tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88058978318008041752024-03-13T22:52:11.890-07:00Telling StoriesA blog about narrative and how it relates to writing, photos and video.Katie Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575285451288300805noreply@blogger.comBlogger46125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805897831800804175.post-72093187673559399382011-02-24T14:39:00.000-08:002011-02-24T23:36:45.801-08:00NO Me Versus No, ME: Journalism and Creative NonfictionThis past November I was invited to speak at the <a href="http://www.english.uiowa.edu/graduate/mfa/nonfictionow/schedule.shtml">NonfictionNow Conference</a> at the University of Iowa. The topic was journalism versus creative nonfiction and whether or not to include the self. My background is in traditional daily journalism (NO Me), but my best piece of writing is probably <a href="http://etude.uoregon.edu/summer2007/egg/egg.php">my story about egg donation</a> which was written in first-person (No, ME). <br />
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Here are the thoughts I shared that day:<br />
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How many of you self-identify as journalists? <br />
How many of you identify as creative nonfiction writers? <br />
How many of you aren’t sure where you fall?<br />
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Some definitions might help --- sometimes I feel like we can’t talk to each other because we don’t know what the other means when they say creative nonfiction vs. literary journalism. <br />
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CREATIVE NONFICTION IS …<br />
"'Creative nonfiction' precisely describes what the form is all about. The word 'creative' refers simply to the use of literary craft in presenting nonfiction—that is, factually accurate prose about real people and events—in a compelling, vivid manner. To put it another way, creative nonfiction writers do not make things up; they make ideas and information that already exist more interesting… using literary techniques like scene, dialogue, and description, while allowing the personal point of view and voice rather than maintaining the sham of objectivity." -Lee Gutkind, the godfather of creative nonfiction.<br />
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LITERARY JOURNALISM IS …<br />
“a form of storytelling as old as the telling of stories. The genre recognizes both the inherent power of the real and the deep resonance of the literary. It is a form that allows a writer both to narrate facts and to search for truth, blending the empirical eye of the reporter with the moral vision -- the I -- of the novelist.” -Lauren Kessler, narrative nonfiction author and director of the graduate program in literary nonfiction journalism at the University of Oregon.<br />
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To me, these definitions sound more similar than distinct. To be honest, I think what we do as literary nonfiction journalists and creative nonfiction writers is essentially the same. <br />
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I don’t think one is more powerful, or more valid, or more worthy. <br />
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A thoroughly researched, thoughtfully written memoir has the potential to be better work of a journalism than a third-person nonfiction book that is sloppily written and poorly researched … And vice versa.<br />
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It doesn’t have to be one or the other. The categorization, in my opinion, has more to do with how the writer prefers to be identified or what shelf her work going to sit on in Barnes & Noble or how it’s being sold to a general audience --- and that general audience really doesn’t care about the nit-picky details of whether it’s called literary nonfiction. Creative nonfiction. Factual fiction. <br />
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What people care about is whether it’s TRUE. As a reader, I just don’t want to be lied to. I don’t want to be told that I’m reading a factual story and find out later that the author has intentionally twisted the truth or omitted relevant details. As long as you’re honest with what you are doing ---- if it’s written from memory that can’t be substantiated, fine. If you’re approximating the dialogue/scenes, OK. Just say so. I just want things to be true to the best of the writer's knowledge, that the writer hasn’t made things up purposefully. <br />
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But people <i>do</i> make things up in both creative nonfiction and journalism. There are lots of notorious cases. When it’s intentionally fictionalized and you’re trying to pass it off as nonfiction, it’s just wrong. <br />
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What bothers me about journalists is that we stand with our chests puffed out and say we just deal in cold hard facts and telling the truth. We dismiss any further discussion on how much actual truth comes out of what we do. <br />
