Next week I’ll be “shedding,” as Marco tells me it’s called, at a writers and artists retreat up in Massachusetts. I’ll be blogging about writing process again (it was so helpful to hear your thoughts on outlining last week!) so stay tuned…Kristen will also be blogging, and I’m thrilled to announce that she will now be joining me as a regular contributing blogger each week here on GWP! More exciting changes around here coming soon. This fall, a whole new look…
writing life
Man, I hate the book proposal stage. It’s so mushy! My writer friend in the woods with me today is in the final throes of her manuscript, and I have manuscript envy over here.
Thanks for those comments on my previous post (anniegirl, Renee) — you gave me a push to give the outline thing a try today. And I have to say, it seemed far less anxiety inducing to work on an outline than it did to face a blank screen and start pushing words around on the page. Which is what I generally do, and which ends up taking me AGES.
As for my next steps, I like Renee’s approach, which she describes as follows:
The key thing about that outline for me is that I use the outline to make a VERY detailed To-Do list. That is the list that I then work from in completing the work — items on it might be as difficult/conceptual as “Restructure introduction to add in the literature on social movements….” or as simple as “Add citation to McClurg and Mueller…”
At the end of any work period, I decide on two or three things on the to-do list that I will work on the next day/work period — so I can percolate on the conceptual tasks I’ve set for myself, and then I warm up on the work by doing the easier/simpler tasks.
I’m gonna give it a try. Anyone got an answer to Renee’s question (see comments, previous post), about deviating from the outline once you’ve got it? How strictly do you outliners out there hold yourselves to it? Inquiring minds wanna know 🙂
I’ve tucked myself away at a fellow writer’s house in the woods for the next two days to re-jumpstart myself on my current book proposal, which I’ve been away from these past few months. So in addition to some guest posts, I myself will be writing over here about, well, writing.
Since I’m all about beginnings this morning, thought I’d share this quip from James B. Stewart’s Follow the Story, which I’m reading upon recommendation of my authors group (aka the Invisible Institute):
“The key to a successful lead [beginning] is quite simple: it must attract and hold readers by re-creating in their minds the same curiosity that drove you to undertake the story in the first place.”
And here’s Stewart’s pitch for outlining:
“I have been amazed to discover how much time I have saved, and how much anxiety I have avoided, by having a clear structure in mind, if not on paper.”
And I have been amazed to discover how difficult it is to get myself to outline. I’m always curious to hear about other people’s processes. Tell me, dear GWP readers–many of whom I know are also writers–do you outline? Does it work for you? Tips?!
So I’ve been spending part of this week teaching a blogging workshop for girls over at Writopia Lab. The posts these girls are writing are SO GOOD that I’m posting them here on GWP. Stay tuned for some thoughts from the next generation of thinkers and writers. They will knock your socks off. They are definitely knocking mine.
(cool logo design by Marco Siegel-Acevedo!)
So the deadline has been extended for the search for a program director at the Bitch headquarters in Portland, Oregon.
They’re looking for “someone bright, with a deep talent and love for analyzing media/pop culture from a perspective rooted in social/economic justice, who’s passionate about both print publishing and newer (to us, at least) forms like online, audio, and video, someone excited about helping shape the future of the work we do at Bitch (and who recognizes Bitch’s potential), someone committed to DIY/grassroots operating, who understands Bitch’s role as both critiquing what’s crappy and praising what’s good, who’s as excited about Bitch as a multimedia organization as Bitch as a magazine.”
Sound like anyone you know?
Some of the job duties associated with this position:
– Oversee the editorial and production process for the magazine
– Edit articles and help shape editorial tone and scope of magazine
– Manage writer’s agreements and payment for each issue
– Outreach, fundraising, and event planning
– Oversee editorial internship program
For more info, contact publishing@b-word.org. Deadline for apps is now August 15.
