Touring Whiskey Women

COLLEEN MOHYDE • (COPY) RIGHTS
JULY/AUGUST 2014
LITERARY SF • BULLETPROOF COPY
THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF JOURNALISTS AND AUTHORS
Touring
Whiskey
Women:
Hitting the Road,
Reaching Readers,
Selling Books
by Fred Minnick
WE WRITE WHAT YOU READ™
The
VOLUME 63
ª
NUMBER 7
ª
JULY/AUGUST 2014
Features
10
16
Voices on Writing:
Literary San
Francisco
Colleen Mohyde
BY BARBARA
DEMARCO-BARRETT
BY SARA GODWIN
AND LAURA DEL ROSSO
Columns & Departments
ASJA Mission & Administration ...... 4
Writing Life ...... 13
The Elusive Quest for Writing Success
From the President’s Desk ...... 5
BY JOHN MOIR
A Mission to Improve ASJA
Letter of the Law ...... 13
When Is it Okay to Sleep on Your (Copy) Rights?
BY RANDY DOTINGA
The Society Page ...... 6
BY DAVID LEICHTMAN
What’s in Store ...... 18
Websites &
Social Media Outposts ...... 9
2
THE ASJA MONTHLY
BY PAUL VACHON
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ASJAMONTHLY.ORG
Features
C1
C20
Touring Whiskey Women:
Perfecting Your Copy:
Hitting the Road, Reaching Readers,
Selling Books
Tips for Bulletproofing
your Words
BY FRED MINNICK
BY ELIZABETH KING HUMPHREY
Columns & Departments
Writing Business ...... C4
Wise Advice ...... C16
Veteran writers share their experience
Place Your Bets:
Finding Professional Liability Insurance
WITH THERESA SULLIVAN BARGER, ALISA BOWMAN,
GREG BREINING, FLORENCE ISAACS, JOBETH M CDANIEL,
ALINA TUGEND, MARCIA LAYTON TURNER,
AND RUSSELL WILD
BY TAM HARBERT
Inside ASJA ...... C5
WITH ALEXANDRA OWENS AND SHERRY BECK PAPROCKI
Market Reports ...... C18
Industry News ...... C6
Men’s Health and Men’s Fitness
BY LAIRD HARRISON
PayCheck ...... C10
Writing Life ...... C22
Writing Life ...... C13
Writing Op-Eds
What a Great Idea!
BY DENNIS BYRNE
BY HOWARD EISENBERG
Writing Business ...... C23
Custom Publications: Income Augmenter or Quagmire?
BY GARY M. STERN
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ASJA Mission and Administration
The
Founded in 1948, the American Society of Journalists and Authors is the nation’s
professional association of independent nonfiction writers. ASJA is a primary voice in
representing freelancers’ interests, serving as spokesperson for their right to control
and profit from the uses of their work in online media and elsewhere. ASJA brings
leadership in establishing professional and ethical standards, as well as recognizing
and encouraging the pursuit of excellence in nonfiction writing. Since 2010, the ASJA
Educational Foundation has been offering programming that covers all aspects of
professional independent writing for both established and aspiring writers. ASJA
headquarters is in New York City.
PUBLICATIONS CHAIR
Sherry Beck Paprocki
EDITOR
Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Dave Mosso
CONTRIBUTORS
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Theresa Sullivan Barger, Alisa Bowman,
Greg Breining, Dennis Byrne,
Laura Del Rosso, Randy Dotinga,
Howard Eisenberg, Sarah Godwin,
Laird Harrison, Elizabeth King Humphrey,
Florence Isaacs, Jobeth McDaniel,
Tam Harbert, David Leichtman, Fred Minnick,
John Moir, Alexandra Owens, Gary M. Stern,
Alina Tugend, Marcia Layton Turner,
Paul Vachon, Russell Wild, Minda Zetlin
PRESIDENT Randy Dotinga
VICE PRESIDENT Sherry Beck Paprocki
TREASURER Neil A. O’Hara
SECRETARY Brooke Stoddard
IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT Minda Zetlin
PAST PRESIDENT Salley Shannon
PROOFREADERS
CHAPTER PRESIDENTS
ARIZONA Jackie Dishner
BOSTON Sally Abrahms, Johanna Knapschaefer
CHICAGO AREA Joanne Y. Cleaver
EASTERN GREAT LAKES Sallie G. Randolph
NEW YORK CITY TRISTATE
Daylle Deanna Schwartz
NEW YORK DOWNSTATE Lisa Iannucci
AT-LARGE MEMBERS
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA D. Patrick Miller
TERMS ENDING 2015
Sandra Beckwith, Jennifer L.W. Fink,
Mickey Goodman
ROCKY MOUNTAIN Sandra E. Lamb
SAN DIEGO Gina McGalliard
SOUTHEAST Mickey Goodman
TERMS ENDING 2016
Damon Brown, Beverly Gray, Janine Latus
Theresa Sullivan Barger,
Amy Butell, Bettijane Eisenpreis,
Toni Goldfarb, Joan Heilman,
Irene S. Levine
TERMS ENDING 2017
Patchen Barss,
Jennifer Goforth Gregory, Laird Harrison
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
UPPER MIDWEST John Rosengren
WASHINGTON, DC Pat McNees, Emily Paulsen
POSTMASTER
Send address changes to:
The ASJA Monthly
American Society of Journalists
and Authors
1501 Broadway, Suite 403,
New York, NY 10036
STANDING COMMITTEE CHAIRS
INDUSTRY TRENDS Damon Brown
MEMBER NETWORKING Sally Stich
MEMBERSHIP Terry Whalin
AWARDS Salley Shannon
NOMINATING TBA
CONTRACTS AND CONFLICTS Kim Kavin
Phone: (212) 997-0947
Fax: (212) 937-2315
PAST PRESIDENTS Samuel Greengard
EXECUTIVE Minda Zetlin
PROGRAM (Currently vacant)
FINANCE Randy Myers
www.asja.org
PUBLICATIONS Sherry Beck Paprocki
FIRST AMENDMENT Claire Safran
Email: [email protected]
Newsletter Editor:
[email protected]
FORUM Robin DeMattia, Leslie Pepper
SHOP TALK (MEMBER PROGRAMMING)
Kevin Daum, Lynne Meredith Golodner
FREELANCE WRITER SEARCH Laird Harrison
2020 VISION COMMISSION Patchen Barss
HOSPITALITY Sherry Beck Paprocki
Creative Direction:
[email protected]
ASJA STAFF
© 2014 American Society of Journalists
and Authors, Inc.
WRITERS EMERGENCY
ASSISTANCE FUND BOARD
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Alexandra Owens
The ASJA Monthly (ISSN 1541-8928) is published
monthly, except for a combined July/August
issue, by the American Society of Journalists and
Authors, Inc., 1501 Broadway, Suite 403, New
York, NY 10036. Subscriptions: $120 per year as a
benefit of membership. Periodicals postage paid
at New York, NY, and additional mailing office.
The articles and opinions on these pages are those
of the individual writers and do not necessarily
represent the philosophy of ASJA. Please obtain
permission from ASJA and individual writers
before reproducing any part of this newsletter.