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I didn’t contemplate this in any significant way until I liberated myself from the old school rules of journalism and wrote my first, first-person piece. As I was writing, I came to a point where I had to explain my motivations – and I thought to myself, why <i>did</i> I do that? <br />
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I wrote the first idea that came to my head. But it felt off. I tried on another explanation but that didn’t ring true either. I realized I couldn’t explain my actions. It took weeks of contemplation until I’d written myself into a place where I finally understood my true motivation. <br />
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And then it dawned on me how ridiculous is it that I’ve been conducting interviews for years asking questions like, “What motivated you to do X?” And I’d give the subject all of 30 seconds to respond. <br />
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As writers, we spend a lot of time in our heads. We reflect. We mull. We question ourselves (incessantly at times). <br />
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The average person doesn’t dig that deeply into the psyche. <br />
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So when we as journalists ask a person “Why did you do that?” We may be asking her to think in a way that she rarely thinks. And while the answer may not be intentionally false, it may not be entirely true either. <br />
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--<br />
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Because I find writing about other people more interesting than writing about myself, I returned to the No Me camp. It wasn’t easy though. I had the nagging feeling that what I was doing as a journalist was fraught because it seemed impossible to gather much less tell the complete truth. <br />
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But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to stop trying to tell true stories. <br />
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Because we live in a culture where we are inundated with facts and soundbytes that are often devoid of insight, we need creative nonfiction / literary journalism whatever the heck you want to call it, to give context to information and human experience. <br />
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We need this type of storytelling (Me, or No Me) because it helps us all make sense of the world.Katie Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575285451288300805noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805897831800804175.post-70090819928281148562010-11-22T17:08:00.000-08:002010-11-22T18:02:48.907-08:00Q&A with Peter Laufer<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_mG2DXPbvIME/TOsWGsNjn5I/AAAAAAAAAEM/_VtTnKaQtdQ/s1600/Picture%2B48.png"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 218px; height: 217px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_mG2DXPbvIME/TOsWGsNjn5I/AAAAAAAAAEM/_VtTnKaQtdQ/s400/Picture%2B48.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5542548070612574098" border="0" /></a><br />
I interviewed <a href="http://peterlaufer.com/">Peter Laufer</a> this summer for <a href="http://etude.uoregon.edu/summer2010/">Etude</a>, the Journal of Literary Nonfiction. And now Peter works with me at the University of Oregon's School of Journalism and Communication. I also just got his butterfly <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-World-Butterflies-Subculture-Conservationists/dp/1599215551">book</a>. Here's an introduction to Peter followed by our Q&A.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">...<br />
</div><br />
Peter Laufer is an investigative journalist, broadcaster and documentary filmmaker working in traditional and new media. Laufer is the author of several books dealing with critical social and political issues. His book <em>Mission Rejected </em>focuses on American soldiers who return from Iraq opposed to the war. Laufer worked as a news correspondent for NBC News, reported for CBS and ABC radio, and was the Berlin voice of the public radio program “Marketplace.” He has also produced and directed an award winning documentary film on immigration in Europe (“Exodus to Berlin”), and anchored national television talk shows such as LinkTV’s “FAQs”. Laufer is currently writing a natural history trilogy published by Lyons Press. The first book, <em>The Dangerous World of Butterflies</em> (May 2009), is an examination of the strange subculture of rare butterfly enthusiasts. As a follow-up, Laufer wrote <em>Forbidden Creatures</em> (June 2010), a study of the exotic pet industry. The third book tentatively titled <em>No Animals Were Harmed during the Writing of this Book </em>is due out in 2011. Laufer was recently named the James Wallace Chair in Journalism at the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication and will begin teaching this fall.<br />
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<em>You are two books into a three-book deal. Most writers dream about a three-book deal. Is it a dream...or a burden...or a little of both?</em><br />
