Thinking About the Ampersand
At one time the 27th letter of the alphabet, the ampersand means “and.” That made it awkward for English-speaking schoolchildren, who would have to recite “…W, X, Y, Z, and and.” So for years, per se (by itself) was inserted and schoolkids would recite: “…W, X, Y, Z, and per se and.” (In fact, per se was also used with letters that […]
Norman Sims on The Literary Journalists
Here’s a picture of my distressed, patched, Post-it noted, highlighted and annotated copy of The Literary Journalists, which I bought in 1984, the year it was published. The anthology, subtitled “The New Art of Personal Reportage,” contained great works of nonfiction by John McPhee, Tracy Kidder, Joan Didion, Tom Wolfe and nine others. Edited by my […]
David Carr’s Teaching Manifesto
The late David Carr was many things, not least among them a gifted teacher. Only recently I read the syllabus for his Boston U. course, “Press Play.” I wish I had been smart enough to include in my course outline (Advanced Feature Writing, at Ryerson) what he wrote under what he called “Personal Standards.” It’s […]
Have a Book You Want to Write? This Program is for You…
I’m a mentor-advisor in the University of King’s College/Dalhousie University’s Creative Nonfiction MFA program (the only one of its kind in Canada). Our students are professionals (of various kinds, not only journalists) working on book projects. It’s low-residency, so students come to Halifax for 2 weeks in August (and, in alternating years, Toronto or New […]
Miss Friday, the Tin Toy Typist
A 1950s Japanese novelty by Nomura Toys Ltd.: the battery-operated “Miss Friday the Typist.” Sitting at an 8.5-inch tinplate desk (with extensions raised), “Miss Friday” is 7-inches high from floor to the top of her head (in sitting position). Considered a complex action toy (featuring two or more actions, rather than just one), she moves her […]
BECOME A BETTER FEATURE WRITER
My Advanced Feature Writing night course is scheduled to run at Ryerson University beginning on Thursday, January 15, 2015. It’s part of the Magazine & Web Publishing program in The G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education. The class is usually small—often a dozen or so students—and more than half of the people who take the course […]
In Memory of Don Obe
Sadly, the legendary editor, writer and teacher, Don Obe, has died today at Toronto General Hospital after a period of declining health. His long career included newspaper work at The Windsor Star, Vancouver Sun and Toronto Telegram. Inspired by the New Journalism of Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese, Hunter Thompson and others, he jumped to magazines, first as […]
The Art of Nonfiction on the Bridge
“Chrissake, Joe, let’s get the bolts out and put that mother on,” one pusher yelled to Joe Jacklets, who was being cautious with the casting. The pusher, noticing that another gang working down the catwalk had already removed the bolts and were clamping the casting into place, was getting nervous–his gang was behind. “Take it […]
Rereading A Depression Classic
I recently reread Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, the best known part of a book by novelist James Agee and photographer Walker Evans, published in 1941 under the title: Cotton Tenants: Three Families. It began as a magazine article—commissioned by Fortune in 1936—that went rogue. Agee and Evans were sent to document the lives of […]
Susan Orlean on Writing, Ideas and Storytelling
“I write about stories because I want to learn about them. In the process of learning you would really hope that what you learn throws you off from where you started… I start w a question, whatever it may be, and the more I learn, the more I realize, wow, that wasn’t the question at all. […]