Shira Tarrant, editor of the fabulous Men Speak Out, is at it again with a call for essays for a new academic anthology, this time on feminism and fashion, tentatively titled Feminism, Fashion and Flair: Confronting Hegemony with Style. Here’s the description:
Fashion is a powerful way we express our politics, personalities, and preferences for who and how we love. Yet fashion can also repress freedom and sexual expression. Fashion encourages profound creativity, rebellion, and defiant self-definition while simultaneously controlling and disciplining the body. Fashion signals resistance to sexual morés and it can also promote a problematic consumer culture. Fashion creates collective identity, but also constrains individual voice. In other words, fashion contains the paradoxical potential for pleasure and subjugation, expression and conformity.
This book explores the productive tensions generated by fashion and style. We are interested in essays that take up questions of gender with special attention to race, class, sexuality, age, and ethnicity. This collection blends theory and pop culture analysis in exciting ways, focusing on contemporary trends and controversies.
Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:
Theories of agency, style, and the presentation of self
Performing identity: race, class, gender and sexuality through style
Consumerist pleasure and anxiety
Fashion production in the context of global capital and trade
Bois, grrls, trannies and styles of queerness
Hardcore, metro, punk, and khakis: constructing masculinities through fashion
Body art and ethnic appropriations
Debates in plastic surgery and re-fashioning the body
Class identity and decorating domestic space
Feminist fashion: debates over style and politics
The ethics of green production and marketing
Everyday pornography and fashion fetish
Virtual style and online identities
Material culture and craft in a postmodern world
Slumming and radical chic: tensions of authenticity and irony
Vintage and thrift fashion: nostalgia and class signifiers
DIY Style: fashion off the corporate grid
Deadline for abstracts is August 15, 2008.
Format for abstracts: Word document, double-spaced, between 300 and 500 words. Include contact information and short bio.
Send to: FashionBook1@yahoo.com
Shira Tarrant
Assistant Professor
Women’s Studies Department
California State University, Long Beach
and
Marjorie Jolles
Assistant Professor
Women’s & Gender Studies Program
Roosevelt University
Heads up over here about another guest poster coming to you next week, one who I am thrilled (THRILLED!) to announce will be contributing regularly here at GWP with a column featuring reviews of newly released books, called “Off the Shelf.”
Elline Lipkin (pictured left) is a poet and nonfiction writer. Her first book, The Errant Thread, was chosen by Eavan Boland to receive the Kore Press First Book Award and was published in 2006. She is currently working on a book about girls for Seal Press and will be a Visiting Scholar with the Center for Research on Women at UCLA in the fall. She recently taught at UC Berkeley where she was a Postdoctoral Scholar with the Beatrice Bain Research Group.
Watch for Elline’s review next week of Pamela Paul’s latest,
Parenting, Inc, a book that investigates “the whirligig of marketing hype, peer pressure, and easy consumerism that spins parents into purchasing overpriced products and raising overprotected, overstimulated, and over-provided-for children.” Parents, yes, and especially, perhaps, mothers.
And with that, I am signing off for reals–to go get married!!!
Last weekend’s nonfiction writers retreat at the Woodhull house in Ancramdale was very energizing, and I wanted to send a shout out to all the participants (hi Lara! hi May! hi Leeat!). I absolutely loved working with everyone. And here’s info on the next one:
Raise Your Voice
The Woodhull Institute Prepares Women to Be Leaders on the Page
Women are underrepresented as nonfiction authors and opinion writers. In a long weekend of writing instruction and one-on-one critique from expert instructors Kristen Kemp, Catherine Orenstein, and Deborah Siegel, participants gain fundamental knowledge of Op-ed pieces, features, book proposals, and pitching ideas.
When/Where: September 5-7, 2008 (Ancramdale, NY)
Early Registration: $455
Regular Registration: $495*
Learn more and register today! Substantial discounts are available to alumnae and members.
