The Writer

Joyce Carol Oates on blogging

Ron Kovach — Wed, 30 May 2012 15:20:00 GMT

At her website, novelist Justine Musk passes along some comment from Joyce Carol Oates that may surprise you. She offers an account from a friend who was on a panel with Ms. Oates:

Someone in the audience asked the venerable Ms. Oates what she would do today, if she had to launch a writing career all over again.

She said

(drum roll please)

“I would blog.”

She said

(I am paraphrasing)

“I would blog before I wrote a book. I would create a voice that connects, and I would build an audience online, and then I would write a book in that voice.”

Someone from the audience asked, So you would consider self-publishing?

“Yes! Of course!” In today’s publishing climate, she added, publishers won’t do anything to promote you “ ... until you’re ... well ... until you’re me.” However you’re published, the job is the same: finding and developing your audience. Breaking free from anonymity.

Someone from the audience asked, So you would abandon traditional publishing?

“No. Why not take advantage, when you can, of what they do best? But first, I would create a voice that connects with people. I would blog.”

— Ron Kovach, senior editor, The Writer

' … A world that can’t stop talking'

Ron Kovach — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:59:00 GMT

Calling all introverts, or half-introverts! (I’d guess one of those phrases accurately describes a majority of the thoughtful, book-wormish readers of The Writer, not to mention its contributors and editors.) Your bible has finally arrived, and it is perfectly titled Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, by Susan Cain.

Introverts of the world, unite! If you're tired of quiet substance and competence losing out to the cult of personality, this is the book for you. If you’re tired of the silliness and mistaken judgments foisted upon quiet, reflective people by extroverts, this is the book for you. If you’re tired of chatterboxes in general and their endless public cell-phone conversations in particular, this is the book for you. If you’re tired of self-centered people who don’t listen, this is the book for you. If you’re not a joiner and think group process in general is overrated, this is your book. If your idea of the perfect cruise is a ship called The Introverts’ Dream where every room has a private balcony and all of the souvenir T-shirts read “Leave Me Alone” or “No Talking; I’m Busy Processing,” this is the book for you.

OK, I’m kidding around. Seriously, though, Quiet is a very stimulating book. Quiet makes some noise. Here’s a little bit more about it, from author Cain:

“Before I became a writer, I practiced corporate law for seven years, representing clients like JP Morgan and General Electric, and then worked as a negotiations consultant, training all kinds of people, from hedge fund managers to TV producers to college students negotiating their first salaries. My clients have included Merrill Lynch, Shearman & Sterling, One Hundred Women in Hedge Funds, and many more. I went to Princeton University and Harvard Law School.

“From all this you might guess that I’m a hardcore, wonderfully self-confident, pound-the-table kind of person, when in fact I’m just the opposite. I prefer listening to talking, reading to socializing, and cozy chats to group settings. I like to think before I speak (softly). I’ve never given a speech without being terrified first, though I’ve given many. And somehow I know that everything I’ve ever accomplished, in love and in work, I owe to these traits, annoying though they may sometimes be. I’ve explored this paradox in [the book].”

-- Ron Kovach, senior editor, The Writer

Writing help is on the way

Sarah C. Lange — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 20:38:00 GMT

If you are having trouble finishing a writing project—or getting one started—the May 2012 issue of The Writer magazine, on newsstands now, is an issue you won’t want to miss. In it, you’ll find articles that provide practical tips to help you get the book in your head onto the page. For example:

J.T. Bushnell, a fiction writer, teacher and contributing editor at Fiction Writers Review, discusses an alternative to the typical writing critiques that too often focus on problems in a piece. He and a fellow writer decided to provide only positive feedback to help each other get through the first drafts of their novels. “That doesn’t mean we lie to each other,” he explains. “It doesn’t mean we compliment flaws or inconsistencies or overwrought descriptions. It means that, for now, we ignore those things, instead searching for elements that perk our interest, elicit pangs of sympathy, provide sharp sensory experiences, make us laugh. We describe the developments we see in the characters, the conflicts, the themes. And every week we conclude by assuring each other we’re dying to find out what comes next, to which the writer usually responds, ‘So am I.’ ” You can find out more about their “positive workshops” in “Hitting his stride.”

Another strategy you may want to try is joining a “writing marathon,” such as National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in November or the summer version, Camp NaNoWriMo. In “Cross the finish line with a writing marathon,” Rochelle Melander, author of Write-A-Thon: Write Your Book in 26 Days (And Live to Tell About It), shares how creating a time frame for your project can help you reach your writing goal and offers specific advice for sticking with the challenge. Sara Gruen (Water for Elephants) and Erin Morgenstern (The Night Circus) wrote their novels marathon-style. Maybe this tactic will work for you, too.

Finally, with his usual flair for words, Arthur Plotnik, author of The Elements of Expression, delivers meaty suggestions for overcoming writer’s block, as well as (dare we say) entertaining stories of famous writers who struggled themselves. “Sometimes when you finally hit bottom a survival resource kicks in—dramatically,” he writes. “For Carson McCullers, blocking on A Member of the Wedding at the Yaddo writer’s retreat, it was lying stomach-down on the ground and beating her fists on the manuscript and calling ‘Mother! Mother!’ Use no polite method,” he advises. Or, for a more dignified approach to getting out of a creative mess, read the rest of Arthur’s strategies in “You can conquer writer’s block.”