4
ADVOCACY Salley Shannon
ANNUAL WRITERS CONFERENCE
TBA
IT MANAGER Bruce W. Miller
CHAIR Paula Dranov
OFFICE MANAGER Lisa Jordan
DEPUTY CHAIR Gloria Hochman
SECRETARY Joan Rattner Heil­man
ASJA CHARITABLE TRUST
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Randy Dotinga (chair), Sherry Beck Paprocki,
Neil A. O’Hara
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Alexandra Owens
THE ASJA MONTHLY
BOARD MEMBERS
Phil Caputo, Fran Carpentier, Betsy Carter,
John Mack Carter (emeritus), Lisa Collier Cool,
Greg Daugherty, Dan Eldridge,
Katharine Davis Fishman,
Florence Isaacs, Julia Kagan, Caitlin Kelly,
Judy Twersky
ASJA EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Alexandra Owens
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From the President’s Desk
A Mission to Improve ASJA
BY RANDY DOTINGA
S
ometimes it takes a Jumbotron in Times Square to concentrate the mind.
A few months ago, the folks at PR Newswire invited me to take
part in a Twitter interview about writers’ rights. I answered questions about copyright and contracts while the company showcased
my face on the Reuters digital billboard at 43rd and Broadway.
Never one for shameless self-promotion, I only mentioned
this event on Facebook and Twitter about 8,000 times. I obviously inherited my tendency toward fragile shyness from my mother,
who controlled herself and just sent copies of a photo of the billboard to everyone she’s ever met or will meet.
Everybody else in the world got a break. She’s thoughtful like
that.
Like many parents of independent writers, Mom has always been a bit mystified by exactly how I make a living. Now
she’s more aware than ever before of my role with the American
Society of Journalists and Authors, but she’s still hazy about exactly what we do over here at the ASJA. Maybe you are too.
It’s time for that to change. To writers, editors and publishers, ASJA’s mission and purpose—not to mention our perspective—should be as loud and clear as a message on a Jumbotron.
I believe the ASJA must be a resource, a voice and an advocate for independent writers: Your resource, your voice, and your
advocate.
As ASJA’s new president, my mission is to boost our influence
in all three of these areas. I’ll talk about our role as a voice and
an advocate in a future column. But let’s start with the role that’s
most crucial to your bottom line: the ASJA as a resource.
The first and only rule of freelancing is that there are no
rules of freelancing. For every supposed iron-clad rule—never accept less than $1 a word, always get paid on acceptance—there are
plenty of writers, including ASJA members, who make a fine living by doing just the opposite.
We understand there are various paths to success, so we won’t
tell you what to do. But we will help you figure out what you’re
worth. We’ll help you decide if you should write that story for free
and we’ll teach you how to raise your profile and make more money.
Under the guidance of Minda Zetlin, the former president of
ASJA, we have several initiatives in place to fulfill our mission to
give writers the knowledge they need to make the right choices:
• We’re upgrading and reinvigorating the ASJA newsletter. It
will become a beefier and more prestigious publication with
more useful information about our world and more great reads.
Freelance writer Randy Dotinga is the president of
the American Society of Journalists and Authors.
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• We’ve overhauled our Freelance Writer Search service, which
links editors to writers, and we’re devoting more resources to
finding clients who want to buy your work.
• Following up on the success of last year’s ASJA Content
Connections conference in Chicago, we’re planning two more
regional conferences this year in San Francisco (Oct. 10-11) and
Chicago (Nov. 13-14).
• We’ve partnered with Writer Beware, North America’s top
publishing watchdog, and we’ll be working with its experts to
spread the word about the many scams that threaten writers.
• We are planning to publish an updated guide to freelance writing
so we can pass our combined knowledge to the public at large.
• Most importantly, we are figuring out how to improve ASJA’s
trademark event, the Annual Writers Conference.
As you may have heard, the finances of putting on a major
conference have become a challenge for us. But the conference is
vital to our mission, and we must keep it healthy for the long haul.
This past April, we brought together 568 people—publishers,
agents, editors, freelancers, authors, and more—to talk about the art
and business of writing. We resurrected the individual pitch sessions we used to call Personal Pitch, allowing more than 60 editors
and agents to make hundreds of connections with our members.
Going forward, it will be crucial for ASJA staff and leadership to make the conference financially viable without placing a
bigger financial burden on attendees. I spearheaded this year’s
unprecedented reduction in registration fees, and I’ll continue to
push for lower costs.
At the same time, we must improve the panels and workshops
to better meet the needs of ASJA members. We will find more publishers and editors who want to buy your work and help you meet
them. And we will offer more advanced sessions that offer expertise and insight to members who think they’ve seen it all before.
ASJA needs your support to accomplish all this. We welcome
your suggestions and, yes, your criticisms. While all of us in the
ASJA leadership are volunteers, we do have a job—working for
you. You’re our boss and my boss, so tell us how we’re doing.
And pitch in when you can. Our budget is small and our staff
is tiny, but the power of volunteers can make us a mighty force in
the worlds of journalism and publishing. Serve on a committee,
help organize the conference, write an article for the newsletter.
Revitalizing the ASJA isn’t going to be easy. To borrow my
mother’s favorite word, there might be a brouhaha or two. There
won’t be cake—your new president is a penny-pincher—and there
won’t be a cakewalk. But doing a better job of serving writers is
going to be mighty sweet. ¢
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The Society Page
New and Noteworthy Member Happenings
Marian
Calabro
Nancy Christie
A second edition of The Complete Gone With
the Wind Trivia Book by Pauline Bartel
was published in June, in honor of the film’s
75th anniversary. This major rewrite of the
1989 original continues the behind-thescenes chronicle of GWTW—the book, the
movie, and the phenomenon that continues
today. ThirdAge.com, the biggest health site for
Boomer and Beyond women since 1997.
Dr. Alma Bond’s latest book, Hillary
Clinton: On the Couch (Bancroft Press), is
the fourth “On the Couch” book to be published. Others in the series so far are Jackie
O, Marilyn Monroe, and Lady Macbeth.
Mickey Goodman signed a ghostwriting
contract for her third book. Hint: His name
might be unfamiliar, but his breakthrough
in pharmaceuticals changed the industry.
Her book with a Holocaust survivor, Nine
Lives of a Marriage: A Curious Journey, continues to sell well.
Marian Calabro’s company,
CorporateHistory.net, provided consulting, research, creative services, and project management for the 40th anniversary of NACHA—The Electronic Payments
Association, a national trade group.
Nancy Christie’s short story, “The
Answering Machine,” was recently published by Hypertext Magazine in its April
online edition. Christie also interviewed
Hypertext fiction editor Justin Bostian on
her Finding Fran blog (tinyurl.com/justinbostian) in May, talking about the fiction
editing process.
Judy Colbert
Judy Colbert is transitioning to a waterbased writer, covering human-interest stories about passengers, crew, destinations,
what makes a cruise ship tick, on cruise
ships, riverboats, freighters, etc.
Award winning California writer Diane
Covington-Carter’s new memoir, Reunion,
La Réunion, Finding Gilbert, chronicles how
she set out to find an orphan, Gilbert, whom
her father tried to adopt during his time in
France during World War II.
Diane
CovingtonCarter’s
Reunion...
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Sondra Forsyth’s 12th book, Candida
Cleanse: The 21-Day Diet to Beat Yeast and
Feel Your Best, was published by Ulysses
Press in May. She currently co-edits
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Margie Goldsmith’s story, “Top Suites in
NYC,” is featured in the May/June issue of
Elite Traveler Magazine. Her profile on Epic
Road founder Mark Lakin is featured in
Executive VIP Aviation International.
