One of the places I’m headed for Women’s History Month this March is Kansas City! I’m particularly excited, because the only other time I was in Missouri was in grade school, when my class drove down from Illinois to check out the haunts of Mark Twain. I can’t wait to go back, as a grown up (well, sort of) and see the place for real.

Here’s a description of what I’ll be doing there this time:

“In this talk, Deborah Siegel, author of Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild, takes a fresh look at the fights and frenzies around U.S. feminism across four decades. From WITCH (Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell) to Bitch magazine, much has changed in the world of feminism, its rhetorics, and its fights. But far more has stayed the same. Women young and old sometimes lose sight of how and why, or fail to see each other as engaged in the same larger battle. Instead, we are left fighting ourselves. Siegel reaches across the generational divide to show how younger women are both reliving the battles of feminism’s past, and reinventing it – with a vengeance.”

I wonder what Becky Thatcher would have to say about it all….

Next semester, instead of doing a webinar (or bloginar, rather), I am taking the “Making It Pop: Translating Your Research for Trade” workshop on the road. Here’s the description, which I’m happy to email to folks interested in passing it along to their departments or organizations as an attachment:

“Making It Pop: Translating Your Research for Trade,”
with author/blogger/journalist Deborah Siegel, PhD

Are you an academically-inclined writer who wishes to extend your reach? A researcher who longs to write something other than tenure reviews and grant proposals? A scholar who dreams of publishing a popular (“trade”) book, a magazine article, or even an op-ed? You’re not alone.

Too often, in addition to the standard institutional obstacles, academically-trained writers encounter obstacles to writing for popular audiences for which they are unprepared. To write for popular media in a competitive publishing climate, you must be able to craft engaging, accessible, non-technical prose that appeals to an audience far outside your area of expertise. These skills can be learned.

The Making It Pop Workshop takes the Making It Pop Webinar on the road. This 2-3 hour on-site workshop is designed to help researchers, scholars, and policy “wonks” bridge the translation gap and is tailored to meet participants’ needs. Participants are encouraged to come with ideas for research- or policy-based stories they aspire to turn into books and/or articles for hands-on workshopping.

Each workshop covers:
• Techniques for de-jargonizing and enlivening your prose
• Common pitfalls academic writers make when trying to write for popular audiences
• Why “making it pop” does not mean “dumbing it down” or “selling out,” and how to deal with institutional scorn

Tailored Options (each workshop can cover 1-2):

A. Writing a Book Proposal That Sells
• The difference between a book proposal for an academic press and a trade (or commercial) press
• How to know whether your book idea has commercial potential
• What’s entailed in rewriting a dissertation into a trade book
• The elements of a strong book proposal
• The importance of narrative, and what else editors look for
• The role of an agent

B. Publishing Shorter Pieces
• Genres for shorter writings (features, profiles, op-eds)
• How to submit pitches to newspapers and magazines
• How to work with a newspaper or magazine editor

C. Of Books and Blogs
• How to start a blog and/or participate in a blog community as a way to create a platform for your book
• Other ways to use the Internet to help promote your book

See what past participants have said about the workshop here. For additional information or to book, please contact Taryn Kutujian at taryn.kutujian@gmail.com.

Turns out spending a day sick in bed is a great way to catch up with websurfing. Here’s a little treat I came across from Mediabistro. It’s a video called “The Secrets of Book Publishing,” in which editors from Knopf, HarperCollins, Random House, and The New York Times Book Review join agents Henry Dunow and Gail Hochman to discuss the secrets behind books publishing. Moderated by author Susan Shapiro.

Enjoy!

I’m sick as a dog today, lying in bed with the covers pulled up to my nose (and my loyal cat at my feet). Can’t quite put a sentence together, so thought I’d just share a few quick links, following on yesterday’s post.

The Evolution of Dad Project weighs in on the Daddy Wars, noting, “The conflict isn’t being perceived between Traditional Dads and the Stay-At-Home Dads (which would be obvious manufactured companion to the ‘Mommy Wars’) but between dads who desire to have more of a work/family balance and their bosses, who are more typically dads themselves at a slightly older age and bred more on being more of a dedicated breadwinner.”

And the BBC reports on new research from the Institute for Social and Economic Research finds that mothers who work outside the home are happier than SAHMs, via Broadsheet

I hear cannons booming. Or maybe that’s just my head?