Check out this article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed, “Where Are the Queens of Nonfiction?” by Anne Trubek, an associate professor of rhetoric and composition at Oberlin College. It’s excellent. And majorly depressing. Trubek riffs on the title of Ira Glass’ new book, The New Kings of Nonfiction, an anthology intended to commemorate and canonize our current golden age of nonfiction writing. Writes Trubek,
Huh? Glass is a trailblazing icon of alternative, indie culture, a very with-it, 21st-century guy. What was he thinking? Why did he choose a gender-specific title for his book?
She goes on to do some byline counting:
A few years ago, two women — Ruth Davis Konigsberg, a writer and former editor at Glamour, and Elizabeth Merrick, director of a women’s literary reading series — tallied the ratio of male to female contributors at those four magazines on their own Web sites. The numbers called attention to a significant gender disparity. According to Konigsberg, on womentk.com, during a 12-month period (from September 2005 to September 2006), there were 1,446 men’s bylines and 447 women’s bylines. At Harper’s, the ratio was nearly seven to one, at The New Yorker four to one, and at The Atlantic 3.6 to one.
I did my own tally. From May 2007 through May 2008, Harper’s published 232 men and 51 women (a ratio of about 4.5 to one) and The Atlantic published 158 men to 49 women (a ratio of about three to one). In 2008, The New Yorker has published 185 men and 51 women (about 3.5 to one). Things are not getting much better.
Then analyzes what does make it into print:
As disheartening as those statistics are, closer inspection of what women do publish in such magazines makes the disparity even more disturbing. Many of the women’s contributions are not features. (At The New Yorker, they might be a Talk of the Town piece, a poem, a cartoon, or a dance review.) And many are about being a woman. For example, the March 2008 issue of The Atlantic contains three substantial pieces by women. One, by Eliza Griswold, is both political and reported, and it does not integrate her personal experience. But the other two use personal experiences to make claims about women’s lives. And in an almost absurd twist, both argue that women should start settling for less.
That other Atlantic piece of course is “Marry Him! The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough,” by Lori Gottlieb.
For a great analysis of what gives, read the rest.
This just in from The Huffington Post, where I occasionally post commentary when I feel like not getting paid. Publishing at HuffPo is a great opportunity for exposure, but for working journalists, well, let’s just say I’ve slowed down my contributions over time. Nevertheless, it is a WONDERFUL opp for visibility and I can’t recommend it enough for those seeking to break into print. So here’s the announcement about their new initiative, because I definitely want to help them spread the word (and because I hugely admire the new initiative’s clever logo, and because I recently met — and loved — Eat the Post editor Rachel Sklar!):
It’s the electoral race of the century. Political maps are being redrawn, and rules are getting rewritten across the board. Fundraising records have been broken. The candidates are even comparing the sizes of their email lists.
The mainstream media is tripping over itself to report on every last press release and campaign announcement. But do any of us REALLY know what’s going on?
With you helping from the frontlines, the Huffington Post can change campaign coverage. OffTheBus is HuffPost’s citizen-powered and -produced election site, and we’re depending on readers like you to tip us to what’s going on or, better yet, to write up the stories you think should be covered.
WOULD YOU HELP US?
Chances are you’re a political junkie. That’s why you got involved in HuffPost’s community as a commenter. But why stop there?
By becoming a member of HuffPost’s OffTheBus, you can publish op-eds and news stories to the Huffington Post. You get first-hand access to editors. The best citizen reporting is cross-posted to the politics page and homepage. Or, you can jump into our collaborative reporting assignments, like our Superdelegate Investigation or OffTheBus Party Map.
GET PUBLISHED AT HUFFINGTON POST.
Last October OffTheBus members dropped in on Sen. Barack Obama’s Nationwide Canvassing Day from more than two dozen locations. Hours later every observer independently relayed to us that the economy, not the war, was the voting issue. Twenty-four hours later we reported on the significance of the economy, beating the mainstream media to the punch by a few weeks.