Mickey
Goodman
The CUNY Journalism Press under editor
Tim Harper has published The Illustrated
Courtroom: 50 Years of Court Art, the first
major retrospective of art from major trials
over the past half century, from Jack Ruby
to Manson to O.J. to Michael Jackson to
Martha Stewart. ASJA member Sue Russell
wrote the behind-the-scenes commentary.
For more: press.journalism.cuny.edu.
Laird Harrison launched a new blog on
preventing sports injuries at sportswithoutinjury.com. In addition, he has qualified
as a personal trainer through the American
College of Sports Medicine. And his novel,
Fallen Lake received the second-place award
for a book of fiction from California Press
Women.
First place honors went to Jennie
Helderman’s article “The Face of Courage,”
the story of Sandy Hook teacher Kaitlin
Roig who hid her children in the bathroom, published by The Key of Kappa
Kappa Gamma, Spring 2013. The Fraternity
Communications Association presented the
award to the alumnae magazine in May.
In March, Caitlin Kelly traveled to rural Nicaragua with WaterAid, a global nonprofit focused on improved access to toilets
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Laird Harrison
Jennie
Helderman
and clean water. She wrote three features
for them, traveling in a five-person team by
van, river barge, and dugout canoe to conduct interviews. Their Twitter chat gathered 10 million impressions.
Caitlin Kelly
Joanna L. Krotz
Joanna L. Krotz launched The Woman’s
Playbook: Your Guide to Business in the She
Economy, a weekly Internet radio show
for women entrepreneurs. Airing Live
Thursdays, 12 - 1 p.m., Eastern, on Talking
Alternative Broadcasting.
Sandra Lamb signed a book contract with
St. Martin’s Press to publish her next book
on business writing, which will come out
next year. This will add to her perennial
bestseller, How to Write It, now in its Third
Edition; and her latest book, published in
August by Random House, 3000 Power
Words and Phrases for Effective Performance
Reviews.
Cassandra Langer commented on
“What Happens After You Turn In Your
Manuscript,” part of the Biographers
International conference held in Boston.
Langer discussed All or Nothing: Romaine
Brooks 1874-1970, forthcoming from
University of Wisconsin Press (spring 2014),
commenting on permissions, copyrights,
and the difficulties of researching gay and
lesbian subjects.
Richard C. Levy
Judy L. Mandel
The third edition of Richard C. Levy
and Ronald Weingartner’s Toy and Game
Inventor’s Handbook: Everything You Need
to Know to Pitch, License, and Cash-In
on Your Ideas has been released through
Amazon.com for Kindle. Richard’s licensed
products include Furby (Hasbro), the animatronic creature that has sold more than
50 million units in 57 countries and 12 languages. In June, University Games will introduce Richard’s newest game, “Dirty
Words, The Game in The Plain Brown
Wrapper.”
Replacement Child by Judy L.
Mandel has been recognized as an excellent Autobiography/Memoir for
2013 by the Independent Publisher
Book Awards! Conducted annually, the
Independent Publisher Book Awards honor
the year›s best independently published titles from around the world.
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Randi Minetor’s latest books were released
in May and June by The Globe Pequot Press:
Hiking Waterfalls in New York and Scenic
Routes & Byways New York. She is currently
at work on Day Trips: Hudson Valley for the
same publisher, for a 2015 release.
Randi Minetor
Fred Minnick’s Whiskey Women won a
Silver medal at the Independent Publisher
Book Awards and has been selected a finalist for the ForeWord Nonfiction Book
of the Year and Tales of the Cocktail Book
of the Year. Fred Minnick signed a new
book deal. His agent, Linda Konner, sold
Bourbon Curious: A Simple Guide for the
Savvy Drinker to Zenith Press, an imprint of
England conglomerate Quartous. John Moir, an environmental journalist, will offer a workshop on Science and
Nature Writing at the Catamaran Writing
Conference in Pebble Beach, CA from
August 13- 17, 2014. The workshop will cover researching, pitching, and publishing
compelling stories about the natural world.
Fred Minnick
Amy Rogers Nazarov is now part of a
small stable of freelancers contributing to
the brand-new Street Smart feature in the
Washington Post magazine, which recently
underwent a significant redesign.
Mark Obbie is one of 14 newly named Soros
Justice Fellows. The fellowship pays journalists (among others) a generous stipend
to devote a full year of their attention to one
project. Obbie’s is a series of stories for Slate
magazine on gaps in crime victim services, and providing the victim perspective on
criminal justice reform.
Mark Obbie
Jerome M. O’Connor has found a new use
for articles produced over a long career in
journalism. By converting the written word
to images, features that appeared years ago
have new life as subject matter for Power
Point presentations at three colleges in the
Chicago area.
Cows Save the Planet and Other Improbable
Ways of Restoring Soil to Heal the Earth
(Chelsea Green Publishing) by Judith
Schwartz has received a Nautilus Book
Award Silver Prize for Green Living/
Sustainability. Judy has been busy speaking
on behalf of soil (and cows), most recently
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Judith
Schwartz’
Cows Save
the Planet
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at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs
Symposium on Food Security.
Scott S. Smith
After many nonfiction books over the years,
Lynn Seldon recently published his first
novel, Virginia’s Ring. Based on his military
school experience at the Virginia Military
Institute, bestselling author Pat Conroy has
already called it, “A triumph and a tour de
force.”
Scott S. Smith signed two book contracts.
Extraordinary People: Real-Life Lessons on
What It Takes to Achieve Success, is based
on the ideas behind his popular articles
in Investor’s Business Daily. Separately, he
signed an agreement with Blue Star Books
to market and distribute his ebook God
Reconsidered: Searching for Truth in the
Debate Between Atheism and Religion, expected to be out in August.
Linda Spangle’s third weight-loss book,
Friends with the Scale, was published in
April by SunQuest Media. In Linda’s numerous media interviews for the book, the
favorite topic has been how to manage the
dreaded doctor’s scale.
Jerome Tuccille’s new book, The Roughest
Riders, the story of the all-black Buffalo soldiers who rescued Teddy Roosevelt on San
Juan Hill, will be published by Chicago
Review Press next year. Tuccille is represented by ASJA’s Linda Konner, who sold
the rights.
Vicki Vasilopoulos produced and directed Men of the Cloth, an inspiring portrait of
three Italian master tailors. It premiered
at DOC NYC, the largest documentary film
festival in the country.
Linda
Spangle’s
Friends with
the Scale
Vicki
Vasilopoulos
Excerpted from June’s Society Page
(digital issue) The Erma Bombeck Writing Competition awarded author and
syndicated humor columnist Tracy Beckerman with first place
honors in this year’s contest. Beckerman beat out more than 800
writers from 13 different countries. As a keynote speaker at the
Erma Bombeck Conference in 2010, “CBS News Sunday Morning”
featured Beckerman in a story about Bombeck’s legacy ... ASJA
Monthly editor Barbara DeMarco-Barrett’s 2004 release, Pen
on Fire: A Busy Woman’s Guide to Igniting the Writer Within
(Harcourt) is now in its 10th printing ... Rosalind CummingsYeates’ guidebook on Chicago blues history and landmarks,
Exploring Chicago Blues: Inside The Scene, Past and Present, was
published by The History Press in April. She spoke at the Blues
and The Spirit symposium at Dominican University in May ...
