Indholdsfortegnelse for September 2015 i The Writer

WHAT DOES IT TAKE to write a book? Jami Attenberg, who is featured in this issue, says you have to have “a lot of faith in yourself.” That’s for sure. But as we were putting together this issue, I accumulated a partial list of what else it takes to achieve your work and get that work in front of readers. My outline looks something like this: • Grapple with the blank page. • Build your character’s back story. • Task risks with language and experiences. • Drill into every word. • Find a support system. • Develop a promotional strategy. • Write solid cover letters. • Edit, edit, edit. And finally? The most omnipresent advice from successful writers (this month from Mary Gordon): Get your butt in the chair. Gordon,…

NAMES Zach Patton and Clay Dunn YEARS BLOGGING 7 GENRE Food writing WEBSITE thebittenword.com FEATURED NPR, PBS, The Washington Post, Washingtonian Magazine How do you balance a regular blog with full-time careers (Zach as a journalist, Clay working for the nonprofit No Kid Hungry)? For us, blogging is a hobby and a passion project. We both enjoy really busy careers, but we still love to cook, and usually prefer to eat at home. We balance work and the blog by using the cooking we do for the blog as a reason to have friends over for dinner. And when we cook for the blog, we typically make a handful of dishes at once, which gives us content to share on the blog for the next week or two. It takes…

Most magazines focusing on a local area are members of the City and Regional Magazine Association, the purpose of which is "to facilitate professional development and training opportunities for member magazines and opportunities to exchange information and ideas.” Some of the especially prominent city and regional magazines, all of which are CRMA members, include the following. Atlanta Magazine 260 Peachtree Street, Suite 300 Atlanta, GA 30303 Boston Magazine 300 Massachusetts Avenue Boston, MA 02115 Chicago Magazine 435 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 1100 Chicago, IL 60611 D Magazine 750 N. St. Paul Street, Suite 2100 Dallas, TX 75201 Gulfshore Life 1421 Pine Ridge Road, Suite 100 Naples, FL 34109 HOUR Detroit 5750 New King Drive, Suite 100 Troy, MI 48098 New Jersey Monthly 55 Park Place, PO Box 920 Morristown, NJ…

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. NON-MFA WRITING PROGRAMS ONLINE 24PEARLSTREET Non-degree online classes in fiction, nonfiction and poetry led by nationally recognized writers. Program available in fall, winter or spring with the option of three course lengths: 8-week studios, 4-week workshops and 1-week intensives. Contact: Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. 24 Pearl Street, Provincetown, MA 02657. 508-487-9960 x 101. 24pearlstreet@fawc.org fawc.org/24pearlstreet CREATIVE NONFICTION Small online classrooms, personalized instructor feedback and student forums. Topics include food writing, nonfiction podcasting, magazine writing, personal essays, medical writing, revision and more. Classes start in January, March, July and September. Contact: Creative Nonficiton. 5501 Walnut Street, Suite 202, Pittsburgh, PA 15232. 412-688-0304. information@creativenonfiction.org…

Reading Jami Attenberg’s fifth work of fiction, Saint Mazie, it’s easy to get lost in the world of Mazie Phillips-Gordon, a young Jewish woman living in New York City during the early decades of the 20th century. Presented as a diary – intimate, detailed and revealing – with reflective commentary composed many years later by those who knew her, the book brings to life its subject’s innermost thoughts, longings and worries, and charts her daily events both life-changing and mundane. Attenberg’s followup to The Middlesteins, Saint Mazie was based on the life of the real Mazie Phillips, “The Queen of the Bowery,” who ran a Skid Row movie theater from the 1920s to the 1940s and devoted her life to helping the homeless. Her story was first told by Joseph…

For a time, I rented an old sail loft as a place to write. It sat on rotting pilings near the shore of a tidal river. When I first arrived and slid open the weathered glass doors that faced the harbor, a black cormorant was floating in the briny June mist. Immediately, he seemed fully aware of my presence, his head turning from side to side to catch me in his peripheral vision. The Double-crested Cormorant is black with a greenish purple sheen from the oils that keep his wings from drying, and he is long-necked with an orange throat. No more than a sea crow, I found him exquisitely exotic and gave him the name Jinx. After two summers writing at the sail loft, I vacated so that the…

