Monday, November 3, 2014

Time for another goodbye . . .  and some words to carry on

Another Friday and another person leaving The Seattle Times. This one was especially close to me, and not posting what Kathy Triesch Saul had to say here would probably make home life very difficult. Especially since her retirement means she will be home more and I happen to live in that home, too.

Kathy worked at The Seattle Times for 38 years, filling more jobs than I ever did there: copy editor, slot person, assistant city editor, politics editor, investigative team editor, food writer, magazine editor. I probably missed a few, but this gives you an idea of what a talented person she is.

It's been great fun and an honor to work in a newspaper newsroom for so many years, and Kathy expresses her gratitude from top to bottom. Then she reminds journalists to use their time wisely: Think more, worry less.

All this on Halloween, no less.

Click here to see and hear what Kathy had to say

Thursday, October 2, 2014


 "News organizations need to stay alive"

Yesterday I went to a "cake torture," which is what the The Seattle Times staff calls a farewell party for a departing employee. This one was for Carol Ostrom, a reporter at The Times since 1980. 
The cake torture went as they usually do: Embarrassing stories about the departing person, gag gifts and finally, cake.
Right before the cake, Carol got a chance to talk to those who will carry on. I found her words inspiring and worth passing along. 
I especially address this to those former students who may now be wondering why I encouraged them to go into a field with fewer and fewer jobs and lower and lower pay, not to mention a changing technological landscape that has them working harder to tell their stories in blogs, tweets, in video and audio. And there are undoubtedly more changes on the way. More disruptions and more financial upheaval for the industry.
To those former students, I say, "Listen to Carol." She gives good reasons for why it is worth carrying on -- and why it's still a fun way to spend your life.
(I left it as Carol wrote it. As a retired reporter, she deserves to be free of editors.)

Carol's goodbye address to The Seattle Times

Carol Ostrom
They say if you’re nervous, you should just imagine your audience naked.
thank god some of you are standing in the back.
There are some people here who have secret instructions to yell out EMBARRASSING things if I start to lose it, which I most certainly will. they might have to do with youthful indiscretions at a journalism convention, a hot tub, hotel security police at 2 a.m. Possibly.
2. I STUMBLED INTO JOURNALISM in the 1970s, like oh so many english majors who WANTED TO get out into the real world. 
Ross Anderson
THE IRE CONVENTION IN 1975 OR SO WAS IN a big, crowded, noisy room, heavy with the smell of booze and cigarettes. Most people were dressed a bit like my former colleague, the more-than-slightly rumpled Ross Anderson.
They were all the I-words -- INTELLIGENT, irreverent, iconoclastic, idealistic -- and sacred-cow free. They wanted answers to life’s persistent questions, they believed in the people’s right to know stuff, in the importance of newspapers in maintaining Democracy and that we should all be wary of the Military Industrial Complex. 
I said to myself then: These are my people. I’ll do what it takes to walk among them.
3. I came to The Seattle Times in 1980 after working at two weekly papers -- where a shy kid from Bothell learned to ask strangers a lot of impertinent questions.
In my application clips, I included a story I’d written criticizing The Times -- and they still hired me. Later, when something I wrote had advertisers threatening to boycott the Times, the executive editor backed me up. Publisher Frank Blethen, even when he was running the anti-death-tax campaign from his office, didn’t mess with my news story that found evidence contrary to his point of view.
When i came to The Times, the air in the newsroom was thick with smoke from cigs cigars pipes. and at first, women were very scarce. but from the beginning, there was a sense of purpose and being able to make a difference. I was hooked.
4. Ross, busy taking prostitutes to dinner to help investigate rampant corruption and bribery in the police department, became my sartorial mentor.
I learned from everything -- every encounter, every story, every source, every mistake. And most of all, from every colleague.
 5. There were -- and are now -- so many brains in this room, so much talent and skill. We have one big advantage -- we know so much more -- collectively -- than that solitary guy in the basement blogging away in his boxer shorts with the little doggies on them.
Together, we know the history and twists of politics, health care, education, science, culture and just about everything in our region. 
i know we’ve all been focused on creating the future medium for news, which is very important. But to take advantage of our collective knowledge -- to offer something that no other media enterprise can -- we have to learn from one another. 
Together, we are big, smart and unstoppable. Separated, not so much. 
Now that we’re so small, we each work so hard, such long hours, so fast, so much to do, it’s hard to take time to connect -- ESPECIALLY FOR REPORTERS. But even though I rarely had time to do it, I do believe it’s crucial for survival -- of us personally and professionally -- and also for survival of The Times. 
5. News organizations need to stay alive because what we do is the key to democracy. I personally need the Seattle Times to stay alive because my pension will pay for that one weekly latte.
6. Now I have to get out of here before I have to learn something even more awful than Methode. I have used up my lifetime quota of mouse clicks.
I hope I’m not closing the door forever -- I will miss you too much, dammit. All of you here are the best, hardest working, funniest, most principled and just plain swell colleagues a working girl could ever have. 
And now, Andrisevic, you can take my fucking desk chair.

Monday, November 4, 2013

Simon Winchester's necessities for non-fiction books

Simon Winchester read from his new book at Seattle's Central Library last Wednesday night, and as part of his talk he discussed the three needed elements for a successful non-fiction book.

First of all, he said there has to be a good idea. As a newly naturalized citizen of the United States, he sorted through several ideas until he struck "on the word 'united' in the United States." How did that come to be? How had it managed to last?