Margie Goldsmith had a cover story in the Winter/Spring issue of Affluent Traveler: “Brazil, The Hottest Game in Town”
and a 7-page feature in Black Card Mag: “Spring Breaks: Where
to Celebrate the Annual Rite of Spring.” She also did a radio segment for “Traveling with Paul Lasley and Elizabeth Harryman,”
a podcast at OnTravel.com and on iTunes, broadcast to an international audience of 2 million on the global satellite of American
Forces Radio Network ... On the 70th anniversary of the Nazi occupation of Budapest, Susan J. Gordon’s personal essay “Budapest,
1944: How Hungarian Sisters Outwitted the Nazis to Create
a Safe Haven for Homeless Jews” was published in the March
21 issue of the Jewish Forward ... Tara Lynne Groth was the
guest speaker at the Raleigh Public Relation Society’s luncheon.
Groth’s short story “Tuna Heart” is in Mused: BellaOnline Literary
Review’s spring 2014 issue. She also published in The Durham
News, “Art You Can See With Your Eyes Closed,” a profile of a local artist’s motivations for creating art for the blind ... Michele
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THE ASJA MONTHLY
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C. Hollow, who writes about pets and wildlife, has been invited
by PetSmart Charities to take part in a brainstorming session on
how to save more cats and dogs. PetSmart Charities is sponsoring
her to participate in the event, which takes place in Scottsdale,
AZ, at PetSmart’s headquarters ... Randi Kreger, author of three
books about borderline personality disorder, was interviewed
in March 2014 for Sofia Wellman’s most recent film. As yet unnamed, it will invite viewers to look at how we become who we
are—not just an explanation of personality but an in-depth look
at the “how” and “why” we express our personality ... Besides being a bestseller at Amazon and Barnes & Noble, for four weeks
Kristin von Kreisler’s new novel, An Unexpected Grace, was on
the Toronto Star’s bestseller list for fiction in Canada ... Jerome
O’Connor has converted published features for presentation at
Chicago-area colleges and membership organizations, with a new
series about the centenary of World War I. It’s based on his visits
to Verdun and the American battlefields of the Great War and has
new HD images and video ... Susan Shafer’s play, A Clean Sweep,
won the 22nd Annual Nantucket Short Play Competition in March
2014. Also on Nantucket, her play, Lou Bitterman, Attorney at Law,
was given a staged reading ... Alina Tugend appears in the book,
Mistakes I Made at Work: 25 Influential Women Reflect on What They
Got Out of Getting it Wrong, by Jessical Bacal, published by Penguin
Group on April 29 ... Andrea Warren, author of Surviving Hitler,
will be a featured speaker in August at the Educators’ Institute
for Human Rights Conference in Kigali, Rwanda. The EIHR partners with Rwandan educators to promote reconciliation and healing through linked studies of the Holocaust and Rwanda’s 1994
genocide, the latter of which claimed 1 million lives.
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Excerpted from May’s Society Page
(digital issue) Lillian Africano has been appointed to the advisory board of
both The New York Times Travel Show and the Los Angeles Times
Travel Show. Lillian recently moderated a number of panels at
both shows. She is the Immediate Past President of the Society
of American Travel Writers ... George Devine’s book, For Sale
by Owner in California, has just come out in its 11th edition from
Nolo (Berkeley, California) ... Pam Johnson-Bennett is starring in Psycho Kitty, the new TV series on Animal Planet UK. The
show premiered February 25, 2014, and is a huge hit in Canada
on Nat Geo Wild ... In late March, Caitlin Kelly joined a blogger
from Maine, a Mexican freelance photographer, their New York PR
person, and their in-country expert for WaterAid, an international
charity, for a reporting trip in coastal Nicaragua. Fellow ASJA member and guidebook author Joshua Berman offered this advice: mosquito net! ... Law Technology News (LTN) recently published the
first edition of San Francisco Bay Area-based business and technology writer Patricia Kutza’s Friday Six-Pack, a weekly column
of tech-related tidbits. For LTN, she also covers law technologybased conferences and pens articles that show lawyers how they
can upgrade their tech skills by watching YouTube videos ... Beth
Levine won honorable mention for health reporting from the
Connecticut Press Club for her More magazine article, “End Your
Insomnia: The New Shift in Sleep.” ... Irene S. Levine, creator
of MoreTimeToTravel.com, won a Gold award in the 2013 North
American Travel Journalists Association (NATJA) awards competition and was named a finalist in four other categories. Now in
its 22nd year, the competition honors the “best of the best” in travel
writing, photography, and promotion ... Sharon McDonnell’s
travel story on pristine paradises was in Singapore Airlines magazine; her hotels for chocolate lovers and Mardi Gras king cake
travel stories in USA Today; her Fiji and Cajun Mardi Gras stories in Napa Valley Register; and her Louisiana and Massachusetts
stories in American Spirit ... Library Journal calls Rescuing Julia
Twice “indispensable for adoptive parents, relatives, and teachers.” Russian Life Magazine says Tina Traster’s memoir is a “fast
and entertaining read, but one that takes a great deal longer to
absorb.” The memoir is published this month by Chicago Review
Press ... The novel Crossing into the Mystic, the first of a trilogy
written by Debra Koontz Roberson (aka D.L. Koontz), debuted
in March. The novel’s protagonist sees something that changes
how she views the world. Watch the book’s trailer at dlkoontz.
com ... Michael Sedge, on the national radio program, “American
Dream,” said, “In The Oracle, I’ve tried to capture the mystery
of ancient mythology as well as the culture and people of modern Italy in an entertaining, thriller fashion.” Within 30 days of
the new novel’s release, Italian language rights were licensed
to Ciesse Edizioni ... Mary Shafer’s article, “It Takes A Village:
Book Marketing Begins At Home,” is published in the new 2014
Guide to Self-Publishing from Writer’s Digest Books. Shafer consults with self-published authors and indie publishers under her
Indie Navigator brand (IndieNavigator.com). ¢
Websites & Social Media Outposts
Pauline Bartel
paulinebartel.com
Joanna Krotz
joannakrotz.com
Alma H. Bond, Ph.D.
almabondauthor.com
Randi Minetor
minetor.com
Marian Calabro
corporatehistory.net
John Moir
JMoir.com
JohnMoirAuthor
Diane Covington-Carter
dianecovingtoncarter.com
Jerome M. O’Connor
Historyarticles.com
Judy Colbert
Judy Colbert
@JoodyC
Lynn Seldon
lynnseldon.com
Mickey Goodman
mickeygoodman.com
Linda Spangle, RN, MA
WeightLossJoy.com
Tim Harper
timharper.com
timothyharper
@harpertim
Vicki Vasilopoulos
menoftheclothfilm.com
@Vicki_Vas
Laird Harrison
sportswithoutinjury.com
@lairdh
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Voices on Writing
Literary Agent
Colleen Mohyde
BY BARBARA DEMARCO-BARRETT
C
olleen Mohyde has been a partner in the Doe Coover Agency in Boston for 22 years and represents an eclectic range
of fiction and nonfiction. Her authors include the late Caroline Knapp, author of the bestselling memoirs, Drinking:
A Love Story and Pack of Two; Suzanne Berne, author of The Ghost at the Table and winner of the 1999 Orange
Prize for Fiction; and Marjorie Sandor, whose story collection, Portrait of My Mother Who Posed Nude in Wartime, won the
National Jewish Book Award in Fiction in December 2004.
