Writerly Podcasts

A while back, I wrote a series of posts* about "Writing Excuses," a podcast by a group of authors that focuses on writing advice and advice for the business of writing. There are other writing podcasts out there, though, and I've been doing a little looking into them. To start my search for an excellent writing podcast (I'd love to find one, if you have a suggestion, let me know), I listened to the New Yorker's "Fiction Podcast" and a podcast put out by Grammar Girl. Here are my reviews.

Fiction Podcast

PROS: This is a quality podcast, and you can tell. Each month, an author is invited to pick a piece of short fiction published by the New Yorker (from any date) to read in the podcast and discuss/analyze it with New Yorker fiction editor Deborah Treisman. I listened to a few of these podcasts; the discussion was always informed, on both sides, and the stories were read in full, which is fun for a person who generally prefers fiction to nonfiction.

Listening to this podcast has the potential to expand your reading horizons. So what if you normally wouldn't listen to a particular author or genre? You get to sample it now. If you don't like it, no harm done.

There are ads, but they are kept to a minimum.

CONS: These podcasts are long. Like, over an hour. That means that, if you aren't careful, you may find yourself zoning out. This kept happening to me during one particular podcast about a story that both Treisman and the author admitted were boring. They actually tried to analyze the boringness at some point, if I recall correctly. The length, the subject matter, and the understated way of reading aloud that seems to be in vogue these days all made it hard for me to pay attention to.

This way of reading aloud could be considered a con, too, if you dislike it enough. Some people love it, though, so it's undecided.

It only comes out once a month, so once you're caught up, it's not like you can continue binging. There are about a hundred back episodes, though, so don't let this deter you too much.

The other con, for me, is that this podcast is meant for readers, not writers. They do not analyze how the writer wrote the story, but the ideas, the symbolism, a bit about the author on a personal level, that sort of thing. I didn't come away with many writing tips.

... beyond this one: Every major character you write is going to be part of yourself, one evolution of you. Face that fact and harness it.

Grammar Girl

PROS: This podcast appears about once per week, so more often than the New Yorker's. It is also shorter (varying lengths, but none I saw were longer than 20 minutes), meaning you can sneak it into your schedule much easier.

The other pro I found was that these episodes are simple and easy to understand. Listeners receive a variety of interesting tips on grammar, pronunciation, punctuation, and even how to write different things (I listened to one that talked about writing a letter of recommendation).

CONS: I'm going to admit that I am not a fan of this podcast -- for me. I had to search through episodes to find something new. That simple advice I talked about is either stuff I already know or else things I can look up -- through Grammar Girl, usually -- and figure out in less than a minute. The host, Mignon Fogarty (the Grammar Girl), explains these simple things and repeats herself about them far beyond what is necessary for comprehension.

The ads in this one go in the cons list because it feels like they are long, and there are three per episode, one to start, one in the middle, and one at the end. Sometimes, they are for the same product.

Another grievance I have comes from an episode I listened to about writing in the third person: They talked about the different types of third person without giving tips or decent examples about how to write in each. Not so useful.

The last one is that different segments of each episode are written by different people, but the same person, Fogarty, reads it all, giving attribution at the end. This makes it confusing, because I assume it is her talking up until the end, when you find out it was actually some professor of something at a university. I'm sitting there, being all impressed by her experience as a professor, then find out she's been reading someone else's words. They should put the attribution at the beginning.

The writing takeaway I got: "Huh. I haven't read any Kurt Vonnegut, now that you mention him. I should get on that."

On to finding better writerly podcasts! So far the New Yorker podcast is in the lead.

*This link goes to the first in the series. Here are links to the others:
Writing Excuses: Course Complete
Writing Excuses notes, Season 1
Writing Excuses notes, Season 2
Writing Excuses notes, Season 3
Writing Excuses notes, Season 4
Writing Excuses notes, Season 5
Writing Excuses notes, Season 6
Writing Excuses notes, Season 7
Writing Excuses notes, Season 8

What's Elizabeth Reading? ...Malala Yousafzai

My second autobiography! This one has been on my to-read list since it came out, and I know its surge in popularity has died down since then, but I still wanted to read it.

All I really knew before reading “I Am Malala” was that Malala had won the Nobel Peace Prize and was a young woman who had been shot by the Taliban.

