writing life

You can now read about it, on the GWN blog, here.

And in case you missed this one, you can catch Girls Write Now next at the New School on March 8 (5-7pm), for a beautiful celebration of International Women’s Day, and GWN’s 10th anniversary too! Anne Landsman will be guest reading, along with the girls, and there’s a reception to follow. Other surprises lined up as well. More on it all here.

Me, at Marco’s folks’ house in FLA, during the break…That dude’s always catching me at goofy lookin moments I tell ya.

Calling writers near Berkeley! Brooke and Krista are from Seal Press, and I imagine this workshop will be pretty amazing.

CREATIVITY WORKSHOP FOR WRITERS with KRISTA LYONS-GOULD and BROOKE WARNER

Sat., January 26, 2008 10am to 5pm
At Northbrae Church in Berkeley, CA

For more information, click here. To Register: b.warner@earthlink.net.

I’m back in the city after a few delicious days away (thank you, Woodhull!) and, in the spirit of catching up, wanted to share a link, courtesy of Marci Alboher at Hey Marci:

The New York Writers Workshop is hosting a two-day pitch conference for writers working on nonfiction book proposals, Friday through Sunday, February 22, 23 & 24, 2008.

PLACE: JCC of Manhattan, 334 Amsterdam Avenue (between 75th & 76th Streets)
COST: $300 for three-day workshop

At this unique conference, participants meet with and pitch book proposals to three different editors from major New York publishing houses (houses including Viking, Penguin, Random House, Scribners, Simon and Schuster, and others). Click here for more details, and how to apply.

I’m starting 2008 by taking myself on a mini writing retreat upstate. So during the next few days, I’ll likely be posting on process–as I continue to tweak my own!

Having trained in lit crit, rather than as a journalist, interviewing people–you know, the live ones–is a new skill for me. While the best way to learn is by doing, for those of you who, like me, obsess by reading about it first, here’s some wisdom gleaned from those who’ve been at it for a while (mostly culled from Telling True Stories):

• Find examples of unfolding action; try to experience something interesting with your subject. Try drafting scenes immediately after reporting.

• Don’t ever lead your sources by thinking that you already know what the story is.

• Trust your material – what people actually do, what people say can be quirky, dramatic, humorous, painful.

• “People’s voices are like found poetry—raw, uncrafted, imperfect. Still, we do them the greatest justice when we choose carefully and get out of the way.” –Debra Dickerson, TTS

• “The overall interaction is more important than the particular questions. I try to make the interaction as enjoyable as possible. No one wants to be grilled for hours on end. A formal interview isn’t conducive to soul baring.” – Isabel Wilkerson, TTS

• Think “guided conversation,” where the overall interaction is more important than the particular questions

• “The natural impulse is to ask questions. Sometimes that is wrong. It makes the reporter the focus of attention. Be humble. It honors the person you’re trying to observe.” – Anne Hull, TTS

• “Journalists tend to be very self-centered: our questions, our answers, our timetable. Field reporting isn’t about that.” – Louise Kiernan, TTS

• “Ask people what they worry about most or who matters most to them or what makes them most afraid. Always follow these abstract questions with concrete ones to elicit specific anecdotes. . . . Your job as an interviewer is to turn the subject into a storyteller. Ask questions so layered, so deep, and so odd that they elicit unusual responses. Take the person to places she wouldn’t normally go. Ask questions that require descriptive answers. If your profile hinges on an important decision the subject had to make, ask her everything about the day of the decision. What kind of day was it? What was the first thing you did when you woke up in the morning? Do you remember what you had for breakfast? What were you wearing What did you think about that day? Walk me through the first two hours of your day. These things might not seem relevant to the story, but they serve to put the person back in the moment. Push a bit. Make some assumptions that require the person to validate what you say or to argue with you.” – Jacqui Banaszynski, TTS

• “One way to get people to say interesting things is to ask dumb questions….If they don’t talk, I sometimes remain silent. Silence makes people uncomfortable and people keep talking to fill the space.” –Debra Dickerson, TTS

• “Don’t worry about your list of questions, your editor, and your story lede. Worry only about the person in front of you. A friend of mine calls this full-body reporting. If you do it right, you will feel exhausted when you leave the interview.” TTS

(Image cred)

In the spirit of sharing what I’m learning while on furlough at Starbucks, here’s some wisdom from the book I’m lapping up faster than my latte, called Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers’ Guide (published by the Nieman Foundation):

• “The most mundane tale, imparted by an inspired storyteller, captivates….Readers will gladly follow a voice they trust almost anywhere” – Mark Kramer and Wendy Call, TTS

• “Structure is the deliberate and purposeful sequence of the reader’s experience.” Mark Kramer, TTS

• “Every narrative tale—from The Iliad to the latest Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper serial—has the same underlying structure…: A central character encounters a problem, struggles with it, and, in the end, overcomes it or is defeated by it or is changed in some way. If the story, as it unfolds in life, lacks one of these elements, you should not attempt to write it as a narrative.” –Bruce DeSilva, TTS

• “The narrative nonfiction equivalent of the film sound track is an idea plot: an ordered succession of arguments that moves forward in sync with the narrative plot….The more the writer thinks about the movement of the idea track in the narrative while reporting, the less clunky the execution.” – Nicholas Lemann, TTS

• “Beginning to read a story should feel like embarking on a journey, starting toward a destination. The writer must decide what larger meaning the story represents and lead the reader to that. Is it about fear? Is it about shame? Pain? Love? Betrayal? Hate? Faith?” – DeNeen L. Brown, TTS

• “To report and write good narrative it is important to develop a clear process that takes you from beginning to end: exhaustive researching, choosing a strong main character, thinking the story through, and reporting the story, scene, and theme. I have found that if I stick to that process and don’t take shortcuts, I always end up with what I need for the story. It might not be the story that I started out looking for, but it will be a story.” –Walt Harrington, TTS

And my personal favorite:

• “The story is in the dark. That is why inspiration is thought of as coming in flashes. Going into a narrative—into the narrative process—is a dark road. You can’t see your way ahead….The well of inspiration is a hole that leads downward.” –Margaret Atwood

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!

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…