—Sarah C. Lange, associate editor

Biographer Robert Caro a force of nature

Ron Kovach — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 15:27:00 GMT

Chances are, serious fans of biography keep on eye on the writer who is one of the greatest practitioners in that genre, Robert Caro. The fourth volume of Caro’s biography of Lyndon Johnson, The Passage of Power, has just come out--38 years after he began work on volume one.

For Caro fans, two fine articles about him and his writing methods are now out and available online. First is Charles McGrath’s article in the April 12, 2012, issue of The New York Times Sunday Magazine. The magazine's cover headline was:

Robert Caro is a dinosaur…and thank God for that

The other article is Chris Jones’ Caro profile, titled “The Big Book,” in the May 2012 issue of Esquire.

Here’s a little flavor from McGrath’s piece:

“Caro is the last of the 19th-century biographers, the kind who believe that the life of a great or powerful man deserves not just a slim volume, or even a fat one, but a whole shelf full. He dresses every day in a jacket and tie and reports to a 22nd-floor office in a nondescript building near Columbus Circle [in New York City], where his neighbors are lawyers or investment firms. His office looks as if it belongs to the kind of C.P.A. who still uses ledgers and a hand-cranked adding machine. There are an old wooden desk, wooden file cabinets and a maroon leather couch that never gets sat on. Here Caro writes the old-fashioned way: in longhand, on large legal pads.”

I’ve been through the first volume of the LBJ epic and, like many Caro fans, will never forget his rendering of how electrification changed the lives of people in rural Texas. That section moved writer Stephan Harrigan to remark in The Texas Monthly in a 1990 profile of Caro, “He took … what should have been the most boring subject on earth—the advent of rural electrification—and turned it into a chapter called ‘The Sad Irons,’ which may be the most brilliant single passage of prose ever written about Texas.” (Caro, according to McGrath, spent several nights sleeping alone in a sleeping bag in Texas Hill Country to better understand rural isolation.)

Caro’s LBJ project is the ultimate in exhaustive, in-depth reporting, involving thousands of interviews; and perhaps, too, his attitude is the ultimate motivation for writers doing any type or length of biographical work. In carrying out some of his research at the Johnson Library in Austin, Texas, Caro has been the first writer to open some of the most revealing files there, McGrath says. “Over and over again,” he tells McGrath, “I’ve found crucial things that nobody knew about. There’s always original stuff if you look hard enough.”

-- Ron Kovach, senior editor, The Writer

Larry McMurtry’s talented son

Ron Kovach — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 16:10:00 GMT

When a friend asked if I wanted to hear James McMurtry perform at Shank Hall in Milwaukee last week, I figured what the heck. Being quite snug in my usual musical orbit of jazz/blues/R&B/classical, I thought the change would do me good, broaden my horizons a bit. It did.

Because James is the son of the famous Texas novelist Larry McMurtry and I knew nothing about him, I wondered whether he would be some average musical talent riding on daddy’s coattails. He’s nothing of the sort. He is a seriously good songwriter and a smoking-good acoustical guitarist. (That’s him at left.) Stephen King has called him “the truest, fiercest songwriter of his generation.” And, while James' Dylanesque voice is the weakest part of his act, he makes it work, turns it into a style that serves his tunes well. Don’t know why, but the voice sounds better in person than it does on YouTube.

It was just James and his guitars, which included a rich 12-string, and it was a big sound, full of passion and rhythm. He paints word pictures in his songs just like his daddy does in novels. My friend, born and raised near the Kansas flatlands, has loved Jame McMurtry’s music for years because it speaks to him about the kinds of characters and landscape and incidents he grew up with. Here’s a little flavor of James’ lyrics, from the tune “Lights of Cheyenne”:

Look off down the highway

at the glittering lights

Like windshield glass

on the shoulder tonight

As the diesels come

grinding on up from the plains

All bunched up like pearls on a string

And I guess time don't mean nothin'

Not nothin' at all

And out on the horizon

the broken stars fall

Old broken stars they

fall down on the land

And get mixed together

with the lights of Cheyenne

James seems offbeat and terse like his father (at least as dad comes across in newspaper articles). My guess, though, is that if you approached him with a little caution and courtesy, he might turn out to be pretty friendly (and full of stories).

The day after the concert I looked up some interviews to learn more about him and wound up finding a new book to read. Interviewer William Michael Smith, for the Houston Press, asked James about his favorite Larry McMurtry novel. “Cheyenne is certainly a standout in his early work, but Duane's Depressed is still the one for me,” he said. “It's just about perfect. Dad said he knew right from the start that one was just going to work. He said it was like knowing you were going to hit a home run before you'd even stepped in the batter's box.”

I ran out and got Duane’s Depressed from the library and am now nearly done with it. It’s very enjoyable, both poignant and funny.

-- Ron Kovach, senior editor, The Writer

A basic skill every writer needs: sentence building

E Abbe — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:49:00 GMT

In addition to presenting “Top Ten Things to Know About Getting Published Today” at the San Francisco Writers Conference, I had the opportunity to visit other sessions by top-notch presenters, such as Constance Hale, author of Sin and Syntax, whose “Principles to Take your Prose Up a Notch” was a succinct, witty and inspiring reminder that no prose should go unpolished. Compelling stories, she said, begin with compelling sentences. Consider “every sentence a mini-narrative.” So build your story on the strongest foundation with concrete nouns and active verbs. She offers more good stuff on her blog. Hale’s new book Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch, will be out from W.W. Norton in the fall. In the meantime, watch for her posts in the "Draft" series of the New York Times Opinionator blog.

