Indholdsfortegnelse for May 2014 i The Writer

NOT LONG AGO, I was sitting in the rush line to get a night-of ticket to a production of a Shakespeare play in New York City. The critics had declared the show a hit, but it was running for only three more nights, and every performance was sold out. Snow was pounding down hard that afternoon, and the wind was whipping with urban mercilessness. But none of those factors stopped a hardy group of us from trudging into the theater two hours before curtain to stand in line in the hopes of snagging tickets. We added our names to the waiting list and sat quietly, if anxiously, reading magazines or books or fiddling with smartphones. I was seventh in line. Just before the box-office manager began to reveal who would…

Song lyrics combine the poetry form with a story narrative and the confessional elements of a personal essay. These award-winning lyricists share the principles of good songwriting, which have application across all genres. If there is a common thread to all that I find deep and beautiful in music (lyrics included), it is the truth that emerges from experience: lived, heard and read. The only constants I can personally rely on follow: You can never learn enough. Pay attention. Tell the truth or lie beautifully.” —J.D. Souther, songwriter for the Eagles Write the way people actually talk. You can use imagery and be poetic, of course, but the best lyrics sound like something people might actually say.” —Murray Horwitz, co-writer of the musical Ain’t Misbehavin’ Life experience. If you want…

A character opens the front door and discovers a bouquet of flowers on the doorstep. But the flowers have a hidden meaning. What do they symbolize? Who left them there? How does the character react? ASK THE WRITER I’m interested in stories that are set in unique locations. I’ll pick a setting, but then I can’t get the hang of mixing in all the other important elements such as character and conflict. Do I have to start with character? You don’t have to start with character, but character does need to factor into the process pretty quickly. Character is the engine of fiction, and without it your writing might be a beautiful rumination or a quirky description, but it won’t be a story. As a way to begin to think…

Mitchell Zuckoff’s New York Times-best-sellers Lost in Shangri-La and Frozen in Time are both gripping works of nonfiction centering on dramatic events (plane crashes, rescue attempts, hardships endured by survivors) that occurred during World War II. Both are fascinating stories in which Zuckoff’s writing style relays historical events through compelling prose. Zuckoff transforms a voluminous amount of research into engaging text that goes beyond unearthing and assembling information to creating a dynamic work of narrative nonfiction. Thorough and comprehensive research is essential to the accurate depiction of events. However, powerful storytelling requires more than just the facts. Once writers have a strong grasp of the research, they can turn their efforts to the structural and creative development of the narrative. “The nuanced writing will emerge later,” says Zuckoff. For many…

Chris Crutcher has a unique writing practice. It doesn’t start with a computer or even pen and paper. He begins with water. And he begins early. As a lifelong athlete, the former family therapist-turnedcontroversial young adult author launches each day by arriving at his local swimming pool when it’s dark and cold outside. He’s not only there to keep his 67-year-old body healthy, he says; swimming is an integral part of his daily writing regimen. “I get to the pool at 4 a.m. and write in the water,” he says. “I swim 20 100-yard sprints and 10 50s. With each repeat, I put a writing problem in my head and swim like hell and work it out like hell.” Having written nine YA novels, one adult novel, a collection of…

When Julie Mannix von Zerneck and Kathy Hatfield independently published their book Secret Storms: A Mother and Daughter, Lost then Found, they didn’t anticipate having to choose between guest spots on The Katie Couric Show and The Jeff Probst Show. “Both said if you don’t come on our show first, then we don’t want to have you,” Mannix von Zerneck recounts. “We hired a publicist and said, ‘We don’t know how to handle this.’” Their publicist, Meryl Zegarek, advised the authors to relax. She negotiated unique angles for each host, so that both would offer original content. For Couric’s show, Mannix von Zerneck and Hatfield appeared with other adoption experts. Probst’s show included mother and daughter, as well as Mannix von Zerneck’s husband, their son and Hatfield’s daughter. But Zegarek…

I bent into the biting wind, ever present in winter in this island city, and rounded the corner onto Ann Street. A landau clattered by, its wheels flinging melted snow. Across the way, a hog rooted in refuse, one of the thousands of pigs who plied the streets, be it rich district or poor. The wet had brought out the smell of smoke rising from the forest of rooftop chimneys as well as the stink of horse manure, rotting garbage, and urine. It is said that sailors can smell New York City six miles out at sea. I had no doubt of it. Two short blocks later, across Ann Street from Barnum’s American Museum, with its banners advertising such humbuggery in residence as President Washington’s childhood nurse and the Feejee…

