship, and this should be the first thing you think about."

> Can a website thrive by making "handpicked book recommendations"? The folks at Flashlight Worthy Books think so. Looks interesting.

> What happens when the daily newspaper is reported, written, and edited by novelists, memoirists, and poets? Check this report in The Forward on the June 10 experiment by an Israeli newspaper. While there was solid, traditional reporting, there was also, perhaps predictably, this:

"…the stock market summary by author Avri Herling. It went like this: Everything’s okay. Everything’s like usual. Yesterday trading ended. Everything’s okay. The economists went to their homes, the laundry is drying on the lines, dinners are waiting in place… Dow Jones traded steadily and closed with 8,761 points …The guy from the shakshuka [an Israeli egg-and-tomato dish] shop raised his prices again…."

But also this:

"…79-year-old author Yoram Kaniuk, whose novel “Adam Resurrected” was recently adapted for a movie starring Jeff Goldblum and Ayelet Zurer. He went into the field to write about couples in the hospital cancer ward. The thing is, he’s a cancer patient, too. “A woman walking with a cane brings her partner a cup of coffee with a trembling hand. The looks they exchange are sexier than any performance by Madonna and cost a good deal less,” Kaniuk wrote. “I think about what would happen if I were to get better…how I would live without the human delicacy to which I am witness?”

“I got more telephone calls today than I have in years past,” Kaniuk said in a phone interview. “People were very moved, because I wrote it like a writer and not like a journalist. If you see something beautiful and touching, why not write it?”

> At her blog, Sara in Vermont, author Sara J. Henry asks, what's the deal with MFA students who thinks it makes sense to draw dividing lines between the merits of their peers based on who is a "literary writer" and a "commercial writer"? I find this especially destructive because most writers who do become at least moderately successful at earning a partial living from their words, will find it necessary to straddle the line at some point. Enough said

> Pamela Redmond Satran has a new book due out soon titled after her hilarious blog, How Not to Act Old. An excerpt also appears in the current issue of More magazine. Pam is also, by the way, the author of "Maya Angelou's best poem ever." Really.

> On her blog, Poet Diane Lockward lists Journals That Read in the Summer, parts One, Two and Three. There, that ought to keep you out of the hammock.

Have a great weekend.

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Of author blogs, writing contests, jilted journalists, and a J-school's flub

The fridge is overloaded, links are threatening to leak all over. Here goes:

• Follow along as (my friend) novelist Christina Baker Kline chronicles the year ahead as she writes a new historical novel, Orphan Train. Along the way, her upcoming novel Bird in Hand will hit the market, she'll teach in London and at Fordham's MFA program, and otherwise be her amazing self. She's a first-time (and already a first-rate) blogger. So go, visit!

• Gotham Writers' Workshop is holding a two day writing weekend, June 20-21, in Manhattan, at a very reasonable fee.

• Here's a thoughtful piece on writing contests, and oh yes, those contest fees.

• One estimate has it that nearly 15,000 folks have already been laid off, downsized, terminated, bought out, or otherwise thrown from the media train in the last year. This new site's title says it all: Jilted Journalist.

• I have "met" so many interesting writers and other literary types over on Twitter, many of whom have terrific blogs which I never would have found otherwise. I’m going to try to list at least one here each week, and I'll start with Blog of Innocence, where Lethe Bashar (find him on Twitter @blogofinnocence) shares "essays and meditations on social technology, science, writing, art, and life."

• I got my journalism degree at Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications, and have always been proud of that. But this week I couldn't agree more with Simon Dumenco's AdAge column drubbing the (relatively new) Dean of Newhouse for presenting the University's Lifetime Achievement Mirror Award to….wait for it…Arianna Huffington.

Yes, the same Arianna whose Huffington Post refuses to pay writers, who says that's "not our business model," and who instead insists that "visibility, promotion and distribution" are compensation enough.

If I were a parent paying $40,000 a year for an SU journalism education I'd want to ask: Why is my child's journalism school Dean more or less affirming the Huffington "business model" of not paying writers, by honoring its founder? And if I were a student there now, I'd want to know: Why is SU condoning the decimation of the very profession it is preparing me to enter?

• Since it is Friday, and I don't want to end on a sour note, here's another blog about a forthcoming memoir which pivots on the popular what-I-did-for-a-year theme. This one's The Happiness Project. The question is, can one woman get happy by following all the theories, suggestions, and advice out there?