“Usually by the time I finish a book tour I've just about had it with the book.” —Richard Russo SHARPIE PEN GRIP Pen meets marker, this is the perfect instrument for signing books after your readings. With smudge-proof, quickdrying ink available in six colors, you’ll be able to autograph fast without worrying about bleeding through to the next page. Choose from fine or medium point. 3-pack for $9.99. sharpie.com LAUNDRY TO GO Keeping clothes clean during extended trips is a concern many writers on tour face. These compact detergent sheets make laundering clothes easy – just add one or two to a sinkful of water and you’ll have fresh garments in no time. $10. travelsmith.com ROAD TRIP JOURNAL Remember every moment of your journey by writing down all of the…

Dori Ann Dupré @DoriAnnDupre Getting my #publishing proposal tomorrow! Grateful for the vote of confidence. #author #amwriting #writers #Novel #believe Martha Alderson @plotwhisperer Looking for perfection? No such thing. You did the work / #revision. Now put it out there. Let it go. Time to start your next #novel Author A.J. Compton @AuthorAJCompton I DID IT!!!! Just finished the 1st draft of my debut #novel!! 82k words! #author #AmWriting #writer #writing #books Eleanor Brown @eleanorwrites If you never take a single other piece of writing advice from me, take this one: READ YOUR WORK ALOUD. #amwriting #writetip Rebecca Hall @BeyondBex Debut #novel out soon! And am visiting #Seattle in July. Looking to do a #bookreading. Any takers? #booklaunch Jordan E. Rosenfeld @Jordanrosenfeld Don’t waste your time lamenting the doors that…

A WRITER’S SUCCESS STORY “I’m not a writer. Writers write, and I’m not writing. I’m a fraud!” screams the voice in my head. Then another voice pipes up in defense. “I am too a writer. I have lots of clips – in print, online, in magazines, newspapers, anthologies. I’ve even read my work in public. I’m going through a phase, that’s all.” The first line of the classic Buddhist text The Dhammapada reads: “We are what we think, having become what we thought.” So, am I or am I not a writer? This question invariably plagues me whenever I find myself in a writing slump, blocked and anxious that I will never write again. Exciting ideas for new articles or fresh insights into old stalled ideas elude me, making me…

CHRIS WHITE PARTED THE BRAMBLES and pointed. In the dirt, a thin scuff led to a low tunnel through the brush. It wasn’t much of a scuff, but it was the best we’d seen all morning. “They went this way,” Chris said. “Let’s go.” Chris took point. Brambles twined across the trail like netting and the footing was a loose jumble of scrabbly stone. The scuff kept twisting places it shouldn’t – veering back on itself, disappearing into overgrown gullies – but Chris was unstoppable. Whenever the trail seemed to die for good, Chris would disappear in the mess until eventually, his hand shot back up: “AH!” No, my gut kept telling me. This is all wrong. Why would anyone blaze a trail that runs smack into a boulder? Or…

• Sylvia Plath meets fellow poet Ted Hughes at a party in Cambridge; the two are married four months later. • Allen Ginsberg’s most famous work, Howl and Other Poems, is published by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who is later arrested (and eventually acquitted) on charges of obscenity for Howl’s explicit content. • A. A. Milne, beloved children’s author of the Winnie the Pooh series, dies at age 74. • Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón receives the Nobel Prize for Literature “for his lyrical poetry, which in the Spanish language constitutes an example of high spirit and artistical purity.”…

After seeing Dylan Thomas’ writing shed, Roald Dahl built a writing hut at the end of his garden in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, England, where he could “become another person for a moment.” Katie Kitamura is a novelist and journalist. She is the author of two novels: The Longshot, about an aging mixed-martial-arts fighter, and Gone to the Forest, which follows a landowning family in an unspecified colonial nation that’s slipping into the early stages of a civil uprising. Kitamura writes with a crisp simplicity that, as The New York Times notes, “crackles with a confined masculine aura.” “Tom and his father remain,” Kitamura writes in Gone to the Forest. “His father does not believe in the city. The other farmers tell him to move out of the country, that it…