The 2011 season got a late start because of cold weather and an ice storm. In 2011 Kevin made his second boil of the season on March 6, a Sunday, but that night it began to rain heavily, and though the temperature stayed above freezing for most of the night, it plummeted toward morning and the rain began to freeze on the trees, coating the branches and everything else with ice—every blade of grass in the fields and every pine needle on the white pines. It was beautiful and calamitous. When the storm was over I walked through the woods and caught a strong scent of pine, then saw a small tree stripped of its needles, which were lying on the ground incased in ice like pendants. On that Monday…

Joshua Raab spends a lot of time reading a Doctor Bronner’s soap bottle in the shower. “It’s all about God and the universe. Every time I pick it up, I’m enjoying it a little,” he says. The editor of theNewerYork – a journal of “literary gems” ranging from the text on the back of a cracker box to directions on how to play Minesweeper – loves the way language and imagery intersect. He describes with audible joy a sign he discovered on the streets of London. Placed before a speed bump with a striped crosswalk, it read “Humped Zebra Crossing.” With other editors, he’s created a community of writers and artists linked by both the print journal and the related online Electric Encyclopedia of Experimental Literature and by literary carnivals…

Soman Chainani graduated from college in 2001 with plans to go to business school and pursue management consulting. However, it didn’t quite pan out the way he expected. “I really messed that one up,” he says. Instead, he decided to pursue directing, screenwriting and writing novels. That last part did pan out. Cainani is the author of a New York Times bestselling young adult novel, The School for Good and Evil, which is the first in a trilogy and is being turned into a movie by Universal Pictures. We talked about his topsy-turvy path to novel writing and Hollywood. Pursuing writing: If you can do anything else, you should. That’s what I tell writers and actors. If you really can find something else you like, please, go do that. There’s…

“Home is any four walls that enclose the right person.” In those 10 simple words, American journalisthumorist Helen Rowland succinctly summed up the mission of Write A House. The Detroit-based project, which was begun in 2012 by Detroit writers and urban activists, is based on an ingenious idea: Use vocational students to renovate empty houses and in turn give the homes to deserving writers – free – as a method for creating a more vibrant literary arts community in the Michigan city. Novelist Samuel Butler said, “An empty house is like a stray dog or a body from which life has departed,” and if Butler is correct, then the greater Detroit metropolitan area is overrun by packs of such canines, with more than 20,000 houses available at foreclosure auctions. The…

While writing his breakout novel The Ice Storm, set in 1973, Rick Moody allowed himself to listen only to music popular in that year, and he mostly confined his reading to popular books as well. The Ice Storm became a critically acclaimed best-seller and was later made into a feature film directed by Ang Lee. Moody is also the author of four other novels, a collection of short fiction and two nonfiction books. He is the recipient of honors that include the PEN/Martha Albrand Award and the Paris Review Aga Khan Prize. His prose is finely tuned, and he has a keen ear for the rhythm of language, which, along with rich and sometimes quirky descriptive detail, helps to create an immersive experience for the reader. Take, for instance, this…

Deck out your gadget with these new writing apps for computers, smartphones and tablets. SCRIVENER Perfect for writers of all genres, this all-inone computer studio divides a large project into manageable portions such as chapters and paragraphs. Digital index cards with section synopses allow writers to view the project in corkboard or outline form, while split view shows parts of the project side by side. Import images, PDFs or a digital document in progress, then write and rearrange sections. Starts at $40. literatureandlatte.com SPICE A subscription to Spice includes a 22,000-phrase thesaurus for meatier descriptions and smarter metaphors. Mac, Windows and smartphone users can search for a specific keyword and find unique, fresh phrases with a detailed source history. The app bolsters writers with ideas without clichés. Starts at $1/month.…

One of the frustrations I endure as a writer is trying to snag ideas that appear in my head. They move in quickly, like a fly coming out of nowhere, and they often disappear just as quickly, sometimes never to return. If I don’t write them down right away – ideas for books and magazine articles as well as for dialogue and narration – they may be lost to oblivion, and that is disheartening to me since, I believe, they have potential. You might think if I have a good idea, I would remember it, or that it would eventually come back to me. But it hasn’t worked that way. My ideas often come in a flash, and are forgotten instantly. There are several reasons for this, I suppose: I…