Have a great weekend.

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Writers' Stew

• Gerry Marzorati, editor-in-chief of the New York Times Sunday Magazine, spoke last week about long form journalism at an industry conference. I found this excerpt of interest:

"Always, always, it requires a tremendous amount of reporting. Weeks and weeks of reporting. Hanging out with the subject of your piece, hoping some scene will emerge that because of where it is and what the dialogue is, will reveal that subject. Journeying to all sorts of places, hoping the trip will encounter drama, and meaning. Painstakingly re-creating a moment – like the one when the tsunami hit – through hundreds of interviews. It is arduous, all this reporting. The weeks, the months. And all this time, of course, costs money. A typical cover story in the Times Magazine, when you add up what we pay the author and what the expenses for travel are -- and this leaves out the editing and fact-checking costs, the photography, and so on -- the tally is north of $40,000, and often, if a war zone is involved, considerably more. Do we still have the time to report and read such pieces? And will we have the money? If the reader is an on-line reader, paying nothing, who is going to foot the bill?"

You can read the rest here.

• Was glad to read some good news apparently for some smaller independent book stores.

• Author Allison Winn Scotch (novelist, magazine freelancer) regularly answers readers' questions about writing and publishing over on her blog.

• This week, another media outlet asked -- for what, the thousandth time? -- if poetry is dead. Funny, the question keeps being asked, year after year, for decades. And yet, poetry thrives.

• Simple, short advice, on so-called(?) writer's block and first draft phobia, via WriterJenn blog, which also frequently posts interviews with authors of new books –
"Write. Write it well, write it poorly, write it with margin notes and incomplete sentences; just get it down. Write."

•In my writing classes I don't have to "grade" papers, but if I did and it was getting to me, and I thought I needed a proven scientific guide, I might seriously consider this stress-free grading method.

Have a great weekend!

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Writing it Short

I'm a bit under the weather (again or still), so here's a quickie bunch of links you might like. Enjoy.

♦ Have you read The Rumpus yet?

♦ Nonfiction book reviews by a reader who also happens to be a librarian. Check it out.

♦ A list of 100 Creative Nonfiction Blogs.

♦ I'm past the mother-of-very-young-kids stage, but I still check in every so often over at Babble, and so I was interested in this interview with its founder.

♦ Wondering how you might use Twitter to job hunt? Check these tips.

♦ I went to journalism school (Syracuse) with so many talented folks and I've enjoyed following their careers. It's heartbreaking to think about all the full time journalists now out of work, much less to contemplate the possible future of those now starting out.

♦ The Columbia Journalism Review book blog.

Friday Fridge Clean-Out

► Yes, it's a long way off. But the folks at Nonfiction Now/The Bedell Nonfiction Conference have announced their next date: November 4-6, 2010. Maybe by then the publishing/media/entire world will have rebounded enough so that we can all afford airfare to Iowa. And for those thinking of proposing a panel presentation – no excuses - now you have plenty of time to plan.

► Apparently, I'm a Flower Smeller, according to my blogger-writer friend at Exile on Ninth Street. Yikes, can it really have been almost a month since he said so? I'll be passing on the accolade here next week. Thanks to Todd, who apparently is not only a Flower Smeller himself, but a semi-famous one too.

► I'm intrigued by entrepreneurial journalists like those behind Spot.us, where writers suggest investigative pieces that think ought to be written, and site visitors vote with dollars to fund the project, so writers can get on with what they do best. I'm guessing we are going to be seeing more ventures of this kind, what with thousands of print journalists being pink-slipped, magazines dying by the dozen, newspapers disappearing, and the trend, unfortunately, likely to continue through a good chunk of 2009.

► Even the grey lady is (finally) getting linky. The New York Times homepage now has a (sort of hard to find) small square button which says "Try our EXTRA home page." Click it and you get an enhanced NYT home page, with lists of links to relevant stories from other sources. There are the likely, predictable suspects, such as the Weekly Standard, Washington Post, and Talking Points Memo, but many also from less obvious sites – today, for example, Hot Air TV, Half Sigma, even Gawker.

►Blood Dazzler, by my friend Patricia Smith was named one of the top five books of the year by NPR. Patricia's brand new (really new) blog is here.

►Following the advice of a (successful) writing coach friend, I've stuck a name on my next nonfiction workshop series, calling it: Resolve to Write in 09. For info, email: LisaRomeoWrites at gmail dot com.