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It is a dream and a challenge. <em>The Dangerous World of Butterflies</em> led directly to <em>Forbidden Creatures</em> because many of the issues I encountered researching the butterfly book — poaching, illicit trade in animals, endangered species, habitat loss, fascinating characters — are replicated in the world of so-called exotic pets: great apes, big cats, long snakes, and the like. The third book in the trilogy deals with the point where animal use becomes animal abuse. Careening into this moving target of use vs. abuse is proving to be not just a reportorial challenge, but also a personal one. I've been a vegetarian since Jimmy Carter lost the presidency to Ronald Reagan, but the research for this third book pushed me into a vegan lifestyle — difficult to pursue on the road and undoubtedly an irritant to friends and relations still gracious enough to invite me for dinner.<br />
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So my short answer to your query must be: It is a dream (as long as I get back to my desk quickly so that I can meet that looming deadline for book number three).<br />
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<em>You are what is now being called a multi-platform storyteller. You tell stories with text, with audio and with video. How do you know which stories deserve which treatment? Should all storytellers be conversant across platforms? What about the "jack of all trades, master of none" idea?</em><br />
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The story is all that counts, I remain convinced. The platform — from the wall of our caves to the screens of our G4 iPhones, and beyond — is just a platform. The "jack of all trades, master of none" idea is not an issue because storytellers must be master storytellers to make an impact, especially in today's information overloaded culture. And when the story is well told, the platform is merely the vehicle that delivers it. Most storytellers working today grew up in the mélange of print, audio, and video, and should be able to move seamlessly across these "platforms." I use that buzzword in quotes because I think our mediated societies can now dispense with such labels. A story is a story. I expect I should be able to tell it to you via whatever means works best to get it into your (likely) distracted head.<br />
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All that said, I'm promoting my Slow News Movement, announced in the butterfly book and inspired — of course — by Italy's Slow Food Movement. My slogan is "Yesterday's News Tomorrow" and I believe we need to consciously and carefully moderate our incoming media. I've taken to writing letters with a fountain pen and sending them through the post. I try not to respond immediately to email messages, I leave my mobile phone in the car when I go out to restaurants, and I'm seriously considering closing my Facebook account (I shut down Twitter after just a few “tweets”). We need to decide for ourselves what media is worth our while to read (and as a writer I want to use the word "read'' and not "consume"). We're in danger of missing the story because of the noise. So although I exploit all media to tell my stories to the widest possible audience, I embrace the legacy and permanence of the printed word on paper — and prefer it for my long-form work. My other first love is radio; live sound is ideally suited for triggering the imagination and blasting news out to the world fast and first.<br />
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Today I visited the Hermann Hesse Museum here in Switzerland and was intrigued to see collections of his letters, musing to my wife Sheila that it's hard to imagine our contemporary email traffic making a compelling graphic exhibit. I encourage us all to write more letters by hand and leave a legacy impossible for the quartermasters at Facebook and Amazon to delete.<br />
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<em>What have you learned from all your years in radio that you apply to your work as a book author? </em><br />
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There is no better training ground for reporting, writing, and editing with accuracy and clarity than a traditional radio newsroom. Radio news, with its relentless perpetual deadlines, requires one to work under extreme time pressure (minute-by-minute deadlines!) and in close proximity (physical and conceptual) with usually stressed-out colleagues. It mandates telling complicated stories with brevity. I like to share the paraphrased quote attributed to both Twain and Pascal, "Sorry for the long letter. I would have written a shorter one, but I didn't have the time." Radio news equals that elusive short letter. Writing for radio teaches us how to make the complex concise and how to communicate clearly in today's information-cluttered marketplace. Facing radio news deadlines day after day makes any other deadline appealing. Working a live audience that will jump to correct errors is a constant reminder to check facts. Crafting a story in a noisy newsroom full of unrestrained egos tempers a writer from the romantic notion that she or he requires an idyllic atelier on a Left Bank equivalent in order to compose compelling prose.<br />