I now know a whole lot more, like the fact that she is from Pakistan and is as old as my younger brother (right now, 19). Even before she was shot, Malala was a well-known activist for children's right to education, particularly for girls. One doctor working on her after the attack described her as Pakistan's Mother Teresa.

One cool tidbit that you may not know is that she didn't have a last name originally and chose “Yousafzai” because it is the name of her tribe. Her father also uses the name and also is an activist for education.

In contrast with Alan Alda's memoir, Malala gave insight into her family. I can tell you she idolizes her father, her mother has great faith and is (or was) illiterate, and she argues often with one of her brothers (I believe she has two, but they did not get much emphasis, though they were sorry to leave behind their chickens when the family first had to evacuate their home in Swat, the valley of Pakistan they live in). Grandpa was a great speaker, Mom's family lives one valley over from Dad's, and her maternal cousins all think she's some big city girl (back when they were growing up; they probably think even more so now).

I feel like I got to know Malala, but I also feel like this book had a major focus on the history and politics of the region. It was like the history of Malala was the history of Pakistan and her people's place in it.

So in that way, it also wasn't personal. Since she co-wrote the autobiography, I'm left wondering whether she told the story and the other writer, Christina Lamb, wrote it down in whatever words seemed best or if she wrote the bulk of it herself and Lamb just helped. I do know she had people help her research the history of her region, so she didn't know all that off the top of her head.

Some storytelling techniques and autobiography ideas I saw and was intrigued by:

1. Use small stories to give details to the bigger one. For example, if I was telling the story of Cinderella, to include a story that illustrated how much her dad loved her, include a story about what she first thought of her stepmother, include a story about past fairy godmother “sightings” Cinderella had heard of, include a story about the first fancy dress she'd ever worn and use it to describe the current ball gown, etc. Small stories along the way to add depth to the large one that is being told.
2. Include name origin. It's kind of fun to know where a person's name came from. I was named Elizabeth because my mother always wanted an Elizabeth, and I share that name with my great-grandmother. Malala was named for a Pakistani war hero who was female, and as I said earlier, she chose her last name to reflect her people.
3. Describe places, not just events. I don't mean this in the Lord of the Rings way, where places are exhaustively cataloged so that the reader knows about each blade of grass. I mean it in a way similar to the first technique mentioned; describe a place using anecdotes, and use that to support events. Describe a room by saying “That's the chair where, when I had the flu, my mom would sit and rock me for hours because that's the only way that I could sleep,” or “I always tried to grow ivy plants by that window, but they never quite worked out.” This gives a place character, and then when an event happens there, the background is already colorful and meaningful. It adds nostalgia and/or an added understanding of what the events mean to the narrator (“This is where we keep our computer, the only computer for miles around,” for instance).

As I said, this isn't an autobiography like the ones for my business, but I'm still learning things from it. This felt like the autobiography of a people, and there is good in that. Just because you know your culture does not mean your kids will live in the same one, after all.

Oh, and because I loved this part:

"I wrote a letter to God. 'Dear God,' I wrote, 'I know you see everything, but there are so many things that maybe, sometimes, things get missed, particularly now with the bombing in Afghanistan. But I don't think you would be happy if you saw the children on my road living on a rubbish dump. God, give me strength and courage and make me perfect because I want to make this world perfect. Malala.' The problem was I did not know how to get it to him. Somehow I thought it needed to go deep into the earth, so first I buried it in the garden. Then I thought it would get spoiled, so I put it in a plastic bag. But that didn't seem much use. We like to put sacred texts in flowing waters, so I rolled it up, tied it to a piece of wood, placed a dandelion on top, and floated it in the stream which flows into the Swat River. Surely God would find it there." (Page 89)

Dream Catcher - start of a short story (I couldn't sleep last night...)

After her husband died, she started making dream catchers. Soon, they were all over the house -- hanging from the banisters, tied to tree limbs, even stowed away with the cutlery. All sorts of colors, too, with beads, feathers, and ribbons hanging from them. Her house was a wonderland.

Jean said she made them whenever she couldn't sleep. Seems to me that must have been every night. Since I had been her neighbor all those years, I guess it fell to me to be the one to look after her. Take her with me to get groceries, drop her off at the salon to get her hair done, that sort of thing. 'ts what neighbors are for, after all.

His name was Hank, and he had loved to garden and go fishing. They used to get up early every Saturday to go fishing down at Utah Lake, but then he got sick and, well. She never did the fishing herself, anyway.