-- Elfrieda Abbe, senior contributing editor at The Writer
@literaryworker

Fun in the sun

Ron Kovach — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 15:41:00 GMT

At The Writer we just put the June issue to bed, and the ridiculously balmy (by Wisconsin standards) March weather made it easy for us to connect with one of the articles: a roundup of “25 great beach reads” for the summer.

We deliberately went after a good variety of contributors to this article and I think you’ll find some new titles for your list, regardless of your reading taste. The mix includes suspense novels (but of course), good chick lit, memoir, biography and actors’ autobiographies.

Chipping in with suggestions were Stephanie Dickison, Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, Jeff Ayers and Jack Brady, as well as my magazine colleagues Sarah Lange and Martha Lundin and yours truly.

Look for the June issue in early May. Other highlights in that issue include writing insights from four top fiction writers: Pat Conroy, Maeve Binchy, John Jakes and T.C. Boyle. Why not learn from some of the best?

-- Ron Kovach, senior editor, The Writer

Can books change the world?

E Abbe — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 17:24:00 GMT

Michael Larsen, who with Elizabeth Pomada directs the San Francisco Writers Conference, is a great believer in using writing as a tool for change. At this year’s conference he moderated the inspiring panel discussion “Being a Change Agent: Writing for a Better World.” Larsen’s passionate belief that books can change the world might be linked to San Francisco’s creative roots. In a San Francisco Examiner essay written in 1977, he had this to say about what then was a visionary book coming out of the city, the Whole Earth Catalog:

“…the vision of the “Whole Earth Catalog” was do-it-yourself reliance, small-scale living, the unity of nature, and our responsibility for Spaceship Earth. This lifestyle replaces:

* the artificial with the natural
* consumption with simplicity
* possessions with experience
* economic growth with personal growth
* the desire for more with the need for enough”

Sound familiar? These ideas planted the seeds of sustainable agriculture, going Green, the DIY movement and buying locally grown food.

The panelists consisted of publishers who also believe that books can be part of change: Georgia Hughes of New World Library, Jan Johnson of Red Wheel, and Jeevan Sivasubramanium of Berrett-Koehler. It’s one thing to write a book you think will change the world, another to get it published. Without getting too caught up in the idealistic, Sivasubramanium offered some practical advice.

“Many people have great ideas for nonfiction books that help change the world politically or socially that help individuals grow in spirit and purpose.” The question to ask is: Does the world need this book? He offered seven questions you to ask yourself when formulating a book proposal.

What about you: Do you think writers can bring about change? What books have in some way changed your life?

-- Elfrieda Abbe, senior contributing editor at The Writer

3 tips for conference newbies

Sarah C. Lange — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 20:04:00 GMT

Last week senior editor Ron Kovach and I (pictured above) headed to Chicago for the annual AWP conference. Thanks to everyone, especially our readers and contributors, who stopped by The Writer’s booth to say hello.

Maybe you didn’t make it to AWP this year, but you’ve chosen another conference that’s right for you. How can you make the experience worth your time?

Prepare. Review the conference schedule before you get there to plan out what sessions you want to attend. This is particularly helpful if you’re going to a conference such as AWP or ASJA, where you don’t need to register for a lot of the individual events ahead of time. Bring business cards and practice your elevator pitch.

Schedule fun events and time for yourself. A large conference like AWP can be overwhelming, so don’t make your whole day about networking and information gathering. Attend readings or check out a jazz club (Thanks, Ron!) during the evening. Don’t feel pressured to make it a late night, though. If your body is telling you to take it easy, relax in your room with a good book and get in a full night of sleep. You’ll feel much better the next morning facing another full day of activities and/or travel.

Follow up. If you introduced yourself to an editor at a pitch session—or during an informal encounter—hoping to land an assignment, be sure to follow up with a query or submission. At the least, you can send a quick thank-you message with a promise to send story ideas soon—that is, if that’s your plan. Don’t waste your opportunity, and don’t worry if something doesn’t pan out right away. If you make a good impression, an editor might come to you with an assignment later.

Finally, if you’re concerned about the cost of a conference, see Joyce B. Lohse’s “10 reasons you can afford a writing conference” in our April issue, which also includes a list of more than 50 upcoming conferences as well as a closer look at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference in June. The issue hits newsstands March 13.

—Sarah C. Lange, associate editor

A sendoff for our publisher, Elfrieda Abbe

Ron Kovach — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 16:13:00 GMT

At a staff lunch and company-wide sendoff over the last few weeks, we fondly bid adieu to The Writer’s publisher and former editor, Elfrieda Abbe, who retired. (That's her in the photo at left.)

Naturally, we harbor a special affection for those who hire us to a job we covet, and I’ll always have Elfrieda to thank for giving me my first chance at magazine work a decade ago after 24 years at newspapers.

But beyond that, she’s been a real pleasure to work with, and so steadfast and talented in remaking and guiding The Writer under a new owner. In between work duties, you could talk to Elfrieda about anything under the sun, but for us it was usually books, writers, movies, music, family, food, sports and travel. (I hope I didn’t leave anything out.)

At The Writer we’ll miss the charming, gentle woman with a sly wit, but wish her well in retirement. I’m sure we’ll stay in touch, and you’ll continue to see her articles in the magazine. Given all of Elfrieda’s interests, I think retirement will suit her just fine.