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Radio is the most visual of media. Before I explain, I must define terms. The word "radio" meaning sound transmitted through the airwaves and listened to over a radio receiver is antiquated. In today's world the storytelling we enjoy as sound comes to us via a variety of devices besides a Bakelite transistor and its variants. "Audio" is a more precise label for those sound stories. But I lobby for the continued use of "radio." The word need not be restricted to the old technology and it conjures a sense of using a device to hear a story. Despite my rejection of the romantic Paris writing studio, I'm romantically attached to the word "radio" and I'm betting its use doesn't die no matter how many podcasts you download, even though National Public Radio decided to change its official name to NPR. That foolishness makes me think of a story that circulated around Rockefeller Center when I worked as an NBC News correspondent. Correspondent Irving R. Levine supposedly was asked by a producer if he would drop the “R” at the end of his reports, making the precious second it took to pronounce the initial available for more editorial content. My colleague’s reputed retort was, “I’ll drop the ‘R’ in my name when you take the ‘B’ out of NBC.” <br />
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Radio requires concerted effort be exerted by both the producer and the listener in order to function. When we create radio we must trigger the imagination of the listener. The listener — by default — creates a visual image of what he or she hears. It is an unavoidable phenomenon cleverly demonstrated in one minute by one of my radio heroes, Stan Freberg. In an example of how radio is superior to television, Freberg describes Lake Michigan bombed with whipped cream by the Canadian air force, which then drops a huge cherry on the top to the cheers of thousands of bystanders. No one can listen to that minute without envisioning the ludicrous sight of a whip-creamed Great Lake.<br />
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Successful radio writing must incessantly project visual images; such writing translates well to the printed page. Successful radio writing is informal and conversational; that tone also works well for stories presented as printed words on paper (or pixels on Kindles and iPads). <br />
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I love radio.<br />
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<em>Tell us about your investigative reporting process. Do you pursue questions? Do you follow people’s stories? Do follow the money? How do you think about it?</em><br />
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That there are no stupid questions is a key to my process. I often look to guidance from the detective portrayed by actor Peter Falk, Colombo. I observe and follow my curiosity, and I try to listen long and hard when I ask questions. Initially I cast a wide net (animal metaphor!) and then follow the stories and characters both most appealing to me and that seem most likely to reveal those truths I'm seeking.<br />
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<em>Your list of book titles, documentaries and radio programs is extensive — okay, that’s an understatement. You’re one heck of a prolific journalist. How do you maintain such energy for your work?</em><br />
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For me the answer is the inverse of your question: The work energizes me. It is much more exhausting to consider waking up to no assignment. In fact, it is impossible to consider. As my friend and colleague Markos Kounalakis remarked to me years ago when we were musing about how lucky we were to have chosen journalism for a profession, "We're sentenced to a lifetime of learning." There never can be a blank page. There are no slow news days; there are only slow news reporters.<br />
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<em>I understand you are in Lugano, Switzerland at the moment. What brings you there? Are you there on a research adventure? (If so, can you tell us about it?)</em><br />
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In fact I am writing this on the deck of the gracious apartment of family friends, looking out on Mt. San Salvatore, eating tofuwürst. I'm here for the launch of the Italian edition of my butterfly book, and yes, I am engaged in some research for the animal use and abuse book (the working title is <em>No Animals Were Harmed during the Writing of this Book</em>). Lugano was the home of Hans Ruesch, a man with an extraordinarily varied career: race car driver (Alfas and Maseratis, a Grand Prix winner), novelist ("A born storyteller," said the <em>New York Times</em>), film writer (for films with Anthony Quinn and Kirk Douglas), and — for my purposes — an early and longtime anti-vivisection activist, and author of the nonfiction animal rights book, <em>Slaughter of the Innocents</em>. He died a few years ago well into his nineties, but a foundation dedicated to his animal rights work remains active.<br />