'Bout near cried the first time I had her over for dinner and offered her some trout her husband had caught and frozen for me. It was meant to be a comfort, obviously, but that didn't work out quite like I had hoped.

It's been seven months now, and those dream catchers are still showing up everywhere. Take today, for instance.

I was pulling some weeds out from behind my roses (Lord, help me) and saw her step out of her front door, dream catcher in hand, and start spinning slow circles in the middle of her yard, looking for a spot. I leaned back on my haunches, lifted a hand to shield my eyes from the sun, and waited to see where she would put it.

This dream catcher was woven so as to look like it was a framed doily. There were no beads or feathers this time, but she had hung a mass of ribbons from it. Made me wonder if she was cleaning out her whole drawer.

When she caught me staring, she waved her free hand and called out, "Morning, Lia! Your front swing is looking nice, did you repaint it?"

I glanced over at the swing. It was 30 years old and hadn't seen a fresh coat in 35. "You need to get your eyes checked, Jean!" I said, shaking my head at her. "That bench is the same as it's always been, except maybe for a fresh coat of dust!"

She smiled wide, walked over to her trellis, and somehow found a way to snug it in there along with the overgrown hollyhock plant. "I thought it looked a shade more gray!" she said, then waved again before going into her house.

"A shade more gray, my butt," I'd said to myself, but I was smiling. It was a good day. The sun was shining, the neighborhood was coming alive, and I was wearing the new sun bonnet I had bought just the Wednesday before.

I made pancakes for breakfast and thought I'd bring some over for Jean. Who knows whether that woman ever feeds herself enough. She was organizing photos when I knocked on the screen door and let myself in. They were spread all across the dining room table, some in shoe boxes, some in piles and some sitting next to frames.

"Which do you think would go better over the stairs?" she asked, holding up two photos for me to see. One was of her and Hank next to the New York City Christmas tree, and the other showed them next to the house, probably just after they bought it.

"I think pancakes," I said, putting a couple photo piles onto a chair so I would have room to set the plate down.

“Oh, I already had breakfast. Thank you, though,” she said, moving around the table to consider another photo.

“What did you eat?”

“Corn flakes.”

“No, that’s what you ate yesterday.”

“A person can eat the same cereal two days in a row, you know. It’s actually quite normal.”

I looked over at her sink and saw no dishes in it. She does this sometimes, forgets that she forgot to eat. She could make millions if she could just bottle that style forgetfulness. Annoying as I’ll get out.

“Jean, I made these pancakes especially for you, and if you don’t eat them, I’m throwing them on your driveway.”

“Can they wait until lunch?” she said, holding a photo at arm’s length and cocking her head to one side. After a moment, she turned it around for my approval. It was a photo of an elephant. I shook my head and she tossed it back on the table.

We negotiated for brunch, settled on a photo of the two of them in a fishing boat, and I stayed to help her organize pictures for a minute before returning to my house to do a couple more chores before my book club (we were reading “1984.” It was horrible).

Bridge release

It started with the computer, which hadn't entirely been on purpose. Iris had been balancing it on the bridge's stone wall, trying to use Skype to show her mother the mountain view from where she was, and one far-flung hand had sent it flying.

Almost, almost it felt like she had drowned her own mother. Then the woman had called in a panic to know whether Iris was alright and what she would do about the computer. So far as Iris cared, though, the laptop was gone. She was not going to go swimming for it, and besides that, it would be waterlogged and destroyed.

The next thing to go was her old socks, which had been on purpose, though she pretended otherwise. It wasn't littering so far as it wasn't on purpose, and socks decompose...right? Either way, they were old, and she wanted to be rid of them. So off the bridge they went.

Over time, Iris added her old college textbooks, an ex-boyfriend's ball cap, a stupid collection of rocks, three pairs of sunglasses, her bra (on a particularly fun night), a coffee mug and the coffee inside it, and some carrots she hadn't wanted to eat. It was so relieving, throwing things off that bridge and into the river, that she bought the house nearby and just stayed put.

Most annoying, of course, was when items would wash back up on the shores in her yard. It defeated the whole point. She always threw them back in and, except for the bra, every one of them left.