Among the biographies she represents are Stand Facing the Stove: The Story of the Women Who Gave America The Joy
of Cooking by Anne Mendelson, and American Isis: The Life and Art of Sylvia Plath by Carl Rollyson. Several upcoming biographies Mohyde represents include The Last Love Song, A Biography of Joan Didion by Tracy Daugherty; She Will Bring Us
Home: The Life of Dorothy Boulding Ferebee by Diane Kiesel; an untitled biography of Eunice Kennedy Shriver by Pulitzer
Prize winning author Eileen McNamara; and an untitled biography of Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau by long-time
ASJA member Steve Weinberg;
Prior to becoming an agent, Mohyde was an editor in the Trade Division of Little, Brown and Company.
Talk about how you became a literary agent.
I had been an editor with Little, Brown & Company for 11
years in the Boston headquarters. In 1992 they merged, becoming part of Time-Warner, and they wanted the editors to move to
New York. I had been Boston bred-and-buttered and wanted to
stay here. But my only real skill, I felt, was reading and giving my
opinion, so I had to find a way to make that work. Instead of moving to New York, I moved from editor to agent, just the other side
of the desk.
Because you were an editor, do you find you help authors
revise and polish before you send a proposal or manuscript out?
It definitely helped to be an editor before becoming an agent.
I was in an editor’s shoes and so I understand what they need to
have in hand to make a decision, and all the persuasive elements
they need to put in a book they want to acquire before their editorial board. I do help authors revise and polish. It is very difficult for an author to be objective about the work and so the manuscript or proposal never really comes in finished. It may be as finished as the author can make it to that point. But it usually takes a
few rounds between the author and me to bring the project to the
place where an editor can deem it close to publishable.
Whom do you represent?
A lot of biographers including Pulitzer Prize winner Eileen
McNamara, Carl Rollyson, ASJA member Steve Weinberg, and
Tracy Daugherty; novelists including Clea Simon, Robin Yocum,
Barbara DeMarco-Barrett is author of Pen on Fire:
A Busy Woman’s Guide to Igniting the Writer Within
and host of “Writers on Writing,” a weekly radio
show. Her website is penonfire.com.
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Marjorie Sandor, and Orange Prize winner Suzanne Berne; memoirists Marianne Leone, and Paula Poundstone; and journalists
Ralph Keyes, and Michael Berube—among many more.
You’ve said you are interested, in gifted storytelling.
Please embellish.
I think of it as analogous to music: whether the instrument
is in tune or off key, whether the tune is keeping the rhythm or at
least a rhythm that I can keep the beat to. It’s quite subjective. But
we respond to it. We all know people who can make their adventure to the Arctic sound boring, and others who can make a trip
to the store for milk sound like an adventure. That way with language is a gift. I don’t know that it can be taught. But agents and
editors—we like to think we know it when we see it.
Say a writer comes to you who is a gifted storyteller and
has a book or book idea you like, or love, but has no platform
to speak of. What comes next?
I like to think that cream rises. Editors and agents are always
looking for new voices. If I am truly compelled by the writing, and
I believe others will be as well, I will want to be part of finding
that writer an audience.
Have you ever taken on a client like this, and found great
success?
A good number, including Terry Galloway’s memoir, Mean
Little Deaf Queer, George Estreich’s memoir, The Shape of the Eye,
and The Orphaned Adult by Alexander Levy.
Let’s talk about nonfiction. Anything in particular
you’re looking for, when it comes to nonfiction?
I really lean toward biography, history, social and current
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affairs. I also love what I guess you could call hybrid bio/history
or bio/current events. In the recent past I have loved books such
as Girls Like Us by Sheila Weller, and Gail Collins’ books, When
Everything Changed, and America’s
Women.
What about memoir?
I love memoir. While staying
true to the facts, memoir needs to
read almost like fiction. It needs to be
simultaneously unique and universal.
These traits may seem mutually exclusive, but a natural storyteller will
bring them together.
studying how jacket copy is crafted is useful to writing a query.
Jacket copy gives a reader the story without giving away the literal ending but gives a tease for the ending.
When you like the query for a
nonfiction book and want to see a
book proposal, does it help if the
author includes a page of blurbs
from authors?
Not at all. Any agent running a
successful business is doing so because their instincts and experience
tell them what they are likely to sell
and what they’re not. No blurb from
another author is going to have me
second-guessing my own opinion of
the writing and whether I am the right agent for the work. All it
really tells me is that the author happens to know another author.
That blurb may help for the jacket copy upon publication but not
at the stage of seeking an agent.
A good query letter has the
qualities of the jacket copy:
a synopsis of the plot with
the elements that describe
the emotional payoff or
the reward the reader will
get from the book.
Let’s talk about fiction. Any
genre, in particular, you favor?
Literary fiction and mainstream mysteries. I don’t read or
represent any genre fiction such as romance, horror, or sci-fi.
Some of my favorite novelists include Kate Atkinson, Sarah Water,
and Ron Rash.
When a writer who queries you has a completed novel
manuscript, do you want the writer to include the first three
pages, or so, along with the query?
To tell if I am going to want to see more of the manuscript I
would really need to have at least the first two or three chapters.
If I like them, then I will ask to see more.
What about authors switching agents—any thoughts?
You need to feel that your agent is a good reader for your
work, is a member of your target audience and enthusiastic about
your intentions for your current work and for your career long
term. If your relationship doesn’t click, or you feel your agent isn’t
totally steeped in the business side of publishing as well as being
editorially compatible with you, then you should look for an agent
who is.
So, no need to include a few pages of the manuscript? A
query letter will do?
Just a few pages are meaningless. I need to have enough to
give me a sense of the narrative arc and the pacing. Always read
an agent’s guidelines for submission on their website. But I prefer
to have a substantial amount right in hand with the query letter.
That way if I like an author’s letter I am able to just start reading
without a lot of back and forth correspondence. It saves me time.
If your agent has sent your book to a dozen or more publishers without success and you decide to end your relationship and seek a new agent for this project, how much of the
history should you tell this new agent, and at what point?
Full background of the history in your first phone call with a
potential agent is necessary.
Speaking of queries, describe your ideal query letter
(whether for nonfiction or fiction).
A good query letter has the qualities of the jacket copy: a synopsis of the plot with the elements that describe the emotional
payoff or the reward the reader will get from the book. Then it
will tell me what makes you the right writer for the story. And it
will tell me what other books you feel yours might compare to.
If a writer is querying about a novel, should he or she
give away the ending?
I would prefer not to know the outcome. This is where, again,
What books are on your nightstand right now?
The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson; and The Girls
of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win
World War II by Denise Kiernan.
What’s a major faux pas writers make in contacting you
or trying to interest you in representing them?
I never like to see mention in the query letter of what a terrific movie you think the book can become. That tells me the author’s full focus isn’t on the writing. I also am wary of writers who
make comparisons to their work and the greats, Twain, Dickens,
Salinger, etc. Yes, this happens constantly. ¢
Visit Colleen Mohyde’s agency site at doecooveragency.com.
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Writing Life
The Elusive Quest for Writing Success
BY JOHN MOIR
I
arrived at the Maui Writers Conference filled with elation. at caregiving for various family members. Her dream of becoming
It was the late 1990s, and I had been selected to participate a physician never materialized. Like many women in her time, my
in a small, three-day, pre-conference workshop with several mom did not have a lot of options.
prominent authors. Here was an Opportunity—with a capital “O.”
In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell likens the factors that
But as the workshop began, doubts
contribute to our success to a natural
crept into my mind: how would I
ecosystem that supports various speWrite for something
measure up? I wondered if anyone
cies. Our personal ecosystem either
else felt the same way.
bolsters or hinders our growth and
larger than yourself.