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Finally, we ask all our authors, what are you reading at the moment?</em><br />
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In preparation for my arrival at the University of Oregon and Eugene I've just finished two books assigned to me by a grammar school friend who moved to Eugene years ago: Amis's <em>Lucky Jim </em>and Kesey's <em>Sometimes a Great Notion</em>. The former teaches moderation at the bar during faculty parties and the latter suggests it rains now and again in Oregon. I just started Ruesch's <em>Slaughter of the Innocents</em>. Aside from the animal rights issues, the preface to the 1983 edition I'm reading offers detailed documentation and analysis from the author regarding what he considered was a concerted effort by the drug industry to marginalize his work. It is a fascinating essay about journalism, storytelling, and the challenges of moving ideas and information to an audience.Katie Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575285451288300805noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805897831800804175.post-31138885781016965932009-06-18T14:09:00.001-07:002009-06-18T14:10:58.608-07:00Telling Stories Short Nonfiction Contest Winners - part 4Many thanks to everyone who entered stories into the <span style="font-style: italic;">Telling Stories</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Short Nonfiction Contest.</span> I apologize again for how long it has taken to announce the winners. Thank you all for your patience.<br /><br />We're very pleased with the winning stories. They are such different stories --- a dating disaster, a travelogue to a surreal land, a travel nightmare, and a mini trauma memoir. We've posted each here with an explanation of what we liked about them.<br /><br />***<br />This winning entry from Celene Carillo stood out for many reasons — the hook at the beginning, the pace of the storytelling, the self-deprecating humor, the kicker we didn’t see coming. It’s one of those stories that invites the reader for a fun ride that finishes before you feel like you’ve had enough. We’re satisfied but want to hear more about this writer’s adventures in dating. Thanks so much, Celene, for sharing this entertaining tale of woe.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">In the House of Vomiting and Despair</span><br /><br />By Celene Carillo<br /><br />It started with the e-mail.<br /><br />I read it and felt like I’d been punched hard in the stomach.<br /><br />Sure, two months isn’t a long time to be dating someone, but things were intense. For example, a few years ago I used to dream about a man who built a blacksmithing shop in his yard. I loved this man. I wanted to find this man. So you can imagine how it felt when Mr. e-mail told me he’d built one in his yard just before my dreams started. They even looked alike – these two men – taller, lithe versions of Jon Stewart, and for a while I thought hotter versions of Jon Stewart, which I now believe is impossible in reality.<br /><br />But I’m wandering. It started with the e-mail, and by “it” I mean the vomiting.<br /><br />It didn’t happen right away, which is something of a surprise, since immediately after reading the e-mail I stood, faced my friend Jenny and her husband, David, who had both been reading over my shoulder, and said, “I am going to vomit.”<br /><br />I said it over and over that day and largely thought it was true. The e-mail was like a scourge that had found its way from Oregon, where I live, to North Carolina, where I was visiting my best friend and her family. Perhaps learning a little more about it will help explain why. Here’s an excerpt, paraphrased:<br /><br />"I like being with you. You make me laugh. But for various reasons I do not<br />understand I hold people at arm’s length. It might be past relationship baggage or<br />poor organizational skills. I need to figure out which. I guess what I am looking<br />for at this point is to find people who are interesting, kind, comfortable and are up<br />for an activity now and again. I would still like to meet up to play backgammon,<br />or watch a movie, with no other obligations but enjoying that time."<br /><br />Activities.<br /><br />Backgammon.<br /><br />These were not entirely in keeping with my man friend’s prior behavior, which had included, among other things, pursuing me; bringing blueberries and red wine to an outdoor performance of Shakespeare we saw; claiming full credit for making the first move; being my date at a good friend’s wedding; shooting me that goofy, misty-eyed, “I want to sleep with you” look when I’d go off on topics like plate tectonics or the lottery; and, as it follows, sleeping with me.<br /><br />It made no sense that this fit, seemingly virile 36-year-old man could suddenly go so Mr. Rogers on me.