Call for Ms., Regional Connection Preferred

The Lake Region Review is seeking quality fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry by writers in Minnesota and the eastern Dakotas, especially from those with a personal connection to this region.

See the full article.

Creative Nonfiction in News Writing

Check this story, noted by Poytner, from the Boston Globe about the guy carjacked by the Boston bombers. A good answer to the question "Can you do creative nonfiction on a deadline?" Kudos to Eric Moskowitz, Globe staff writer.

New Science and Technology Outlet for CNF

Pulled from paidContent:

"Matter, the science and technology journalism startup that raised over $140,000 from 2,566 backers on Kickstarter, is launching with its first article today.

"Like Byliner and the Atavist, Matter sells e-singles — longform journalism in digital formats. But Matter is only publishing science- and technology-related stories, while the Atavist and Byliner publish across nonfiction categories."

A story--at least 5,000 words long--will be published every month, each costing $0.99.

That Old Devil Procrastination

Here: Avoid doing work by watching this video about procrastination.

How to Query an Agent about Your Memoir

Memoirs need to be finished before you query an agent.

Use the first person.

Read the Janet Reid's blog post. She's an agent.

Fountain of Reading

Saw this on the blog Bibliobuffet.. It’s a book fountain! Love it.


Also on the blog is an interesting piece about the "noncommercial memoir" by agent Janet Reid. Also worth a look. 

Nieman: Finding a Lost Boy

Nieman Storyboard ‏@niemanstory

New Notable Narrative: the incredible saga of Saroo Brierley by@ravinessman & Kristen Gelineau at @AP. Tmrw: the chat!http://bit.ly/MLxCrK

Out to Find Ideas

Nieman Storyboard ‏@niemanstory

The Best of Storyboard: finding ideas -- #protips from Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Adam Davidson and Jim Collins 

Science Policy and Creative Nonfiction

Here's something to check out if you're an emerging communicator (writer/journalist/filmmaker/etc.) interested in a global issue--science policy:
It's a project called To Think, To Write, To Publish.
A yearlong program, supported by the National Science Foundation, featuring two multi-day workshops in Washington, DC and Tempe, Arizona. Twelve emerging communicators and 12 early-career science and innovation policy scholars will learn about creative/narrative nonfiction storytelling techniques; meet with and learn from creative writing and science journalism professors, museum professionals, and editors of mainstream publications; and collaborate, in scholar-communicator pairs, on narrative essays to appear in a nationally distributed publication.

Creative Nonfiction: From the Inside Out

Nieman Storyboard (‏@niemanstory) tweeted this:
The masterful David Grann (@DavidGrann) takes us inside his reporting & writing process on "The Yankee Comandante."

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/kerning.png

Get Uncomfortable!

I was browsing & meandered on to this phenomenal website, Co.Design about design & creativity. And browsed around in there for a while, completely happy to be refilling my well of creativity instead of coming up with a math magazine's editorial schedule for next year.

Read this: The Creative Benefits of Exploring the Uncomfortable.

A Place for Multimedia Long-Form Stories

Add to your reading list a piece about the Atavist. Here's the opening blurb at Nieman Storyboard: 

Multimedia storytelling at The Atavist: One year in, how’s it going, Evan Ratliff?
It’s been a little over a year since The Atavist debuted as a groundbreaking digital platform for long-form multimedia storytelling. Narrative journalists had been bemoaning the shrinking storytelling acreage, so this app-based venue was met with substantial interest. “E-books are more than a publishing platform,” as New York magazine referred to the genre, “they’re a whole new literary form.”
So, is it working?

Read the whole interview. I plan to.

Happily Ever After?

You're thinking you'll be happy when you finally get that book contract? A post on a literary agent's blog will make you think again.

The Sigma Delta Chi Foundation is accepting applications for the Eugene C. Pulliam Fellowship for Editorial Writing.

The Pulliam Editorial Fellowship awards $75,000 to an editorial writer to help broaden his or her journalistic horizons and knowledge of the world. The cash award can be used to cover the cost of study, research and/or travel in any field.

For more information, including application requirements and information about the 2011 Pulliam Fellow, click here.

Applications are due June 22.

For questions, please contact Awards Coordinator Lauren Rochester at lrochester@spj.org.

eBook Issues

The Internet is so tempting for a writer, isn't it: Unlimited space online! Inexpensive! Accessible!

And a whole 'nuther batch of issues to contemplate.

Here's an excerpt from Media Morning Newsfeed (put out free by Media Bistro):

Navigating A Tightrope With Amazon (NYT)
Last Tuesday, Buzz Bissinger hopped the Amtrak train to Philadelphia from New York, where he had done a bit of publicity for After Friday Night Lights, a 12,000-word eBook that had been performing nicely since its release. But when he opened his laptop to check his ranking on Amazon, he found the book was no longer for sale there. GalleyCat Through an Apple and Starbucks promotion, customers could redeem the book for free. To compete with the lowest price available, Amazon dropped its price to zero. Unhappy with this move, Bissinger's publisher Byliner.com pulled the title. Philadelphia Inquirer Bissinger wrote the eBook for Byliner, a publisher specializing in electronic "long-form" books (say, 5,000 to 30,000 words). Byliner published it through Amazon and other venues -- including iTunes, the Apple shop -- and priced it at $2.99. It's also for sale at Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and other digital stores. And it was doing pretty well. paidContent This means authors will have to make the decision: Will they gain more new readers and sales by having their book promoted in Starbucks, or will the sales lost through Amazon that week outweigh any Starbucks benefit?

Another venue, another factors to balance.

Lord knows, I don't have any answers. I just like to bring up the questions.

Has anyone used Byliner, as an author or a read4er? Just curious.

Oh, That Pesky Platform Thing

Yesterday I received an advance copy of THE YEAR OF LEARNING DANGEROUSLY: Adventures in Homeschooling (Perigee Hardcover; $23.95; August 7, 2012).

I toyed with the idea of homeschooling one of my kids--believe me, there were weird circumstances involved because I am genuinely not the type to do this. So, my first question when I saw this book was, How did this person manage to get a memoir on this subject published?

Checking the bio in the press material, I found that "popular blogger, author, and former child actor Quinn Cummings explores her family’s decision to wade into the unfamiliar waters of homeschooling."

Bingo. This writer has a platform--a way to reach people to tell them about the book. (I am petty enough to think that former child actors [FCA] get undeserved bonus points in publishers' brains, but it can't be argued that FCAs must be media savvy.)

All writers improve their chances of being published if they have a platform. So, when Ericka Dreifus's blog Practicing Writing mentioned a platform-building challenge on a blog named My Name Is Not Bob, I thought I'd pass it along.

I hope to take Not Bob up on the challenge. But I also hope to the do the Etsy store-building boot camp, too, so we'll see how these work out.