Did you always know you wanted to be a writer? I never in my life knew what I wanted to “do” and came upon most of my jobs – from service station attendant, to mail-and-freight truck driver into the Idaho back country, to lifeguard, to swimming coach, pre-stress concrete bridge beam maker, to teacher, to yacht club recreation dude, to therapist – through some back door. “Storyteller” has been the only title that really fit comfortably, though I had great joy and interest in a lot of those vocations. You mentioned that part of your normal routine is that you write for stretches of only 15-20 minutes. Why? It has mostly to do with my inner pace, for lack of a better term. I’ll get a scene or a couple…

1 DO YOUR RESEARCH. Ask friends and colleagues for references. Identify published books similar to yours, and look on authors’ websites for mention of an independent publicist. Determine whether the publicist focuses his or her attention on the publicity that’s important to you (i.e., radio, television, blogs, magazines, websites). Contact candidates with a compelling e-mail query about your book. 2 CONDUCT MULTIPLE INTERVIEWS. Talk with at least three publicists to gauge your chemistry, as well as the price of the campaign. Remember that good publicists request and read your book and suggest potential campaign strategies before sending you a contract and requesting a retaining fee. 3 CHECK REFERENCES. Talk with a publicist’s clients (names and e-mails should be available on his or her website) for candid information. As Scher cautions,…

Dusk was falling when he entered the bookshop on the rue Dante near the Sorbonne; the window lamp had been lit and an elderly cat was sleeping on a French encyclopedia. The hand-painted hanging sign read Libraire Doncieux. A young woman was seated behind the desk. She was so absorbed in writing a letter that she did not hear him come in. Her thick, golden-brown hair, which was secured demurely in a topknot on her head with combs and a heavy black velvet bow, glistened in the light of the desk lamp. She wore a little gold cross against the high lace collar of her dress, and she bit her lip as she wrote. It was the girl he had seen in the train station on his way to join…

When I received a pitch from a popular beauty supply company, I was elated. A lifestyle blog I started in 2012 was finally “going somewhere.” After all, I told myself, bloggers are influencers. I jumped at the opportunity to test a product. The company shipped me a $200 blow dryer to test and keep, free of charge. All I had to do in return was share my opinion in a blog post. It wasn’t until after I received the package that I discovered the review would not be completely my own. The next morning, an email arrived in my inbox, leaden with key words, talking points and links that the company “highly preferred” that I include in my content. Unclear communication and unexplained expectations turned the partnership into a negative…

Writing requires patience, tenacity, hard work and, above all, courage. “It takes a lot of courage to be a writer,” author Rumer Godden said. She spoke from experience. Publishing more than 60 fiction, nonfiction and children’s books throughout her 90 years, Godden tackled the blank page with gusto. Her 1930s novel, Black Narcissus, launched her to the international bestseller list, where many of her subsequent books also found a home. The English author is known for vivid sensory descriptions, exotic settings and moving heroines with strong ambitions — characters not unlike herself. Godden’s essay “The Will to Write,” published in the May 1985 issue of The Writer, reveals three approaches that still benefit writers today. 1. Write slowly Despite a long list of publications, Godden compared her writing process to…

on character and listening Oonya Kempado’s All Decent Animals takes place in Trinidad and is richly populated with characters, sights and sounds. We caught up with Kempado at the Miami Book Fair International and asked her to talk about her creative process. WHEN YOU SAY A CHARACTER CAME TO YOU, WHAT DO YOU MEAN? In writing the characters, I was compelled by very urban and international Caribbean characters. The language of the novel reflects that, and reflects Trinidadian and Standard English. There was something that was missing from the story, something I wasn’t getting. I was writing a scene where I needed a taxi, and in writing it, Sammy developed. The way I could write his voice and his language blossomed, and he became a full person, this full character.…

We asked our Facebook followers: What book made you want to become a writer? They offered an outstanding reading list we could not resist sharing with our print readers. • The Gunslinger • Fahrenheit 451 • Blackbird House • In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash • Little Women • The Demon King • Harriet the Spy • The Complete Works of William Shakespeare • Walden • One Hundred Years of Solitude • Just Above Water: Prose Poems • The Adventures of Tom Sawyer • The Hobbit • Roots: The Saga of an American Family • The Color Purple • Their Eyes Were Watching God • Friday the Arapaho Indian • Shout at the Devil • A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail • Johnny…