<br /><br />Jenny and I spent the evening mocking the e-mail. “Would you like to play mah-jongg?” she asked. “No,” I said. “I am too busy participating in a Parcheesi tournament at the assisted living center. But let’s meet up for water aerobics next week. That’s an activity I enjoy.”<br /><br />It felt good to laugh at him, at his sudden, panicked retreat. It felt good to toss words around like, “eunuch,” “flaccid” and “emasculate.”<br /><br />We’d pay for that.<br /><br />The next day I read my weekly horoscope. It was about purification, and included an anecdote about how an addled Robert Downey Jr. once purged himself of drugs by eating so much Burger King he vomited.<br /><br />Now, say what you want about horoscopes – go ahead, I understand – but later that night Jenny threw up spectacularly in one brief but powerful episode. She woke up the next morning feeling like she’d been steamrolled. We made no connection to the e-mail, or even the horoscope, and instead put the incident down to old rice.<br /><br />But it wasn’t the rice.<br /><br />Two days later the shit hit the fan. Jenny had more or less recovered, and it was supposed to be my last day there. Almost as soon as David left for work, their 15-month-old son puked on Jenny’s shoulder. Then he puked on the bed. We put the incident down to the fact that babies throw up all the time. But an hour later their three-year-old vomited in the bathroom.<br /><br />As if on cue my stomach started hurting. I was convinced it was autosuggestion. I had just eaten a large portion of tuna salad. This could not happen to me. I had to go work on Monday and hear the results of my Myers-Briggs personality assessment, the thought of which unsettled me somewhat less than my gut at that moment. I had to go and deal with the shambles of a relationship.<br /><br />Trying to pack proved to be fruitless when I realized I was not packing at all, but instead curled into a fetal ball on top of a pile of my clothes and breaking into cold sweat.<br /><br />Then the tuna salad came back.<br /><br />And so, it seemed, did everything else I’d eaten in the past several months. I hurled so hard and so many times I thought I’d lose vital organs. I scared the children. Jenny called David at work to tell him most of the house was vomiting. He felt nauseous the moment he hung up. He managed to drive home before throwing up in the bathroom – it’s the only one in the house, so we carried buckets around that night due to the demands placed on the toilet.<br /><br />Traveling was impossible. My low point came when I was on the phone with a representative from Northwest Airlines, delirious as another case of the sweats was coming on. “I was calling…I have to make a flight change…to see if you have any waivers…very ill…in the morning can’t fly my stomach…can you please hang on one moment,” I said, and turned to my bucket and vomited in a manner I can only describe as theatrical. When I picked up the phone again I had been put on hold.<br /><br />Throughout this I experienced ebbs and flows of clarity and cognizance. I remembered what I said about vomiting earlier in the week. I remembered my horoscope. I remembered that goddamn e-mail. Something about it seemed dodgy, like a Ponzi scheme, or like milk left out in the sun.<br /><br />The only advantage to the virulence was its brevity. When it was over the next day I felt like I had been steamrolled. Jenny and I concurred that the e-mail’s monumental crappiness had somehow invited bad juju into the house. We cannot, of course, prove this, but we don’t feel like we have to. Everything fell into place too neatly – or rather, not neatly at all, but you get my drift.<br /><br />But we never did stop mocking the e-mail. And neither did any of the other people I forwarded it to, which numbers somewhere in the dozens.<br /><br />This man and I live in a small town. The first time I saw him after the e-mail he froze for a good 10 seconds before bolting like a prey animal. I imagine this will become par for the course. But maybe I can put it down to his being late for something. Like a game of shuffleboard. Or canasta.<br /></blockquote>Katie Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575285451288300805noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805897831800804175.post-79004274760382370332009-06-18T12:49:00.000-07:002009-06-18T12:54:48.573-07:00Telling Stories Short Nonfiction Contest Winners - part 3This winning story from John Givot takes us around the world and places us in the midst our worst travel fear, the one Visa ran an ad campaign on for at least a decade: You’re in the middle of a foreign land and your credit card won’t work. You have no money. No place to stay. No way to get home. You haven’t eaten. What do you do? In this story John tells what he did and what he learned.<br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">Broke in India</span><br /><br />By John Givot<br /><br />It was half past midnight and an army guy had just kicked me off the bench I was sitting on in the train station. He asked me what train I was waiting for. No, I told him, I wasn't waiting for a train, I needed to make a phone call.