Then I met one of the presenters:
includes influences such as when we
Balance commercial
novelist David Guterson.
are born, our social class, our parents,
At the time, Guterson was riding
our personality, economic vicissisuccess with your greater
high with the success of Snow Falling
tudes, and whether we have early opvision for writing.
on Cedars. It dawned on me that only
portunities to spend unfettered time
recently he had been an unknown
perfecting a talent like writing.
writer himself, just like most of us in the workshop. How was he
And there is yet another component: luck.
dealing with his stunning success?
Gladwell says that being super smart provides no advantage.
Before having a bestseller, Guterson had published a nonfic- Once a person’s IQ enters the 120 range, “having additional IQ
tion book as well as a collection of short stories, but neither had points doesn’t seem to translate into any measurable real-world
attracted much attention. Every morning, he arose at 4:00 a.m. to advantage.” Ironically, Terman’s study ended up proving this.
write before heading off to teach high school English.
Furthermore, some endeavors have clear criteria that deterThen Snow changed everything.
mine success. If an athlete runs a race, he knows his exact finishIn the workshop, Guterson discussed his sudden rise to fame ing time as well as where he placed—from first to last. Writing
with genuine humility. He viewed his achievement as simply an- does not have such distinct demarcations. For example, if we use
other step on a much longer journey, a milestone that was not an author’s ranking on the bestseller list to determine how sucwithout its own set of problems. And he made the intriguing ob- cessful she is, what about great books written by midlist authors
servation that much of success is beyond our control.
that receive no publicity and slide into obscurity? Interestingly,
Of course, what Guterson said flies in the face of the deep- none of Guterson’s other novels has matched the commercial sucrooted American belief that intelligence and hard work are the cess of Snow, even though some of them are arguably better. Does
key elements of success. That’s what Stanford professor Lewis that mean he is now not as good a writer?
Terman wanted to prove when he began a study in the 1920s to
If factors beyond our control determine much of our fate and
show that high IQ combined with personal drive largely decided if commercial writing achievement is a poor yardstick, what can
who became societal leaders. Terman eventually recruited about help guide us forward? Here are a few possibilities:
1,500 school children with IQs ranging from 140 to 200 and set
out to follow the lives of his little geniuses.
• Focus on gratitude. It’s easy to move directly to our next chalMy mom was one of the students Terman selected, and for
lenge rather than savoring our victories. Taking time to celethe rest of her life she filled out periodic questionnaires that
brate positive developments helps avoid turning our goals into
tracked her education, financial status, career path, family situa mirage that is forever drifting into the distance.
ation, and notable achievements.
As the decades passed, some of Terman’s participants did be- • Be watchful for the “great pretender syndrome,” the apprecome the leaders he had predicted, but a remarkable number lived
hension secretly harbored by many in the creative arts that
ordinary lives. Certainly that was my mom’s case. When her famsomeday the curtain will be pulled back revealing their lack
ily lost everything in the Depression, she was grateful to land a
of talent. Many of us recognize it as an annoying internal voice
job as a bank teller. She never attended college. Her life revolved
chattering critical thoughts. It babbles at us that when an ediaround her long marriage and her two sons, and she worked hard
tor rejects a piece it’s our fault but tells us we got lucky when
we receive a plum assignment.
John Moir is an award-winning environmental journalist. He can be found online at jmoir.com
• Write for something larger than yourself. Balance commercial success with your greater vision for writing. “Why do you
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Letter of the Law
When Is It Okay to Sleep On Your (Copy) Rights?
BY DAVID LEICHTMAN
F
ollowing up on a terrific annual conference, ASJA asked of the copyrighted work; (2) have no effect on that work; or (3)
me to provide a monthly column on issues in copyright even complement the work. By rejecting laches as a defense,
and publishing law that impact ASJA members. I am de- the Supreme Court’s decision allows a copyright owner to, in its
lighted to do so, and this first edition provides the opportunity to words, “defer suit until she can estimate whether litigation is
deliver some good news.
worth the candle.”
On May 19, the Supreme Court
The Court’s decision is a victoWhile it is never ideal to have
issued a decision in a case called
ry for copyright owners, especially
to let an infringement pass,
Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer,
those with limited resources to imInc., which relates to the question of
mediately pursue their claims. While
sometimes there is no
when a copyright owner must sue for
there is still a risk that a separate doceconomic justification to
infringement of his or her work. It is
trine, referred to as “equitable estopof particular relevance to members of
pel,” could prevent a copyright owner
spend the money
ASJA because the case involves biofrom obtaining an injunction against
on a lawsuit.
graphical subject matter.
future exploitation of her work if she
The Copyright Act provides that
waits too long to sue, ASJA members
a claim must be brought “within three years after the claim ac- can take some comfort in the rejection of the “laches” doctrine,
crued,” which has always been understood to mean, for example, especially in the age of whack-a-mole internet infringements.
that if a copyright owner sued five years after the initial infring- While it is never ideal to have to let an infringement pass, someing act, the case could still go forward but damages were limit- times there is no economic justification to spend the money on
ed only to exploitations by the infringer in the most recent three a lawsuit. Now, even if you can’t or don’t do something about it
years before the suit was brought.
immediately, you can still obtain damages if the infringing work
But what has vexed lower courts is the question of whether a starts to impact the market for your work at a later point in time. ¢
claim brought many years after the initial infringing act could be
rejected altogether under the judicially created doctrine of “laches.” In laches cases, some lower courts had decided that after the
Practical tip: Separate and apart from enforcing your
presumptive three year period, an infringer’s investment was too
copyrights, it is important to register your works with the
great and the time that passed was too long, that it would be inCopyright Office (whether done by you or your publisher).
equitable to allow a copyright holder to sue for damages when the
While your work is copyrighted as soon as you fix it on the
infringer had relied on the inaction in organizing its activities.
page (or save it to a fixed digital medium), registration before
The Petrella case involved the 1980 movie Raging Bull, which
the first infringement or within three months of first publiallegedly borrowed liberally from a screenplay written by Frank
cation is required in order to obtain certain remedies under
Petrella in 1963 about the life of boxing champion Jake LaMotta.
the Copyright Act such as statutory damages and to recovThe lower courts, however, never reached the question of whether your attorneys’ fees. Statutory damages can be particularer too much was borrowed from the original screenplay because
ly important with regard to internet infringement cases beit found that the heir of Mr. Petrella (his daughter) had waited too
cause it is sometimes difficult to prove actual damages.
long to sue (she sued in 2009, claiming damages only beginning
in 2006).
But in its recent decision, the Supreme Court rejected the
application of “laches” to copyright damages cases. Justice
Ginsberg’s decision instead recognized that a copyright owner should be permitted to wait and see what the outcome of an
alleged infringer’s investment will be before suing. The Court
noted that an infringer’s exploitation could do one of three
things from an economic point of view: (1) undercut the value
David Leichtman is a partner of the law firm Robins,
Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi L.L.P. where he works on,
among other things, copyright issues and media &
entertainment law. He also serves as the Chair of the
Board of Directors of Volunteer Lawyers For The Arts.
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Seeking a qualified writer, editor, ghostwriter,
blogger, project manager, or something in between?
ASJA has the professionals to do your job. Find them at:
FREELANCEWRITERSEARCH.COM
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ASJA EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION CORPORATE PARTNERS
ASJA Educational Foundation thanks our corporate partners
for their generous support of the 2014 Writers Conference
and year-round educational programming.