We also welcome aboard our new publisher, Terry Thompson, and look forward to working with him.

-- Ron Kovach, senior editor, The Writer

On the way to AWP in Chicago

Ron Kovach — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 22:35:00 GMT

My colleague Sarah Lange and I are off on the Amtrak Hiawatha on Wednesday morning to the big AWP writing conference in Chicago, where we’ll join about 9,000 other attendees, including representatives of more than 550 publishers. (AWP, by the way, stands for The Association of Writers & Writing Programs. I sort of think of it as The Association of Every English Professor and MFA Student in America.)

Sarah and I will be manning and womaning The Writer’s booth at the Bookfair, so if you’re in the area please stop by and say hello. We’ll be at booth #706.

And if you need further incentive to visit our table, how’s this: You’ll be able to register there for a free drawing for a $199 Kindle Fire.

-- Ron Kovach, senior editor, The Writer

The novel that just keeps on giving

Ron Kovach — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:04:00 GMT

If you're a fan of the book (1960) or film version (1962) of To Kill a Mockingbird, I can highly recommend the recent documentary Hey, Boo: Harper Lee & To Kill a Mockingbird, by Mary McDonagh Murphy. I caught up to it on Netflix streaming and found it very well done. (The documentary’s DVD cover is at left.)

Writers especially will enjoy the interviews with the likes of Wally Lamb, Anna Quindlen, Richard Russo, Scott Turow, Allan Gurganus, Rick Bragg and Lee Smith. Among other literary issues the film discusses are a real case of good, old-fashioned writer jealousy, and the possibility that hitting a grand-slam home run on your first novel, as Harper Lee did, may not be the best thing for a writer. (Mockingbird has since sold some 30 million copies worldwide.)

Of course, the notoriously publicity-shy Ms. Lee herself would not give an interview for the film, but the director worked hard to make up for her absence. Fans of the film will particularly enjoy the interview with Mary Badham, the actress who played Scout at age 10.

-- Ron Kovach, senior editor, The Writer

What a former book editor learned

Ron Kovach — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:02:00 GMT

Chris Pavone has been getting a lot of early buzz for his first novel, The Expats, and it’s no wonder: The spy thriller has earned starred reviews in Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal and Booklist, as well as other raves. And this is a month before the book is even officially published, on March 6.

“Fans of John le Carre and Robert Ludlum,” wrote Publishers Weekly, “will welcome [this] meticulously plotted, psychologically complex spy thriller. . . . The sheer amount of bombshell plot twists are nothing short of extraordinary, but it’s Pavone’s portrayal of Kate [his protagonist] and her quest to find meaning in her charade of an existence that makes this book such a powerful read.”

But what also got my attention in the same magazine was the author’s comment in a Jan. 6 interview. It turns out that Pavone (pictured at left; photo by Nina Subin) is a former book editor, having worked at a number of publishing houses over nearly two decades. PW asked him, “In what way did your experience as a book editor affect the way you approached writing The Expats?"

Pavone’s answer: “As a book editor, you need to pitch every one of your books again and again, dozens of times, for months on end. From a quick conversation with your boss or a letter that’ll be read by just one person, to a five-minute speech in front of 50 colleagues or cover copy that’ll be in front of millions of eyes. So when I was working on The Expats, I kept that eventual pitch in mind, helping me focus on what was most compelling about the story I was trying to tell.”

To read the entire interview, click here.

-- Ron Kovach, senior editor, The Writer

Resisting the tide

Ron Kovach — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:09:00 GMT

In a cover interview in the February issue of Keyboard magazine, the brilliant jazz pianist Keith Jarrett drops an arresting line in one of his answers. Never one to mince words, he laments “this stupid world we live in” in the context of people’s ability and willingness to engage in sustained concentration. He is talking, in part, about the audience for great music, but more, too. He explains:

“ … You can feel the attention span of the world dwindling; you can feel people not paying attention to things that are difficult. When I read a book, I try to sacrifice myself to the book, even if it doesn’t occur to me until 400 pages into it what the voice of the writer is like. Then finally I get it. If I didn’t go that far, I would have never figured it out.”

From this much-traveled man a great line to ponder: “You can feel the attention span of the world dwindling …” There are many reasons, of course, for this short-focus problem, beginning, in my view, with technology and visual media, but also the failure of many parents to regularly read to their small children and engage in other activities that develop young attention spans, and to restrict television viewing.

One of the means by which the adult can purposefully try to counteract the “stupid world” of which Jarrett speaks is a quiet room. So simple and, amid our technological blizzard, so ironic. Doesn’t have to be big. Just a quiet room, and no interruptions. In this way, you read a great short story word for word, listen to a great symphony or concerto end to end, enter entirely into every note of a jazz improvisation, get thoroughly immersed in a novel. (Pascal: “All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”)

Lately, for me, I’ve tried to slow the world down and lengthen focus by getting on a biography kick—currently, the wartime story of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt (by Doris Kearns Goodwin); upcoming, Michael Slater’s life of Dickens, Janet Browne’s second volume on Darwin, and John Lewis Gaddis’ new biography of George Kennan. It is a genre that, when well done, takes you deeply into another time and life and helps you understand the arc of a notable human journey.