As a young news reporter, I was dispatched with a videographer named Brian. We sat down for an interview with someone I’ve long forgotten and a topic I no longer remember. But I do remember Brian. During the interview, Brian caught my eye. His expression oozed disappointment, with a hint of disgust. Unnerved, I confronted him immediately after. “What the hell was that?” I demanded. “Jack,” he began, shaking his head, slowly. “I thought you might be different. But after that performance, I suppose you’re not much better than the rest.” To my swollen – if fragile – ego, those were harsh words. Brian, it turned out, had endured his share of fledgling reporters. I was just one more in a long line of smarty-pants interviewers. “Your questions,” he said,…

IF YOU HAVE READ Ruth Reichl’s writing and followed her career, this storyline will likely sound familiar. It is the tale of Billie Breslin, a young woman who has just taken an exciting job at Delicious!, the foremost food magazine in the country, housed in the elegant Timbers Mansion in Greenwich Village. When the magazine is unceremoniously shut down, she is left alone in the mansion to do a perfunctory interim job. Billie soon finds a hidden room that houses treasures from the past, most notably the World War II-era letters of Lulu Swan, a precocious 12-year-old, written to the legendary chef and writer James Beard. This discovery raises questions about the past, present and future that draw her into a journey of further discovery. This is the premise of…

IN THE END, write it down. Back up and find the story. Mr. Simet, my English and journalism teacher, says the best way to write a story, be it fact or fiction, is to believe aliens will find it someday and make a movie, and you don’t want them making Ishtar. The trick is to dig out the people and events that connect, and connect them. No need to worry about who’s wearing Nike and who’s wearing Reebok, or anybody’s hat size or percentage of body fat. Like Jack Webb on the Dragnet series on Nick at Nite says, “Just the facts, ma’am. Just the facts.” The facts. I’m black. And Japanese. And white. Politically correct would be African- American, Japanese-American and what? Northern European- American? God, by the time…

Readers devour historical novels, and if you’re setting out to write one, perhaps what motivates you is a compelling interest in the past. British writer Edward Rutherfurd speaks of how his strong interest in the past arose from several early influences: historical novels, his reading of history, family stories that went back for centuries and – a big influence – his parents moving to Salisbury southern England within walking distance of Stonehenge. And in Salisbury itself, an 800-year-old cathedral. In Salisbury, noted Rutherfurd, “The past didn’t seem like a distant place.” Rutherfurd’s story offers an interesting and useful paradox: The distant past can be imaginatively present. Making it seem so is precisely the accomplishment of historical novels: maintaining the attraction for the distant “then” as you bring this deep pastness…

Douglas Whynott published his first book in 1991, and this year, his fifth book, The Sugar Season, an indepth contemplation of the maple syrup industry, hit bookstores. Despite the experience he acquired writing four previous books, countless magazine and newspaper articles and holding teaching positions at top colleges in New England (as well as one in Bogota, Columbia), Whynott had to navigate some intimidating roadblocks to bring this book to print, including finding a new agent and publisher and spending much longer researching the topic than he had anticipated. In the end, it was all in a day’s work for this immersion journalist who appears to relish the challenge and is proud of the work it produced. The associate professor of nonfiction writing at Emerson College in Boston offered these…

For novelist Ruth Ozeki, writing and meditation are intimately entwined. “They’re both contemplative practices that require enormous patience,” she says. “[In meditation] you’re aware of your thoughts and your sensations. You’re constantly being pulled out of the present moment by your worries, what to cook for dinner or some other concern. And then you catch yourself, and you return. It’s this constant practice of return. That’s very much what writing is about, too.” A Zen Buddhist priest, Ozeki has practiced meditation throughout her life, a skill that helps her tackle the blank page each day. The practice deeply impacted her third novel, A Tale for the Time-Being, which was published in over 30 countries and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Ozeki empowers her students at Hedgebrook, a women’s writing…

INFORMATION in this section is provided to The Writer by the individual markets and events; for more information, contact those entities directly. F = Fiction N = Nonfiction P = Poetry C = Children’s Y = Young adult O = Other $ = Offers payment WriterMag.com Subscribers to The Writer have online access to information on 3,000+ publishers, publications, conferences, contests and agents. Go to WriterMag.com and click on Market Directory. Fiction AMERICAN FICTION SHORT STORY AWARD Seeks well-crafted, character-driven literary fiction in any genre. Approximately 20 short stories will be published in American Fiction Volume 13: The Best Unpublished Stories by Emerging Writers. Maximum 10,000 words per story. Submit online. Deadline: June 15. Entry fee: $16. Prizes: First place will receive $1,750. Second place $500. Third place $250. All…