WORDSMITH LEVEL
GHOSTWRITER LEVEL
MEDIA SPONSORS
A special thank you to Amazon.com for a grant to
provide conference registration scholarships to writers
who demonstrate a commitment to a professional
freelance writing life and to the creation of new work.
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2
Days in
San Francisco
by Sara Godwin
Photo: Flickr/Jamie McCaffrey
T
ake an extra day or two before and after ASJA’s Next
Avenues in Journalism conference and explore San
Francisco, referred to by locals as ‘The City,” as though
there were no other. And really there isn’t, at least, not another
city like San Francisco. Here’s a collection of (mostly) free stuff to
do that you really shouldn’t miss.
San Francisco’s public transportation is both wonderful and
awful. In general, the cable cars, the international vintage trolleys along the Embarcadero, and BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit,
San Francisco’s subway system) are great. MUNI, the municipal
electric bus and trolley system is, um, less so. If you consider exploring San Francisco beyond walking distance from your hotel,
download the apps for both Lyft (Lyft.com) and Uber (uber.com)
before you arrive. They’ll give you a chance to test-drive a couple
of San Francisco’s top tech transportation alternatives in the new
sharing economy, and get where you’re going more easily than
taking a bus, for less than the cost of a taxi.
While you’re zipping about in cyberspace, download and print
out a copy of the Bay Area Literary Map, along with the lists of historically significant bookstores such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s
City Lights in North Beach, and of literary places and plaques:
Dashiell Hammett’s apartments, the plaque for the Maltese Falcon,
even Gertrude Stein’s childhood home in Oakland about which she
made her inimitable “There is no there there,” quip. Get the map at
sfchronicle.com/theliterarycity.
Sara Godwin author, world traveler, and full-time
foodie has spent a lifetime exploring the far reaches of the planet. More at SavvyTravelerBlog.wordpress.com.
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• Just a couple of blocks off Union Square is a treasure house
of rare books: Antiquarian book dealer Richard Haines’ bookshop, Argonaut (876 Sutter Street between Bush and Jones).
Argonaut houses a superb collection rare books, maps, and
ephemera of San Francisco and early California. Neat note:
Argonaut was the inspiration for the bookstore in Alfred
Hitchcock’s Vertigo; as Hitchcock himself put it, “This is what
a bookshop should be.” Give yourself ample time to browse;
once you’re there, it’s hard to tear yourself away.
• Sign up for a North Beach Literary Walking Tour at LitQuake.
com. LitQuake will be offering a variety of events between
October 10 – 18, so check in at the website and follow your
heart’s desire. (litquake.org)
• The Wave Organ, a natural acoustic experience where you can
listen to the sound of San Francisco Bay. Located at the east
end of the marina jetty at San Francisco Marina behind the
St. Francis Yacht Club. Built like a hobbit house with benches by two artists working on an Exploratorium commission,
the Wave Organ has quirky little nooks and crannies for listening to the sound of the water swirling in and out of variously shaped pipes. Pianissimo or allegro, echoed or amplified,
rhythmic and soothing, it’s a lovely place to just sit in the sun
and let the seagulls provide the counter-point. The sounds are
best at high tide, but barring that, try for sunset and watch the
sun disappear into the Pacific Ocean behind the Golden Gate
Bridge.
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Photo: Sara Godwin
Photo: Sara Godwin
Left: The Butler & The Chef Cafe Restaurant in South Park. Right: The Wave Organ in the Marina.
Opposite: SF’s famous “Painted Ladies” opposite Alamo Square Park in the Lower Haight.
San Francisco: 2014 California Guide
Y
by Laura Del Rosso
ou may already know it for its landmark Golden Gate
Bridge, those famous cable cars, and Alcatraz and
Fisherman’s Wharf, yet San Francisco offers much
more, especially today when a boom in the technology industry
has flooded the city with new residents and spawned more great
restaurants, bars and nightlife.
San Francisco long has been one of the top U.S. cities for food
and dining, with renowned chefs, a variety of ethnic cuisine and
locals who spend more on eating out than residents of any other
American city.
The food scene has gone up a notch, with Tosca in North
Beach relaunched by New York restauranteurs behind The
Spotted Pig, celebrity chef Tyler Florence’s Wayfare packing
them in, and some of the finest pastry chefs in the country running shops: Craftsman and Wolves in the Mission, b. patisserie in
Pacific Heights, among them.
Tartine, often rated the top bakery in the U.S., continues to
draw lines out the door (particularly at 4:30 p.m., when its crusty
breads come out of the ovens).
The food truck craze pops up all over the city, particular at
SOMA Street Food Park and Off The Grid, where groups of trucks
serve up gourmet food at various venues, the largest at historic
Fort Mason on Friday evenings.
In the adjacent Presidio, the former military base continues
its transformation into a spectacular national park with museums,
Laura Del Rosso is a San Francisco-based writer who specializes in travel and the travel industry. She has written and produced travel apps on
San Francisco’s Chinatown, Fisherman’s Wharf and
North Beach neighborhoods.
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attractions and miles of walking and biking trails in the shadow in
the Golden Gate Bridge.
New visitors’ centers with history exhibits and panoramic
views have opened both at the Golden Gate Bridge and at Lands
End, the city’s windswept western edge overlooking crashing
ocean waves.
Also new is SFJAZZ Center at Civic Center, the first music hall in the U.S. designed specifically for jazz, and the bayside
home of The Exploratorium on Piers 15 and 17, an architecturallystriking building with 150 science exhibits, a bay observatory and
outdoor gallery.
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art closed in 2013
for a massive expansion that will triple exhibit and gallery space
for an early 2016 opening. Much of its collection is on display
throughout the Bay Area at various museums and installations.
Fall is the season when the city’s cultural scene is at its peak
with the San Francisco Opera and The San Francisco Symphony
seasons in full swing.
At the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, an exclusive
exhibit, Modernism from the National Gallery of Art: The Robert
& Jane Meyerhoff Collection, is on display through Oct. 12, with
50 works by postwar artists, including Robert Rauschenberg,
Jasper Johns, and Frank Stella.
Don’t miss an evening stroll along the Embarcadero waterfront to see the wondrous Bay Lights installation on the Bay
Bridge’s western span. It’s a 1.8-mile long and 500-foot high hightech sculpture with 25,000 LED lights that dance on the bridge’s
vertical cables in intricate patterns from dusk until dawn.
It’s just a part of what makes San Francisco a city impossible
to forget. Or leave. ¢
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What’s in Store
Book reviews by Paul Vachon
Daily Rituals: How Artists Work
Pitch Perfect: How to Say it Right the
First Time, Every Time
by Mason Currey
Knopf, 2013 | 278 pages, hardcover | $24.95
by Bill McGowan and Alisa Bowman
W
riters, artists and other creative types probably all
agree on one immutable
rule: The process of bringing our work
from concept to reality is an inherently inefficient one. Cranking out that article or book happens in fits and starts.
I’ve always figured this is because assembling words is sufficiently taxing that engaging one’s mind can only be done for
a short stretch before demanding a rest.
Sometimes procrastination delays us even starting our work.
It may be liberating to know that we are not the first to experience this malady. During a 2007 bout with procrastination, author Mason Currey decided to research how generations of writers, artists, composers, and philosophers have fought the productivity battle, and who in many cases left us with part of their creative toolbox—their unique personal customs used to structure
their day. The book consists of 160 accounts, ranging from a paragraph to three pages—and from predictable to bizarre.