“Always put your audience first. Forge a strong bond with your readers by delivering more than they expect, whether that be the occasional free short story or e-book, or a personal touch in your correspondence with them. Build a relationship through your newsletter that shows there’s a human being on the other side of the book. So many people email us surprised that we take the time to write back, saying that most writers ignore them. Hugh Howey is one of the writers who is doing this right with the little things, like putting sand in his Sand print books, surprising readers at bookstores and other little things that endear him to readers. Find your own way to thank readers for investing in you and the worlds you create.” —David…

“I have rewritten – often several times – every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers.” —Vladimir Nabokov One of the great contradictions in the writing world is how many writers assert that they value the written word in its highest form, yet they can’t be bothered to avoid passive voice, know the difference between “its” and “it’s” or be certain of when to use “who” versus “whom.” Here’s the problem: Literary agents and editors DO know these rules. When they realize that you don’t know, they are likely to be less interested in working with you, regardless of the other merits of your writing. Here’s the good news: No matter how much you slept through high school or (gulp) college English, you can improve your ability…

If you live in or near a major metropolitan area, you’re probably familiar with your local city or regional magazine. While we often hear of the world becoming a virtual “global village,” there are still publishing venues that are place-specific – in the traditional, real world sense. And the market is growing. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 80 percent of Americans now live in a major metropolitan area, a fact not lost on magazine publishers. CITY AND REGIONAL magazines are usually eponymous with the area they serve: Chicago, Boston, New Jersey Monthly and HOUR Detroit. Most rely heavily on freelancers, but not just any freelancers. Editors report that writers who have deep roots in their area, a familiarly with local institutions (museums, sports teams, celebrities) and who…

Genevieve, the main character in the story “Simone Weil in New York,” is walking with her baby in New York City with Mlle Weil, her formative and formidable teacher from France. Genevieve and Mlle have a complicated past in France, where they met as teacher and student. Now, Mlle Weil, who is Jewish, has fled war-torn Europe with her parents to America, where Genevieve lives with her American husband, their baby and Genevieve’s brother Laurent, whose brilliance can de-rail attention from Genevieve’s own self esteem. The interior thoughts that begin this passage are Genevieve’s. THE LATE SUN SPARKLES on the river. She has not given up the habit of trying to find the right words for the color of the sky. Pearl grey, she thinks, and then changes from pearl…

When it comes to selling and promoting books in a competitive market, thinking outside of the box is crucial for authors to survive and thrive. While writing my memoir, I managed to get the word out about my book through blogging and guest posting, in addition to other online activities, to help my platform grow organically. But each writer has to find the formula for promotional success. Here are eight do-it-yourself strategies to spread the word about your book. PLATFORM-BUILDING TIP: BUILD A BUZZ AROUND YOUR BOOK AT LEAST SIX MONTHS BEFORE PUBLICATION SO YOUR FANS CAN START TALKING IT UP WITH THEIR NETWORKS. 1 Seek out non-bookstore markets. Beyond big chain bookstores, seek out local venues such as book clubs and festivals, starting with your own community. Within your…

INSIDE LITERARY MAGAZINES Joyland publisher Brian Joseph Davis despises the word “slush” in regard to the infamous piles that fill a literary journal’s offices and inboxes. “Our submissions are the most important connection we have to our readers,” he says. “Our inbox is a treasure trove.” In 2008, he and co-publisher Emily Schultz were laid off from journalism positions. Impressed by how Web design and interface were attracting people to what he describes as “little, individual places,” they launched an online magazine that publishes stories by region. Davis evaluates every story sent to the magazine and forwards promising submissions to editors across North America. Tone, Editorial Content The image of a globe tops Joyland’s homepage. Underneath is a banner listing the regions from which editors select their stories; it includes…

Many writers want to hone their craft but don’t want to commit to or pay for a full-blown MFA program. Luckily, many local and online classes, workshops and certificate programs can support writers’ needs without obliging them to commit several years and multiple paychecks to the cause. While MFA programs are valuable for many reasons, local craft workshops can be helpful as well. 1 Writing centers. Most big cities have a writing center that offers work space, breakout sessions and critiques. 2 Libraries. The place where the written word is most sacred often plays host to writing groups. 3 Colleges and universities. Not only will you be instructed by toplevel writers, but chances are, you’ll also come out of your course with a certificate in hand. 4 Adult learning centers.…