I love this piece by Stephanie Armour appearing in USA Today last week, right down to its title: “Workplace Tensions Rise as Dads Seek Family Time.” A synopsis:

Todd Scott leaves his job every day at 5 p.m. to be with his family – and even then feels guilty he isn’t spending enough time with Hunter, 4, and Anna, 1. By contrast, Scott’s boss, Steve Himmelrich, who has two children and is a more traditional-style dad, spends long days, free time and some weekends at the office. Both acknowledge these differing choices have been a source of tension between them. Their situation reflects the conflicts that are becoming increasingly common in workplaces across the nation, as fathers press for more family time and something other than a traditional career path. Dads are demanding paternity leave, flexible work schedules, telecommuting and other new benefits. They’ve also prompted several Fortune 500 companies to begin pitching such family-friendly benefits to men – and inspired a new wave of workplace discrimination complaints filed by dads.

The article cites a survey by Monster that found nearly 70% of fathers surveyed reporting that they would consider being a stay-at-home parent if money were no object. And–are you sitting down?–“the survey also found that working dads are increasingly tapping into benefits that until just a few years ago were used almost exclusively by mothers: 71% of fathers with a child under age 5 took paternity leave when it was offered by their employer.” This goes counter to what I’ve heard from researchers. Help me out here. Is this good news true?! (If it is, count me in for a happy dance.)

Analysts attribute the change to generation. Today’s fathers in their 20s and 30s don’t typically adhere to the philosophies or career tracks followed by previous generations. To wit:

For generations, “Fathers have defined success as big cars, big salaries, big homes. But dads now define success as a good relationship with their children and spouse,” says Armin Brott of Fathers At Work, an Oakland-based business that specializes in helping men find a balance between work and family. “It’s really a generational change, but it’s hard,” Brott says. “There’s tension, and there’s this sense out there that careers will suffer.”

Clearly, that sense needs to be corrected with some data. My dream is that organizations like Catalyst will soon be taking this on. Sounds like Fathers at Work is already on it. Their tagline is “Transforming Job-Family Conflict into Competitive Advantage.” And they offer companies workshops called “Balancing Father Stress and Professional Success.” I can’t wait to interview these guys for my next book.

My “Making It Pop: Translating Your Ideas for Trade” bloginar has come to a close, and I miss those gals already. In the spirit of cntinuing to share some of what goes on in the course here on GWP, here are some resources.

Looking for a place to bone up on your nonfiction writing technique? Try these:

Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism – March 14-16, Boston
Associated Writers and Writing Programs Annual Conference – Jan 30-Feb 2, NYC
Mediabistro – jobs, classes, community, and news for media professionals (they have excellent classes, are based on both coasts, and also offer courses online)

Looking to find out who’s publishing what? Try:

Publisher’s Lunch – book publishing news (including news about which editors are buying which books and from which agents)

Want to start reviewing books? You first need to know what books are currently in the pipeline and not yet released. Here’s where to go:

Kirkus Reviews
Publishers Weekly

Remember that magazines need a 3-month lead time, so look for books that list their publication dates as being at least 3 months away. To pitch an editor, find their email address and send them 2-3 brief paragraphs proposing your review. Mediabistro offers great classes on writing pitch letters, writing features, writing reviews…pretty much everything. I took a class from them soon after I decided to pursue a popular writing career and will likely be teaching a 1-day intensive in 2008 on doing anthologies. Stay tuned…

On Dec. 5, the Centers for Disease Control reported that, after 14 years of decline, the birthrate for women between the ages of 15 and 19 had increased. In 2006, there were 41.9 births for every 1,000 girls in that age range, a 3% rise from 2005.

Why has the teenage birthrate increased after years of decline? Experts are trying to figure it out (experts–please post?) but in the meantime, check out Saturday’s op-ed from Meghan Daum of the Los Angeles Times. Writes Daum, after some interesting meditations (which I related to) on being in high school in the 1980s,

Some experts say it’s because condoms are not quite the must-have item they once were now that AIDS is increasingly being perceived, rightly or wrongly, as a manageable disease rather than a death sentence. But I also have to wonder if, in the grand scheme of things, pregnancy is just not as frightening to the current crop of teens as it was to past generations. Considering that kids have been forced to think in a very real way about things that can actually kill you, like terrorist attacks and school shootings and, yes, HIV infection, getting pregnant — and even raising a child — might seem like a lesser inconvenience. As for embarrassment, these are kids who post their diaries on MySpace. Do we really expect them to abstain because they’re afraid of gossip?

Thoughts?

Women, Action & the Media (WAM!) 2008 conference is coming soon: March 28-30, 2008, at MIT’s Stata Center in Cambridge, MA. Register here.