<br /><br />The problem, which I didn't tell him, was that I had no money. Well actually, I had five rupees, about ten cents US.<br /><br />There were so many poor people, I mean really poor, both in life and pocket, that I felt I didn't have the right to ask anyone for money. All around me, people were begging for a few rupees for something to eat. How could a rich westerner ask for the money it would take to make a phone call to the other side of the world, let alone get dinner and a hotel room.<br /><br />I was in Patna, India, the capital of the state of Bihar, one the most over-populated, poor, and illiterate states in the country. And I could feel it. On the trains and the buses, on the streets and at the roadside stands. There was a heaviness.<br /><br />I didn't realize it for a while. I didn't know why I felt like I did; yeah I was traveling alone and too far too fast, but still, my health was mostly good, I was meditating lots and whether I was alone or with people I knew, I was happy.<br /><br />It was on the bus ride to Lumbini, Nepal, from Uttar Pradesh (the next state over from Bihar and in a similar state), that it became clear.<br /><br />In the days before this bus ride, I had been feeling very judgmental and negative toward the local culture. I kept finding myself saying, "Indians this..." and "Indians that..." And then, while I was meditating in Kushinigar, the place where the Buddha died, or attained his final Nibanna, I felt this hardness on my body, a hardness toward other people. And then I felt it begin to crack. I felt myself soften a bit, and the hardness began to be replaced by compassion. Little by little.<br /><br />So the next day I am on this bus from Gorakpur to Lumbini. I had gotten on the bus after all the seats where full, so I stood in the aisle. Almost immediately though, I was told to come to the front of the bus and was given a seat. Part of me wanted to say, no, I'm not any better than whoever gave up their seat, but it felt like it would have been offensive to say no at that point, and I was grateful to sit down, not minding that it was under the TV, which was about shoulder height.<br /><br />Next to me was a nice Nepalese couple and their daughter who was about ten. After an hour or so, the man told me to switch with him so I would have more head room. This put me next to the bus door, where I watched the completely full bus take on more people. The isle was packed with people standing, and just when I thought there was no more room, another family of six would get swallowed into the mass. And then another family of five. It was amazing. About this time another couple, very poor, also with a small girl got on the bus. The woman grabbed my leg to support herself as she sat down on the floor, pretty much between my legs, and I could feel a deep agitation in her touch. With this couple and their baby, came that palpable heaviness. I could feel it, I could see it, and I could hear it in their voices.<br /><br />After about half an hour, they got off the bus, and the mood completely shifted. It got lighter; the heaviness left with them.<br /><br />But in the Patna train station a couple days before, I wasn't especially conscious of this heaviness, this "misery," the ignorance and deep aversion, the apathy of people surviving life. I just felt pulled down. And broke.<br /><br />The thing was, I didn't feel poor. Here were really poor people all around me, and I simply had no money.<br /><br />A few days before, my Visa card was rejected at an ATM as I was leaving Bhod Gaya, the place where the Buddha became enlightened, and a popular tourist spot. I didn't think much about it, I had some cash, and there were ATMs in every town. A couple days later, in the next town I was staying in, my card was rejected again. I got a little worried and went to the bank, where they told me the problem was that this was a small town, in the city it would work no problem. I changed the last of my US currency, a twenty-dollar bill, to rupees at the one fancy hotel in town, and continued on.<br /><br />After arriving in Patna after a long day of traveling, I went straight to the museum to get in before it closed. It has a large portion of the "Bhudda relics," bits of his bones, which were left after his cremation. I don't understand why, but there is an intensity when meditating near them, and I had been told by a British guy to go there.<br /><br />To see the relics, it costs five-hundred rupees, only about ten dollars US, but a fortune in India. So I spent my last five-hundred rupee note to meditate in front of the relics for fifteen minutes, then I meditated some more in the museum and a bit more outside.<br /><br />Then I was rushing to the next train. Fifteen rupees in a jam-packed shared auto-rickshaw got me to Hajipur, the next train station, which was an hour away on the other side of the Ganges (and the world’s longest bridge I was told, at 7 km).