Later on at dinner, though, I’ll have the iPod on for some music, and of this Mr. Jarrett would probably heartily disapprove. “The listening part—today it seems like it’s bits and pieces, and ‘What’s your favorite track?’ ” he says in the interview. “People walk around with a thousand tracks on their little machines. But it is a process, and the awareness of the process is being lost.”

-- Ron Kovach, senior editor, The Writer

What motivates your characters?

Sarah C. Lange — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 14:53:00 GMT

We’re told that to create an engaging story we need to know what motivates our characters. What do they want? What do they long for? What’s at stake?

“Motivation, based on a character’s beliefs, family, and environmental and cultural background, provides a trajectory for characters to act and grow on. Motivations compel action, create goals in scenes, and drive characters to achieve goals,” writes Jessica Page Morrell in Thanks, But This Isn’t for Us. “Motivations provide characters with credible reasons for their actions.”

So what might drive your character? Consider these 8 motivators:

1. Home/a place in the world. Think of (the literal) stories about orphans as well as coming-of-age tales and characters moving to a new town (or country).

2. Meaning/purpose. You could write about a character who decides to take a risk and follow her dream. Or who finds, or loses, his faith.

3. Knowledge/wisdom. Could be an intellectual or a spiritual quest. Is your character seeking answers? Is she a student—or a teacher?

4. Connection/love/friendship. Maybe your character desires romance and/or marriage. Jeffrey Eugenides’ recent novel The Marriage Plot gives this type of story an interesting modern spin. Or perhaps you’re more interested in delving into bonds of the platonic variety.

5. Wealth/financial gain. Ebenezer Scrooge (pictured above) initially thinks of success in monetary terms, though his motivations famously change.

6. Revenge. Look no further than the classic revenge tales “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe and The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.

7. Fame/recognition. You might dream up a character focused on a career in the spotlight, or maybe he merely wants to be honored for all the hard work that he feels goes unnoticed.

8. Justice. Lee Child’s Jack Reacher helps strangers because he believes it’s the right thing to do.

Of course, this list is hardly comprehensive. “Boredom as a motivation is vastly underrepresented in literature,” Francine Prose, author of My New American Life, told Sarah Anne Johnson in an upcoming interview for The Writer. “People think everyone does something out of a passionate need for this or an intellectual desire for that. But I think people do a lot of things because they think it’s going to be interesting.”

For a nuanced discussion of character motivation, see novelist Aimee Bender’s essay in The Writer’s Notebook: Craft Essays From Tin House, in which she warns against oversimplifying: “We’ve been trained to believe that psychology is cause and effect, but, actually, our motivations are complicated and messy, and how our actions tie into our motivation isn’t always clear.”

And for more help with motivation, check out Robert Olen Butler’s From Where You Dream as well as:

Gotham Writers’ Workshop instructor Brandi Reissenweber’s tips for coaxing out the conflict of your story
Memoirist Gregory Martin's checklist for characterization and conflict
Catherine M. Wallace’s advice for giving your work subtlety by turning the methods of professional mediators inside out
Wallace’s form for determining character motivation

—Sarah C. Lange, associate editor

All wired on 'The Wire'

Ron Kovach — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:52:00 GMT

I just completed the five full seasons of HBO’s The Wire and am suffering withdrawal pangs. I’m not sure why, but this show and I failed to connect when it was first shown. Fortunately, two of my current magazine colleagues, one former colleague, and both of my children urged me to give it another try, and I’m so glad they did. I’m prepared to argue that it is indeed the finest drama in television history, and an even greater achievement than The Sopranos, which is really saying something. I’ve never had television characters seep into my pores and linger in the memory like these. Bubbles, Omar, Marlo Stanfield, Lester Freamon, Stringer Bell, Major Rawls, Proposition Joe, the unforgettable McNulty and Bunk Moreland … the list goes on.

* * *

Just finished a fine sports biography that was, unfortunately, marred by sloppy copy editing. I thought that the four or five hideous dangling participles and many unnecessary uses of passive voice would be the extent of it, until I stumbled last night on a bad misspelling (of the word camaraderie). And this from an imprint of Penguin no less. The writer, who did an impressive amount of interviewing and research for the book, deserved better. Of course, you can also say the first line of defense against such errors is the writer, not the copy editor.

* * *

The grunts and groans I hear Christmas Eve may be from an overloaded Santa toppling down the chimney. I think old jelly-belly might be bringing yours truly the new George Kennan biography, which I think is doorstop-size. I’m on a major biography kick lately; a life of Charles Dickens might also be on the way. My colleague Jeff Reich, editor of The Writer, is very knowledgeable about Dickens and recommended the Michael Slater biography. Lots of good reading for the long Milwaukee winter. Now if I can just train our cats to make the fire and bring me a hot chocolate.

Happy holidays to all of The Writer’s readers and contributors.

-- Ron Kovach, senior editor, The Writer

A literary comer

Ron Kovach — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:17:00 GMT

For me, the ultimate compliment to a book is when I let it not only retain a spot on an increasingly crowded bookshelf, but resolve to read it in its entirety a second time. That is the case with Tom Rachman’s debut novel, The Imperfectionists, which wowed critics and readers alike when it came out in 2010. (That’s the author at left; photo by Alessandra Rizzo.)

In giving the novel a starred review, Publishers Weekly, nicely nutshelled the story: “In his zinger of a debut, Rachman deftly applies his experience as foreign correspondent and editor to chart the goings-on at a scrappy English-language newspaper in Rome. Chapters read like exquisite short stories, turning out the intersecting lives of the men and women who produce the paper.”