I’ll be there as part of a panel on publishing feminist books, along with Courtney Martin, author of Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body (Free Press, Simon & Schuster); Amy Caldwell, Executive Editor at Beacon Press; and Laura Mazer, Managing Editor of Seal Press. Here’s the descript:

Public debate lacks a sensitive discussion of the complex forces shaping the lives of women and girls. Researchers, advocates, and savvy writers everywhere have the opportunity to frame public debate about these issues. Too often, however, important work about women fails to reach an audience outside the academic and advocacy worlds. Writing a “trade” book is one way to enter debate. To sell a book in today’s competitive publishing climate, one must be able to write engaging, accessible prose that will appeal to a wide audience—and know how to market it oneself.
 This session brings together published book authors with editors at houses that publish feminist work. Panelists will discuss the components of a successful book proposal. Participants will learn why it’s essential to think about audience, market, and “platform” and explore ways to use new media to garner visibility for their work after publication.

BTW, I just noticed that the WAM! site has posted a slew of facts and figures and links to articles on women in the media. Def worth checking out.

Ok, so I haven’t really participated in memes before (blogger tag, for those not in the know), and I must say: Reading the posts from the people I tagged yesterday just made my friggin day! Here’s just a sampling, and they’ve tagged a bunch of folks too, so what out all over the blogosphere for some “teacher thank you” love. (And thanks to J.K. Gayle for starting it of course!)

Courtney Martin at Crucial Minutiae includes:
2. Papa, for teaching me how to be kind to and curious about every human being on earth
3. Chris, for making me shoot baskets in the alley, teaching me how to roll a joint, and making me feel like the most precious creature on earth
4. Nikolai, for teaching me how to breathe, be present, revel, and say “beef patty”

Elizabeth Curtis at A Blog without a Bicycle includes:
1. My mum, because she raised me to be a feminist without me even knowing it
2. My baby brother, because he is my hero and my role model
3. Ms. Cutrer, because she was the first person to tell me that I was a good writer in fourth grade

Alison Peipmeier at Baxter Sez: includes:
4. Kurt Eisen, also at Tennessee Tech. Kurt is the reason that, when I went to grad school, I decided to study American literature. He taught me about the literary canon and invited me to start taking it down.
5. Cecelia Tichi and Teresa Goddu at Vanderbilt University. As co-directors of my dissertation, these women reshaped my entire brain. It wasn’t always a pleasant process, but it worked. And Cecelia took me on as a personal project, hiring me as her research and teaching assistant, letting me help her run an NEH Summer Institute, taking me for countless coffees and lunches, mentoring me in how to be a scholar and a woman with a life. When I moved to Charleston, she sent me an afghan that her high school English teacher had made for her. She wanted to pass it on to me, and maybe someday I can give it to a special student of mine.

Wow–I got chills.

Tis the season for giving. Yet, as Courtney reminds us over at Crucial Minutiae, the giving and wrapping and consuming and grabbing so readily gets out of hand. This week, J.K. Gayle at Speakeristic reminded me of the value of giving personal and public credit to one’s best teachers. In fact, he created a meme, and tagged me. So in the spirit of giving the gift of gratitude, here are my responses to his question, “Who are the teachers who have most personally influenced you and how?” And this post is a public “thank you!” to them all….

1. Mom, who taught me “This too shall pass.”
2. Dad, who taught me not to be afraid.
3. Sherry Medwin, my high school English teacher, who introduced me to Adrienne Rich and Emily Dickinson and taught me how to write a term paper (“The Voice of the Woman Poet”!)
4. Susan Friendman, Susan Bernstein, and the late Nelly McKay–my dissertation committee members in graduate school–who let a thousand flowers bloom.
5. Grandma Pearl, who died this fall, and who taught me gentle graciousness at the very end of her life.
6. Robert Berson, who taught me I was whole.
7. My cat Amelia, who taught me how to nap.
8. My cousin Howard, who taught me to buy real estate.
9. My writers group, The Invisible Institute, who teach me how to be a writer in this crazy world.
10. Marco Acevedo, who teaches me the most important lesson: how to love.

For those who aren’t sure what a meme is, it’s kind of a bloggy chain letter, with content. So to pass it on, I tag:

Rebecca Wallace-Segall at WritopiaLab
Any of the awesome writers at the group blog Crucial Minutiae
Marci Alboher at Hey Marci, and Shifting Careers
PunditMom at PunditMom
Patti Binder at What’s Good for Girls
Elizabeth Curtis at A Blog without a Bicycle
Alison Piepmeier at Baxter Sez
Marco Acevedo at The Last Palace