As our numbers grow, the same collaborative reporting model that got HuffPost’s OffTheBus the scoop on the economy may tell us a lot more about what’s happening nationwide.
YOU GAME? JOIN HUFFPOST’S OFFTHEBUS.
Click here to sign up.
Man, I hate the book proposal stage. It’s so mushy! My writer friend in the woods with me today is in the final throes of her manuscript, and I have manuscript envy over here.
Thanks for those comments on my previous post (anniegirl, Renee) — you gave me a push to give the outline thing a try today. And I have to say, it seemed far less anxiety inducing to work on an outline than it did to face a blank screen and start pushing words around on the page. Which is what I generally do, and which ends up taking me AGES.
As for my next steps, I like Renee’s approach, which she describes as follows:
The key thing about that outline for me is that I use the outline to make a VERY detailed To-Do list. That is the list that I then work from in completing the work — items on it might be as difficult/conceptual as “Restructure introduction to add in the literature on social movements….” or as simple as “Add citation to McClurg and Mueller…”
At the end of any work period, I decide on two or three things on the to-do list that I will work on the next day/work period — so I can percolate on the conceptual tasks I’ve set for myself, and then I warm up on the work by doing the easier/simpler tasks.
I’m gonna give it a try. Anyone got an answer to Renee’s question (see comments, previous post), about deviating from the outline once you’ve got it? How strictly do you outliners out there hold yourselves to it? Inquiring minds wanna know 🙂
I’ve tucked myself away at a fellow writer’s house in the woods for the next two days to re-jumpstart myself on my current book proposal, which I’ve been away from these past few months. So in addition to some guest posts, I myself will be writing over here about, well, writing.
Since I’m all about beginnings this morning, thought I’d share this quip from James B. Stewart’s Follow the Story, which I’m reading upon recommendation of my authors group (aka the Invisible Institute):
“The key to a successful lead [beginning] is quite simple: it must attract and hold readers by re-creating in their minds the same curiosity that drove you to undertake the story in the first place.”
And here’s Stewart’s pitch for outlining:
“I have been amazed to discover how much time I have saved, and how much anxiety I have avoided, by having a clear structure in mind, if not on paper.”
And I have been amazed to discover how difficult it is to get myself to outline. I’m always curious to hear about other people’s processes. Tell me, dear GWP readers–many of whom I know are also writers–do you outline? Does it work for you? Tips?!
So I’ve been spending part of this week teaching a blogging workshop for girls over at Writopia Lab. The posts these girls are writing are SO GOOD that I’m posting them here on GWP. Stay tuned for some thoughts from the next generation of thinkers and writers. They will knock your socks off. They are definitely knocking mine.
(cool logo design by Marco Siegel-Acevedo!)
So the deadline has been extended for the search for a program director at the Bitch headquarters in Portland, Oregon.
They’re looking for “someone bright, with a deep talent and love for analyzing media/pop culture from a perspective rooted in social/economic justice, who’s passionate about both print publishing and newer (to us, at least) forms like online, audio, and video, someone excited about helping shape the future of the work we do at Bitch (and who recognizes Bitch’s potential), someone committed to DIY/grassroots operating, who understands Bitch’s role as both critiquing what’s crappy and praising what’s good, who’s as excited about Bitch as a multimedia organization as Bitch as a magazine.”
Sound like anyone you know?
Some of the job duties associated with this position:
– Oversee the editorial and production process for the magazine
– Edit articles and help shape editorial tone and scope of magazine
– Manage writer’s agreements and payment for each issue
– Outreach, fundraising, and event planning
– Oversee editorial internship program
For more info, contact publishing@b-word.org. Deadline for apps is now August 15.