You don’t have to have any newspaper background at all to really enjoy this book and its finely chiseled portraits. Our contributor Mary Curran Hackett, herself a novelist (Proof of Heaven), turned in an engaging How I Write interview with Rachman that I think you’ll find very interesting. This guy’s the real deal, with a bright literary future. Look for Mary’s article in our February issue, which comes out in early January.

* * * * *

I can’t close without eating some crow. Being, like much of Wisconsin, a Green Bay Packers freak, I managed to work a game prediction into last week’s blog that managed to be oh so wrong. The Pack, of course, whipped the Detroit Lions, maintaining an undefeated record. That’s what I get for straying from literary topics.

-- Ron Kovach, senior editor, The Writer

Holiday wishes from The Writer

Ron Kovach — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 17:04:00 GMT

Happy Thanksgiving to all our readers and contributors. At The Writer offices in suburban Milwaukee, it’s been a quiet holiday week, with half the staff away on vacations. My colleague Sarah Lange and I have been steering the ship in their absence, managing, so far, to avoid rocks and sandbars (though we had a close call).

I’ve been editing some articles for our April issue, plus diving for many hours into the query basket, where, due to a number of reasons, I’ve gotten behind this year. (My apologies to those query writers who’ve gotten a slower response than I would have liked.) I hope to be up to speed there in a few weeks.

Bookworms like me, and, I presume, most of our magazine’s readers, look forward to a long holiday weekend since it promises, along with great family time and great food, more time to read. Tonight I’m looking forward to finishing Keith Richards’ predictably drug-heavy memoir, Life, so that I can start Tom Nolan’s biography of the great crime-fiction novelist Ross MacDonald. Having finished Jhumpa Lahiri’s fine short-story collection Interpreter of Maladies, it’ll also be time to start a new story collection, by a different author. Haven’t decided yet who’ll get the nod.

All the literary, familial and culinary peasures of the holiday will, I hope, make up what I fear will be tomorrow’s first season loss by the Green Bay Packers, at the hands of the Detroit Lions, blemishing the Pack’s perfect 10-0 record. I hope I’m wrong, but I see Green Bay’s weaknesses finally catching up with them. But I'm a grown-up. I can handle this. I think.

Anyway, happy holiday to all.

-- Ron Kovach, senior editor, The Writer

Garrison Keillor does it on the fly

Ron Kovach — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 19:26:00 GMT

Like many people, I’ve long marveled at Garrison Keillor’s ability to spin a tale on A Prairie Home Companion. The more I read about him, the more it sounded like he had an uncanny ability to regularly make up his entertaining stories at high speed, and then fine-tune and deliver them as if he had had weeks to polish, rather than only a day or two.

Last weekend, one of my colleagues at Kalmbach Publishing Co., Mark Hembree, associate editor at FineScale Modeler magazine, got to see Keillor up close and confirm some of my impressions.

Mark is a talented fellow who leads a double life as both a magazine editor and a professional musician. As an acoustic bass player and back-up singer, he toured the world with the late Bill Monroe, frequently called “the father of bluegrass music.” He’s even performed on the Country Music Awards show and for presidents Carter (three times) and Reagan.

This past Saturday, he got to perform live on Prairie Home as part of an eight-musician tribute to Bill Monroe at Murray State University in Murray, Ky. This was some show—the band reached roughly 4 million listeners, plus another 4,000 or so sitting in front of them at Murray State. Not exactly your average bar gig. (That’s Mark in the photo at left.)

Mark got to ride in from Nashville airport with Keillor, eat dinner out with him and some other show people (the star picked up the tab), and watch him in action as the show was readied for broadcast. As Keillor worked up notes on his laptap during the drive from the airport, Mark wondered where he got his “starter dough” for his stories. (Now there’s a fresh literary metaphor, so to speak). “Pretty much from scratch,” Keillor said. Keillor indicated that the time pressure is good for him, that it “kicks him forward,” Mark said.

After writing the shows on Thursday and Friday, Keillor is “constantly making changes on the fly during rehearsals,” Mark reported. “He gives occasional directions. Things like, ‘Give me less of this, more of that.’ ”

A very talented, detail-oriented staff is another key ingredient, Mark says, and it helps that they've been producing this show for 30-plus years.

The boys in the band rolled in around 3 last Friday and rehearsed till around 7-7:30; then the actors came in.

Keillor is “sort of in his own world” before showtime. Mark says. “He’s aloof, not what you’d call effervescent, not given to small talk, a little Garrison-centric.

“I was just amazed at the volume of stuff he could turn in 48 hours.”

Sounds to me like Garrison has incredible powers of concentration.