The bra haunted her, though. It was a pale blue one with yellow lace trim from Victoria's Secret, and it just would not leave, no matter how many times she tried. Iris had had no choice but to hang it from some wire beneath the bridge, hidden from view of the house and out of the water's treacherous reach.

But she knew it was there. The stupid thing wouldn't let her walk across the bridge without thinking about it, and every time she checked, there it was, hanging, there. There and never going to leave her truly alone.

The next course of action, then, was to get high on caffeine, tear down the bra, which busted one of its straps, and wear it with nothing else while swimming in the river. This would absolve her of all crime, she was sure, by showing acceptance of both the river and the bra. It would then have no unfinished business and could leave her to herself.

That didn't work, either.

It was upsetting enough that she stopped visiting the bridge altogether. Iris rehung it under the bridge after its last visit to her home shores and avoided the area. It was more than she could handle.

When the bra showed up on her bank again, even though she had last seen it hanging safely from its wire, Iris gave up. She screamed for all she was worth and flung the bra as far downriver as she could, then ran away. To Louisiana. She's still trying to sell the house, if you're interested. It's got a nice gabled roof and a few flowers coming up near the front door.

(Honestly, I was going to write some fiction about someone attempting suicide, but my attempt didn't work out and this did. Something silly for your day.)

How to Write a Press Release

Remember that post I wrote a couple weeks ago, saying that English classes should teach students how to write things they will actually be writing as adults? This week, I've decided to not be a hypocrite. I usually talk about how to write fiction, but today, I'm going to discuss how to write a press release.

Let us begin with cliche: What is a press release?

Well, inquiring mind, a press release is when an organization -- whether that is a company, club, church group or something else that starts with a "c" -- sends a letter to the media. These days, a press release is also something you could send to your customer base or following. It is meant to disclose whatever has been happening lately in a way that draws attention to your group. Usually, it's happy news, but I suppose tragic news could also warrant a press release.

It is important to note that a news outlet will not publish or use your press release if the news is not interesting or important enough. Saying you got a company pet is not newsworthy, but it would be if said pet works as an on-call seeing eye dog for whoever visits your store. (Can seeing eye dogs switch people, or are they trained for specific people? Unsure.)

News outlets are looking for the following, called "news values": timeliness (last month's news? Forget it), impact (how many people does this affect, and by how much?), prominence (I lied earlier. If Facebook got a company pet, that would make the news), proximity (choose a news outlet in your area, please), interest (how bizarre or heartwarming or sad, basically. The emotion factor), and conflict (who cares if you sold a book? ... Until it gets banned, that is).

When you write a press release, keep these factors in mind. If your news does not fit these categories, I honestly wouldn't even bother. It's important to know your audience, though; a recent press release I had to write said the company I work for had gained membership in an international organization in its field. The local news station couldn't care less, but our customers do care, and they are the ones I sent the release to. It tells customers that we are a bit more legit.

Using that press release as an example, here's how I covered those news values. Timeliness got covered by a photo of a store manager hanging the sign saying it. That makes it seem current. I also used the present tense when talking about the photo. In actuality, the membership started back in January. Impact happened when I said it would help us to better serve our customers and improve the quality of our products. Remember, since the customers were my audience, the question was "How does this impact me?", not the vague, "Who does this impact?" Prominence came in when I labelled the organization as an international one. For some reason, "international" means "important." I also said this was the go-to organization for the industry. I introduced interest by (I hope) going through the organization's code of ethics and giving recent examples (continuing to make it timely!) of how we already uphold it. There were Google reviews to add interest, too, and change up the voice. A press release like this isn't really emotional, but I probably could have worked on this aspect a bit more. As for conflict, there wasn't any. I mean, was I supposed to pretend the organization hadn't wanted us and we had fought our way in? Lesson: You don't need to address all the news values, just all the ones you possibly can.

There is no set length for a press release. I'd say write your news and stop when you've said it all, at a max of two pages. One is better. Don't keep writing for the joy of it, because someone has to read that and all they want is the news, not your life story. They want you to get to the point, answer the who, what, when, where, why and how, and be done.

Please remember to answer those questions. If you leave some of that out, you're missing a crucial part of your story.

Finally, include your contact information and any photos you think would support the story. When I worked at the Press-Tribune, we regularly had people email in a press release (you can mail, email, whatever you want) and then call to make sure we noticed it. This is good practice for dealing with a news outlet.

Best of luck! Google a few examples and you're ready to go.