Shira Tarrant, editor of the fabulous Men Speak Out, is at it again with a call for essays for a new academic anthology, this time on feminism and fashion, tentatively titled Feminism, Fashion and Flair: Confronting Hegemony with Style. Here’s the description:
Fashion is a powerful way we express our politics, personalities, and preferences for who and how we love. Yet fashion can also repress freedom and sexual expression. Fashion encourages profound creativity, rebellion, and defiant self-definition while simultaneously controlling and disciplining the body. Fashion signals resistance to sexual morés and it can also promote a problematic consumer culture. Fashion creates collective identity, but also constrains individual voice. In other words, fashion contains the paradoxical potential for pleasure and subjugation, expression and conformity.
This book explores the productive tensions generated by fashion and style. We are interested in essays that take up questions of gender with special attention to race, class, sexuality, age, and ethnicity. This collection blends theory and pop culture analysis in exciting ways, focusing on contemporary trends and controversies.
Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:
Theories of agency, style, and the presentation of self
Performing identity: race, class, gender and sexuality through style
Consumerist pleasure and anxiety
Fashion production in the context of global capital and trade
Bois, grrls, trannies and styles of queerness
Hardcore, metro, punk, and khakis: constructing masculinities through fashion
Body art and ethnic appropriations
Debates in plastic surgery and re-fashioning the body
Class identity and decorating domestic space
Feminist fashion: debates over style and politics
The ethics of green production and marketing
Everyday pornography and fashion fetish
Virtual style and online identities
Material culture and craft in a postmodern world
Slumming and radical chic: tensions of authenticity and irony
Vintage and thrift fashion: nostalgia and class signifiers
DIY Style: fashion off the corporate grid
Deadline for abstracts is August 15, 2008.
Format for abstracts: Word document, double-spaced, between 300 and 500 words. Include contact information and short bio.
Send to: FashionBook1@yahoo.com
Shira Tarrant
Assistant Professor
Women’s Studies Department
California State University, Long Beach
and
Marjorie Jolles
Assistant Professor
Women’s & Gender Studies Program
Roosevelt University
Heads up over here about another guest poster coming to you next week, one who I am thrilled (THRILLED!) to announce will be contributing regularly here at GWP with a column featuring reviews of newly released books, called “Off the Shelf.”
Elline Lipkin (pictured left) is a poet and nonfiction writer. Her first book, The Errant Thread, was chosen by Eavan Boland to receive the Kore Press First Book Award and was published in 2006. She is currently working on a book about girls for Seal Press and will be a Visiting Scholar with the Center for Research on Women at UCLA in the fall. She recently taught at UC Berkeley where she was a Postdoctoral Scholar with the Beatrice Bain Research Group.
Watch for Elline’s review next week of Pamela Paul’s latest,
Parenting, Inc, a book that investigates “the whirligig of marketing hype, peer pressure, and easy consumerism that spins parents into purchasing overpriced products and raising overprotected, overstimulated, and over-provided-for children.” Parents, yes, and especially, perhaps, mothers.
And with that, I am signing off for reals–to go get married!!!
Last weekend’s nonfiction writers retreat at the Woodhull house in Ancramdale was very energizing, and I wanted to send a shout out to all the participants (hi Lara! hi May! hi Leeat!). I absolutely loved working with everyone. And here’s info on the next one:
Raise Your VoiceThe Woodhull Institute Prepares Women to Be Leaders on the Page
Women are underrepresented as nonfiction authors and opinion writers. In a long weekend of writing instruction and one-on-one critique from expert instructors Kristen Kemp, Catherine Orenstein, and Deborah Siegel, participants gain fundamental knowledge of Op-ed pieces, features, book proposals, and pitching ideas.
When/Where: September 5-7, 2008 (Ancramdale, NY)
Early Registration: $455
Regular Registration: $495*
Learn more and register today! Substantial discounts are available to alumnae and members.
Check out this article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed, “Where Are the Queens of Nonfiction?” by Anne Trubek, an associate professor of rhetoric and composition at Oberlin College. It’s excellent. And majorly depressing. Trubek riffs on the title of Ira Glass’ new book, The New Kings of Nonfiction, an anthology intended to commemorate and canonize our current golden age of nonfiction writing. Writes Trubek,
Huh? Glass is a trailblazing icon of alternative, indie culture, a very with-it, 21st-century guy. What was he thinking? Why did he choose a gender-specific title for his book?