-- Ron Kovach, senior editor, The Writer

A big literary boost

Ron Kovach — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 18:22:00 GMT

We’re always pleased at the magazine to hear about good things happening to our contributors. Earlier this month, one of our frequent contributors, novelist William Kowalski (pictured below), got the kind of rave writers dream about. Writing in the British national newspaper The Guardian, author Tom Cox paid tribute to Bill’s 2000 novel, Eddie’s Bastard, in an appraisal headlined:

Overlooked classics of American literature: Eddie's Bastard by William Kowalski
A warm-hearted saga that reads like the beginning of a career to rival John Irving's has been left unaccountably unloved

Cox begins his look back this way: “Plenty of people write novels at the age of 28 – zeitgeisty novels, slight novels, novels locked in place by their precocious youth – but few write one with the scope and maturity of Eddie's Bastard by William Kowalski. Two years shy of his 30th birthday … Kowalski, a creative-writing-degree dropout-turned teacher, gave us a debut which, while ostensibly a coming-of-age tale, takes in a sprawling family history going back from the 1980s to the American Civil War and beyond: a novel that in its rambling good nature and uncanny debutante's assurance, is as surprising, familial and immediately engaging as Kate Atkinson's Behind the Scenes at a Museum ... "

Find the entire article here. As it turns out, Bill, an American living in Nova Scotia with his family, has written the lead article for The Writer's February issue, headlined (tentatively):

10 questions for the new novelist:
Think you’re alone in having nagging doubts about your self, your talent and your story? Think again.

Look for that issue, and Bill's hard-won advice, in early January.

-- Ron Kovach, senior editor, The Writer

A small Jack Reacher for the big screen

Ron Kovach — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 15:47:00 GMT

Attention, Jack Reacher freaks (and that would include me and my Writer colleague Martha Lundin). In case you’re a fan of the hugely popular mystery series by Lee Child and missed the news, the first movie starring Jack, One Shot, is now filming and is expected in theaters in February 2013.

The 6-foot-5-inch, 250-pound Reacher--that rough-edged “noble loner” and drifter--is being played by the, uh, rather unimposing Tom Cruise. Significant portions of Reacher Nation (including Martha and me) have turned thumbs-down on the casting choice, though perhaps not as extremely as this blog-commenter: “Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher makes about as much sense as Kermit the Frog playing James Bond.”

Read more about the movie and the author’s take on it at Lee Child’s website.

Meantime, I got in line the other day at my local library for Child’s new Reacher novel, his 16^th, titled The Affair. How far down you are on a library’s reserve list is a pretty good indication of a book’s (and author’s) popularity. In this case, I’m 145^th in line out of 173 holds. Maybe by January?

-- Ron Kovach, senior editor, The Writer

Children's books, then and now

Jeff Reich — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 16:42:00 GMT

Maria Tatar, writing in The New York Times, looks at the changing standards for children’s books, comparing classics such as Peter Pan and Alice’s Adventure’s in Wonderland to modern works like Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book and Suzanne Collin’s trilogy The Hunger Games.

Tatar, chair of Harvard’s folklore and mythology program, and editor of the just released The Annotated Peter Pan, observes that “the traditional villains of children’s books [are] fabulous monsters with a touch of the absurd. Like Maurice Sendak’s Wild Things and countless others, they walk a fine line between horror and zany eccentricity. They may frighten young readers, but their juvenile antics strip them of any real authority. ...

“Many authors of more recent books for children and teenagers have similarly crossed over to the dark side, and we applaud them for it. But the savagery we offer children today is more unforgiving than it once was, and the shadows are rarely banished by comic relief. ... Children today get an unprecedented dose of adult reality in their books, sometimes without the redemptive beauty, cathartic humor and healing magic of an earlier time."

Is this good or bad? Tatar quotes Philip Pullman, author of the trilogy The Dark Materials, who sees a positive side to the shift to more realistic story lines: " ‘There are some themes, some subjects, too large for adult fiction. They can only be dealt with adequately in a children’s book.’ ” Tatar adds that this might explain why “so many adults can be found browsing books in the children’s section and why books for children and young adults dominate best-seller lists.”

“Still,” she concludes, “it is hard not to mourn the decline of the literary tradition invented by Carroll and Barrie, for they also bridged generational divides. No other writers more fully entered the imaginative worlds of children—where danger is balanced by enchantment—and reproduced their magic on the page. In today’s stories, those safety zones are rapidly vanishing as adult anxieties edge out childhood fantasy.”

What do you think about the tone and tenor of children’s literature today?

P.S. Here's a related post from FlavorWire, courtesy of Andre at Gotham Writer's Workshop: 10 children's books that are also great fun for adults. Enjoy!

Where in the world is The Writer?

Martha Lundin — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 20:18:00 GMT

The Writer is celebrating a big anniversary in 2012—125 years of publishing! We're planning some special things for our anniversary year, and one of them is our new photo gallery, "Where in the world is The Writer?"

We're looking for photos of our readers with an issue of The Writer — at any place or in any fashion that you think would make a fun photo. It could be in your backyard, in your Halloween costume, at your favorite coffee shop or an interesting landmark—you are limited only by your own creativity! (And the bounds of good taste and safety, please.) We'll publish one of the best photos from the gallery in The Writer each month in 2012.

We invite you to submit your photos to the gallery at this link: http://www.writermag.com/photos. To submit a photo, you must be a registered user, but you can view the photos without registering. If you're not registered, the website will take you through the brief (free) registration process when you upload the photo. Don't forget to add a creative description and title, too!

To start us off, The Writer has been in London and Roswell, N.M.--and in Milwaukee, above, where David Lange encourages The Fonz to get his own subscription to The Writer, and The Fonz famously signals his agreement.

We can't wait to see what you'll come up with!

--Martha Lundin, editorial associate for The Writer.

4 tips for writing memorable essays

Sarah C. Lange — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 21:22:00 GMT

The staff at The Writer is really excited about our new essay/memoir contest. Even though the deadline isn’t until Nov. 30, it’s not too soon to start thinking about topics and working them out on paper (or on your screen).