The reader learns that Somerset Maugham, while bathing
each morning, would think of the first to sentence he planned to
put on paper that day, and that he insisted on placing his desk so
that it faced a blank wall. He felt the view from a window would
be a hopeless distraction. After breakfast, Mark Twain would
work nonstop until 5:00 pm, and then read that day’s output to
his family each evening. For Jean-Paul Sartre, years of hard work,
coupled with hard living propelled him to take Corydrane (a stimulant combining amphetamine and aspirin) each day to stay alert.
The prescribed dose was two to four tablets per day. Sartre often
took 20, chewing them as he worked on his existentialism tomes.
By the author’s own admission, Daily Rituals is a “superficial” book—one that is “about the circumstances of creative activity, not the product.” Perhaps, but on this point I think he sells
himself a bit short. Daily Rituals provides a fascinating window
into the lives of dozens of the most creative souls for the last 400
years. I found the inspiration infectious.
Paul Vachon, a member of ASJA since 2010, prides
himself on being a generalist, writing about history,
business, and local events. He’s spread his wings
even further by studying photography and voiceover
artistry. His next book, the 3rd edition of Michigan’s
Upper Peninsula, is due out in spring, 2015.
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Harper Business, 2014 | 266 pages, paperback | $27.99
A
peculiarity about the art of communication is the fact that rules
for writing effectively and for
speaking persuasively are so very different. The author of a full length book can
present her topic in a detailed, almost leisurely manner. If the book is a good one,
the reader can read a chapter, put it down
and pick it up later—possibly with questions percolating in his head. The public
speaker, on the other hand, does not enjoy
this luxury. His opportunity for making a positive impact is much
more limited—yet the need to do so has never been more crucial.
Pitch Perfect is, well, a perfectly timed book that offers
so many commonsense techniques for “saying it right, every
time” that I wonder why it wasn’t written years ago. Author Bill
McGowan (with the assistance of ASJA member Alisa Bowman)
masterfully synthesizes a wealth of knowledge on verbal presentation into his Seven Principles of Persuasion, which he proclaims
“can help you get your game in shape, no matter how toned or
flabby your verbal communication muscle.” Expounding on each
takes up the lion’s share of the book.
The primary author comes with impressive credentials. Early
in his career he worked as a correspondent for the newsmagazine
show A Current Affair—a job he nurtured into his present role as a
sought after media coach and public relations consultant.
McGowan’s Seven Principles scream common sense. For example, “The Pasta Sauce Principle” stresses the importance of
“boiling down” a message to make it “as rich and brief as possible.”
The “Draper Principle” named after the fictional ad man of the
show Mad Men, states that to control a discussion, always “play to
your strengths.” McGowan derives this idea from quote once uttered by Draper: “If you don’t like what’s being said, change the
conversation.”
It’s the breadth of wisdom behind these simple, pithy ideas
that drives me to recommend this book so highly.
But McGowan doesn’t stop there. The book’s final four chapters provide the reader with expert guidance in implementing each
of the seven principles. The material is presented in a holistic way—
it seeks to affect how the subject communicates with her professional colleagues and in her personal and social life. Think of occasions where one is asked to present a toast at a wedding or deliver a
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eulogy at a funeral. Many people neglect to effectively prepare for
times like these, but following McGowan’s simple, yet straightforward advice will enable the speaker to display dignity and grace.
And since virtually all writers are speakers in some capacity,
be it as presenter, radio guest or interviewer, striving to be Pitch
Perfect is clearly a goal worth pursuing. ¢
Writing Life CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13
write?” Guterson asked us. “Do you want to sell a thousand
books? Or do you want to touch a thousand souls?”
As writers, we do need standards with which to judge our
success, but it pays to be gentle with our judgments. There are
additional measures to consider other than our latest Amazon
ranking: Are we writing pieces that are meaningful? Are we
working hard to put our writing into the world no matter what the
results? Are we continuing to improve our craft? Are we enjoying
our writing? Are we touching readers’ hearts with our words? ª
San Francisco CONTINUED FROM PAGE 16
• Channel Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine by sitting on the
bench in South Park where, at the end of the film, Jasmine
quietly divorces reality. That bench is at the end of the park
closest to Second Street, across from the Mexican restaurant.
South Park is a little piece of Paris tucked between Second and
Third Streets, not far from AT&T Park. (Go Giants!) The Paris
part is at the very trendy The Butler and The Chef bistro at
the other end of the park, open only for breakfast and lunch.
The French toast is made with brioche and the ham quiche has
huge chunks of Parisian ham. Try not to swoon.
• Budget time for budget shopping in San Francisco’s best insider shopping destinations: The best men’s and women’s consignment shop ever is Goodbyes (actually two shops across the
street from each other) at 3464 Sacramento Street. Goodbyes
carries popular brands (Gap, J.Jill, American Apparel),
American designers (Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Donna
Karan, Michael Kors), and the serious stuff: Chanel, Dior,
and Armani as well as wild boots and shoes. Meander down
Sacramento Street. The shops are wonderful, from custom
bathing suits to baby clothes.
• Have an authentically San Francisco experience by wandering
down Maiden Lane on the east side of Union Square at Post
and Geary Streets between Powell and Mason to check out
Xanadu Gallery (140 Maiden Lane; 415/392-9999) for Asian
folk art and antiques in the only Frank Lloyd Wright building
in San Francisco.
• The coolest spot in town is Valencia Street in the Mission
District. It’s a wild and wonderful mix of hot new eateries, pop-up stores, funky second-hand shops (one of which
shares space with a bike rental shop called Public), traditional Hispanic markets with outdoor produce displays featuring tropical fruits and vegetables, and the best hot chocolate
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place on the planet. Go to Dandelion (740 Valencia; 415/3490942), on Valencia between 23rd and 24th street, and order the
European hot chocolate. It’s a mouthful of ecstasy. Serious
chocolate occurs in other forms as well, but the European hot
chocolate qualifies as an epicurean epiphany.
• At the opposite end of Valencia is STUFF (up toward Market
Street, at 150 Valencia Street; 415/864-2988), a huge antiques
collective with three stories of well, stuff, from mid-century
furniture to name designer costume jewelry to Japanese fishing net floats to stainless steel plated custom office furniture
to architectural artifacts, and this description barely scratches the surface. They always have coffee, and often have cookies or cake, free for the nibbling.
• Speaking of eating, San Francisco has some of this country’s
best food, bar none. The James Beard Foundation has named
Chef Charles Phan’s Slanted Door Restaurant at the Ferry
Building at the foot of Market Street the best restaurant in
America. Use OpenTable.com (OpenTable.com) to book your
table well in advance of arrival; reservations are notoriously
hard to get.
• For a local neighborhood feel, hit the 102-year-old landmark
Swan Oyster Depot at 1517 Polk Street (Open 8:am – 5:30pm;
415/673 – 2757) on Russian Hill. Swan’s offers every type of
oyster known to man as well as Dungeness crab, shrimp, and
a superb clam chowder. Go early: There are only 20 stools at
the bar. Lunchtime almost always has a line out the door, but it
moves quickly.
For photos and more things to do, look for this story at Sara
Godwin’s SavvyTravelerblog.wordpress.com under “Insider’s San
Francisco”.
You’re going to love getting to know The City ª
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