You might think the next necessity would be decent writing. He said no, the next important thing is structure, some way of organizing the book that makes sense to the reader.

Once again he sorted through several ways of structuring the book -- chronological, by important people in American history, etc. -- until a relative reminded him of the Chinese system of elements: wood, earth, water, fire and metal (there's a sixth -- air). That seemed to him to be a way to put the book in order, although he worried that following a Chinese system might be off-putting to American readers. In my review of the book for The Seattle Times, I did not mention this organizational structure. I thought it a bit strange, but not off-putting. Had he followed it more strictly, or mentioned it more often, I might have found it intrusive. But it stays in the background, guiding the development of the book but not getting in the way.

Last necessity? That would be decent writing, of course. You'll find lots of that in the book.

Friday, October 4, 2013

Find a new angle and always gather string

Whether you like sports or not, this is a great article that should remind writers of two things: Find a new angle to a well-covered topic and always gather string.

Ken Norton's death meant many writers would be eulogizing the 1970's boxer who fought Muhammed Ali three times. This author found a way to do so that brings a fresh approach and tells us something even the most ardent boxing fan might not know about Norton.

Also notice that Leigh Montville, the author, got the information from an interview he did with Norton in 1995. Like all good hoarders, writers should keep bits of string, roll them in a ball to be unrolled and used who knows when. Save your notebooks, mark them so you can find that bit of information you need to take a new angle or provide background in a new piece you are writing. If you have your notes online, start files to keep it all straight. You might even consider developing a spreadsheet as a master file of where your interview notes or past stories are kept.

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Zinsser keeps teaching despite blindness

For the past four years when I have taught the non-fiction writing class at the Professional and Continuing Education program at the University of Washington, I have used William Zinsser's book "On Writing Well." It's my preference probably because I agree with nearly everything he says there: Make sure every word is doing work, etc.

He's right in line with my goal of getting the most meaning out of the fewest number of words -- OK, I'm in line with his purpose in non-fiction writing, not the other way around.

All these many words to introduce a New York Times story on what Zinsser, at age 90, is doing now. Have a look.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

This looks like a really good book to have

Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction

by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd




Tracy Kidder (The Soul of a New Machine) and his longtime editor, Richard Todd, are rock stars of narrative nonfiction. When they talk about their art and craft, you'd be wise to listen. In Good Prose they share both practical editing advice and general narrative recommendations relating to things like structure, point of view, style and voice. Rather than just collaborating on a single seamless text, however, each intersperses his own thoughts amid the guidelines and examples. The resulting easygoing ramble on good writing is as entertaining as it is useful.

It is hard to avoid aphorisms in this sort of book, and Kidder and Todd are not afraid to include several. For example, in discussing where to start a work, they caution that "the heart of the story is a place to arrive at, not a place to begin." In a discussion of authorial voice, they advise "if you can't imagine saying something aloud, then you probably shouldn't write it." Fortunately, they break the schoolhouse rules with pertinent quotations from many nonfiction writers (from Montaigne to David Foster Wallace) and personal commentaries on Kidder's own books.

When thousands of books, tweets, 'zines and blogs confront readers every day, perhaps the best advice Kidder and Todd have for writers is to first ask themselves: "Who am I to be writing this? Who asked me? Who cares?" Honest answers here might mercifully cut down the clutter. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.
Discover: An entertaining, useful ramble about good writing by a Pulitzer Prize-winning master and his longtime editor.
Random House, $26 hardcover, 9781400069750

The alumni speak

From Steve:

I am working on a project to create concerts in August at the Panama Hotel inspired by history mentioned in the novel Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.

4Culture provided significant grant funding and I set up a blog at http://holdenontooscar.blogspot.com/ to chronicle my progress. Hope you can attend!

In April I will find out if I was accepted to a Biography Fellowship at CUNY. Even if that doesn't pan out, the process of applying helped focus my book project.

-Steve Griggs
http://stevegriggsmusic.blogspot.com/

From Viv

Along with a friend, I just started a new Meetup: Seattle Social Media Meetup. We are having our first meeting on Wednesday, February 6th. The meeting day will always be the first Wednesday of the month.

This group has been needed for a long time so people are jumping on it pretty quick. We have only had it up 2 days and have not publicized it anywhere yet, but had 10 people join just last night! It will be a collaborative, supportive, informative group. We plan to have a speaker each month. (I know this won't mean much to all of you, but we are modeling this after the Seattle WordPress Meetup which is a phenomenal group.)

Starting this group is directly aligned with my writing. I made the decision to spend this year focussing on building a platform; a following of fans. As part of that, I decided to set the book off to the side while I focus on blogging and social media. The writing and research I am doing on the blog will feed into the book eventually. But I realized I needed to "chunk out" the process and decided to make social media my first focus.

Over the holiday I focussed on getting my blog up and running solidly on self -hosted Wordpress plus invested the time to really learn Twitter. I launched my new plan just a week ago and have been blown away by the increase in traffic - to my blog and Twitter. The numbers may not look impressive yet but that is a big increase in followers and I also had a big leap in subscriptions. It is quite exciting! Twitter: @ejbrowne Blog: DancingUpsideDown.com

Hope to see some of you in February 6th.

Viv Ilo E. Veith
Cell: 206.696.8904
Twitter: @viviloveith
vividlyclear.com