As editor of our magazine’s Off the Cuff column, I feel lucky to read many personal essays related to writing and the writing life and to select some of the most thoughtful, moving and occasionally humorous ones to share with our readers. I’ve learned a lot from reading them—and those that we don’t publish—and I hope that you’ll find these suggestions helpful in writing memorable essays of your own:

Have a takeaway for the reader. I heard another editor say this at a conference, and this may be the most important piece of advice when it comes to writing essays. Sometimes I see well-written pieces by writers who are passionate about their subject—but, unfortunately, they’re only writing for themselves and not offering much for their readers. It’s perfectly OK to write for yourself first, but then you should go back and ask yourself what readers might get out of your essay. If what you’ve written is a rant, could you soften it a bit and add some advice for others who may face a situation similar to the one you did, for example? Or maybe you could keep what you’ve written in your journal and come back to the topic after some time has passed. You might find that your perspective has changed, and that might interest readers. You don’t have to move readers to tears—laughter is a great alternative—but you should move readers to feel something. After all, wouldn’t you say that’s why you read essays?

Use your senses to provide descriptive details. You’ve heard this before, but writing that reflects all of the senses really does put the reader right there in your story with you. Writers are often good at incorporating visual elements, but smell is powerful. Even taste can be useful. Recently, I edited an essay in which the writer describes a (modest) sugar and wine binge after a disappointment, and you could feel the bad taste it left in her mouth, imagine a headache.

Don’t be afraid of incorporating dialogue. Certainly not every essay needs dialogue to be effective. Yet a patch of dialogue can be refreshing for the reader of essays, just as it is a nice way to break up exposition in longer works. Perhaps you can include a funny exchange in an otherwise serious piece. Play with the idea of dialogue, and, if it doesn’t work, you can take it out.

Let your personality show. Just as the voice of a character narrating his or her story in fiction can charm readers, so too can your voice cast a spell. Earlier today I turned down an essay for the magazine that wasn’t quite right for the column, but the narrative voice was so strong I felt compelled to relay that to the writer and encourage her. I’m not suggesting that you adopt a voice other than your own, but if you see the comic side of things or have a quirky take on events, let that shine through. That’s what will make your essay stand out.

You can find out more about our essay/memoir contest as well as read full-length articles about writing memoirs and essays right on this site. Plus, we have a terrific set of articles to help you get started writing and publishing essays, which we’ve packaged in a convenient download.

We look forward to your contest submissions!

—Sarah C. Lange, associate editor

New online column: Inspiration Zone

Sarah C. Lange — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 16:56:00 GMT

Here at WriterMag.com, we’re happy to offer another online-exclusive column, this one dedicated to keeping you inspired. Brandi-Ann Uyemura (at left), a freelance writer and contributor to The Writer magazine and this website, has been blogging for several years about writing, creativity and things that move her. In her Inspiration Zone columns, she’ll share practical tips as well as techniques to motivate you.

In addition to her writing, Brandi, who earned a master’s in counseling psychology, works as an associate editor at Psych Central, “the Internet’s largest and oldest independent mental health and psychology network,” which Time named one of the 50 best websites in 2008.

We asked Brandi to tell us about her own writing process as well as her plans for the column:

What inspires you?

For me, it may be easier to answer what doesn’t inspire me. I am inspired by anything that tickles my five senses, from the wind to the trees. Music, even a really delicious piece of chocolate cake or a whimsical pattern, an underdog. Something or someone who makes my heart skip a beat, which forces me to stop, take notice and feel grateful. Those are a few of my favorite (inspiring) things.

I took a hiking meditation class once. The teacher showed us how to use all our senses to capture each moment. She said to zoom in on one thing as if your eyes were a camera. Learning to focus and take notice really helped me to find inspiration in ordinary things that people sometimes miss and overlook.

How do you make the writing process fun?

I like this question because most writers wouldn’t ordinarily equate writing with fun. The process itself can be daunting. But I think there are ways to make it fun by being creative: Going on a mini-retreat, where I can see trees out my window and hear nothing but the sound of rain or horses or birds nearby. Splurging on a new pen or a notebook helps, too.

Do you have a routine that helps you get into a writing zone or creative flow?

I know of a writer who has to write in the morning or else his day is shot. For me, I can write in the day or the night. I guess my routine is not having one. All I really need is a quiet space, enough sleep the night before and something to write with. If I’m really having a difficult time getting started, I’ll listen to instrumental music, read or meditate.

What do you enjoy most about writing?

The act of creating. I love the process of seeing an idea come to life kind of like Frankenstein’s monster. There is also that delicious part of writing where you feel like what you write may impact another. That type of writing always gives me goose bumps.

What can we expect from your column?

Writing can feel like being in a marathon. There are moments when you want to give up, when you think you won’t ever reach your goals. It’s a psychological race with yourself to finish. My hope is to provide you with fresh new ways of perceiving the writing process. Expect tips and inspiration to motivate you on your journey, making it a whole lot more palatable and even fun in the process.

Find Brandi’s column the third Wednesday of the month. Look for the “Columns” tab on the home page, and select “Inspiration Zone.” (We’ll also post links to the latest columns on our Facebook page and in our Twitter feed.) In Brandi’s debut column, she suggests five ways to get inspired. We hope that you will feel more inspired, and be sure to let us know what works for you!

—Sarah C. Lange, associate editor