She goes on to do some byline counting:
A few years ago, two women — Ruth Davis Konigsberg, a writer and former editor at Glamour, and Elizabeth Merrick, director of a women’s literary reading series — tallied the ratio of male to female contributors at those four magazines on their own Web sites. The numbers called attention to a significant gender disparity. According to Konigsberg, on womentk.com, during a 12-month period (from September 2005 to September 2006), there were 1,446 men’s bylines and 447 women’s bylines. At Harper’s, the ratio was nearly seven to one, at The New Yorker four to one, and at The Atlantic 3.6 to one.
I did my own tally. From May 2007 through May 2008, Harper’s published 232 men and 51 women (a ratio of about 4.5 to one) and The Atlantic published 158 men to 49 women (a ratio of about three to one). In 2008, The New Yorker has published 185 men and 51 women (about 3.5 to one). Things are not getting much better.
Then analyzes what does make it into print:
As disheartening as those statistics are, closer inspection of what women do publish in such magazines makes the disparity even more disturbing. Many of the women’s contributions are not features. (At The New Yorker, they might be a Talk of the Town piece, a poem, a cartoon, or a dance review.) And many are about being a woman. For example, the March 2008 issue of The Atlantic contains three substantial pieces by women. One, by Eliza Griswold, is both political and reported, and it does not integrate her personal experience. But the other two use personal experiences to make claims about women’s lives. And in an almost absurd twist, both argue that women should start settling for less.
That other Atlantic piece of course is “Marry Him! The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough,” by Lori Gottlieb.
For a great analysis of what gives, read the rest.
This just in from The Huffington Post, where I occasionally post commentary when I feel like not getting paid. Publishing at HuffPo is a great opportunity for exposure, but for working journalists, well, let’s just say I’ve slowed down my contributions over time. Nevertheless, it is a WONDERFUL opp for visibility and I can’t recommend it enough for those seeking to break into print. So here’s the announcement about their new initiative, because I definitely want to help them spread the word (and because I hugely admire the new initiative’s clever logo, and because I recently met — and loved — Eat the Post editor Rachel Sklar!):
It’s the electoral race of the century. Political maps are being redrawn, and rules are getting rewritten across the board. Fundraising records have been broken. The candidates are even comparing the sizes of their email lists.
The mainstream media is tripping over itself to report on every last press release and campaign announcement. But do any of us REALLY know what’s going on?
With you helping from the frontlines, the Huffington Post can change campaign coverage. OffTheBus is HuffPost’s citizen-powered and -produced election site, and we’re depending on readers like you to tip us to what’s going on or, better yet, to write up the stories you think should be covered.
WOULD YOU HELP US?
Chances are you’re a political junkie. That’s why you got involved in HuffPost’s community as a commenter. But why stop there?
By becoming a member of HuffPost’s OffTheBus, you can publish op-eds and news stories to the Huffington Post. You get first-hand access to editors. The best citizen reporting is cross-posted to the politics page and homepage. Or, you can jump into our collaborative reporting assignments, like our Superdelegate Investigation or OffTheBus Party Map.
GET PUBLISHED AT HUFFINGTON POST.
Last October OffTheBus members dropped in on Sen. Barack Obama’s Nationwide Canvassing Day from more than two dozen locations. Hours later every observer independently relayed to us that the economy, not the war, was the voting issue. Twenty-four hours later we reported on the significance of the economy, beating the mainstream media to the punch by a few weeks.
As our numbers grow, the same collaborative reporting model that got HuffPost’s OffTheBus the scoop on the economy may tell us a lot more about what’s happening nationwide.
YOU GAME? JOIN HUFFPOST’S OFFTHEBUS.
Click here to sign up.