Jobs in Editorial, Media, Publishing: Gloomy, yes. Maybe this will help.

Every week lately, I hear from or read about an acquaintance or two who have lost jobs in journalism, editorial, media, or publishing due to downsizing, closures, mergers and other situations. Recently, a laid-off friend and I compiled a list of job boards and resources. For anyone it may help, I'm posting it here. It's by no means comprehensive and is more reflective of that friend's current interests; but with the economy as it is, I can't see keeping it to myself.

http://www.mediabistro.com/joblistings/
http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/jobs/
http://jobs.foliomag.com/careers/jobsearch
http://writesuccess.com/id25.html
http://www.filcro.com/page9.htm
http://mastheads.jobamatic.com/a/jbb/find-jobs
http://www.asbpe.org/jobs/jobsites.htm
http://www.bookjobs.com/searchjobs.php
http://www.mediajobmarket.com/jobs/index.jsp
http://journalismjobs.com/
http://minonline.com/mediajobs/
http://www.freelancewritinggigs.com/
http://writejobs.com/


Here's hoping you don't (and won't) need it. If you do, I hope you find something that is in at least some important way better than what you left behind.

Jobs, Novels, NaNoWriMo, Write-a-Thon, Poetry in Jersey, Agents and the Fabulous Nancy Mairs. Phew.

►Yeah, I'm not a big Gawker fan either. But this seemed to pretty accurately sum up the sad state of the journalism/media job market. A more helpful, if not entirely cheerful destination is this site, where all in one spot one can find nearly 100 links to job boards, salary charts, publishing company evaluations by former/current employees, and more on-the-job-hunt resources (resume examples, etc.).

►Anyone out there taking the NaNoWriMo plunge this November? If a month is too much to commit to, check out this Write-a-thon, for just one day, and for a good cause too. (Not that kick-starting a novel isn't a good cause, but this one involves boosting Dzanc Books' nonprofit program putting writers in the schools.)

►I've been exploring the literary landscape around northern New Jersey lately, and while I already knew that my neighboring community of Montclair is heavily populated with authors, journalists, broadcasters, editors and media pros, I was also pleased to find, for example, that a few miles in the other direction, in the grittier cities of Passaic and Paterson, poetry activities are thriving.

►I heard three of those Montclair writer/editors (see above!) talk about memoir writing and getting published at Watchung Booksellers a few weeks ago and had been planning to post some of their good tips. I got sidetracked and though I still plan to pass on some of what I learned that night, in the meantime, here's a quick video of David Henry Sterry speaking as part of another panel at an iconic independent NYC bookstore, on snaring an agent.

►Essayist, memoirist and poet Nancy Mairs, over on her publisher Beacon Press's blog, talks about her writing life, on the occasion of receiving the 2008 Arizona Literary Treasure Award. She titled her piece, "How I Became a Treasure," and it's a great read, tinged with all of her wonderful gifts for understatement, bemusement and simple yet compelling narrative.

Point of View: A 10-year-old Explains It All

We writer types sit around in workshops and writing groups and such, talking endlessly about tone and voice and point of view, and it's all very interesting of course – at least to us. Then there's this.

My 10 year-old son, home sick from school (but not too sick) is quiet for an hour, reading at the breakfast table. A few times he asks what a word means (frieze). But mostly he is silent, still.

Finally, he looks up, near triumphant. He's read a fairly dense eight-page article by Tom Verducci in the current issue of Sports Illustrated about the history and impending tear-down of storied Yankee Stadium. (Last night our family intermittently watched the final game played in the House that Ruth Built, lumps in throat.)

"Wow, that was a great article! Hey Mom," he says, "It was so cool. It's written like it was the stadium talking."

Indeed. The piece begins, "I am dying. It's O.K. You need not feel sorry for me. I have lived a full life…" and goes on for some 4,000 words in the same vein. (I'm guessing here, but can't you just picture Verducci wondering how to make an article about the legendary stadium stand out from the thousands of pieces he knows will be written this month? He reaches into his voluminous craft bag, considers if writing in the stadium's voice will be enough to make the article a must read. It is.)

So, there's writers opining about POV and feeling as if we are discussing something rather esoteric and incredibly valuable. And then there's a10 year-old taking an hour to read something he did not have to read, then happily identifying and explaining – in case I missed it -- how the choice of POV influences how a piece is read. Priceless.