<br /><br />I arrived late for my train and without enough cash to buy the R60/ ticket anyway. Twenty minutes of standing in line for the ATM confirmed my fears -- my Visa card didn't work. I walked a mile down a dirty, dusty crowded, hot and humid night street, trying different ATMs along the way, not willing to pay for a taxi with my last few rupees. The ride back across the river, this time in the dark haze (the pollution makes the air in Los Angeles look like paradise) cost R20, leaving me with five rupees. I could only hope the card would work in the city, but I wasn't feeling it.<br /><br />Back at the main Patna train station, and five ATM rejections later, I sat down on a bench and tried to sit my evening hour of meditation, while getting hammered by mosquitoes.<br /><br />This is when the army guy kicked me off the bench. My five rupees weren't near enough for a phone call, which was about R30/ per minute to the US, but they would buy me a couple of samosas the next day, which I would want. (I had gotten sick the day before, and had only eaten fruit that day, after blowing my dinner out both ends the night before.)<br /><br />I was exhausted, hungry, broke, without a plan, and didn't feel like I had the right to ask anyone for help. I had already been rejected after asking for help from an office in the train station. Part of me wanted to curl up and escape to sleep, but if I was going to get help from the US, it had to be during the Indian night, since the time difference is about twelve hours.<br /><br />Surprisingly though, I felt OK about it. On the way down the platform, I walked into a different office, one that had five or six Indian Rail workers passing the time in it.<br /><br />I sat down and explained my dilemma to one guy who spoke English. He wanted to try my card, so I humored him and we went out to the ATM together. Back in the office, he asked me how I was going to solve "my problem."<br /><br />I shook my head; I didn't know, I really didn't. Another old guy sitting across the room gestured with his hand to his mouth, asking if I had had "kana," dinner. I shook my head.<br /><br />He pulled out a hundred rupee note, quite a lot of money and handed it to me. I had to hold back tears.<br /><br />Forget food though, a hundred rupees is enough for a three minute call home. I asked if I could receive a call on one of their cell phones and I about danced off to the phone guy's booth.<br /><br />While I was waiting for my mom to call back with info about Western Union, the train guy asked me what my work was. Did I have children? Was I married? What was my religion? Sorry, I don't have a job, no wife, no kids, and no religion. The clincher though, was when he asked me whether I bathed every day. Made me feel pretty pathetic in his eyes. And to give him credit for the last question, I was filthy.<br /><br />Sometimes we need to get humbled and helped and patched up by those who we think are less and who we think make our lives harder. It makes me realize we are all trying to get by, in the best way we know.<br /><br /></blockquote>Katie Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575285451288300805noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805897831800804175.post-40196597136427854612009-06-18T12:40:00.000-07:002009-06-18T12:48:07.629-07:00Telling Stories Short Nonfiction Contest Winners - part 2Great writing can take you places, make you feel like you know how a place looks and feels on the other side of the earth. In this winning story, Zack Barnett takes us to a place few of us will ever see, to the edge of a Ukranian pit mine so large it can be seen from space. What does it look like? How does it feel? What lessons can it teach us? Read on.<br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">A Pit Mine on a Spring Day</span><br /><br />By Zack Barnett<br /><br />How many times have you heard, “Hey, this weekend you and your wife want to go have a look at one of Europe's largest open pit iron ore mines?" That's not an invitation you're going get twice, if ever. After all, this is Ukrainian iron, the stuff they used to make the mythical curtain.<br /><br />After this winter, an invitation to damn near anywhere would have sounded fascinating. For four months, the ice didn’t melt. It just turned browner by the day. Now, it was turning to brown slush and we were oozing our way into spring. An outing, even if it was to an open pit mine, sounded fantastic.<br /><br />As newly arrived Peace Corps volunteers in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, we were up for anything to get us out of our dormitory apartment, which, with sheets of wrinkled red linoleum on the floors and walls of dusty chalk, had begun to feel like a prison.<br /><br />Besides, like my friend Robert says, "You gotta recognize an opportunity when you see it." I think Robert was talking about a trip to Lake Powell or a raft trip the Colorado River.<br /><br />But this, too, was an opportunity. Lena, a teacher from my school, and her husband picked us up like we were going on a picnic or something. We presented them with some pricy coffee and a box of chocolates, as is the Ukrainian custom. On our way to the mine we happened by Ukraine’s largest steel mill, which is no small potato in a country that produces more steel each year than all but a handful of countries in the world.<br /><br />The signature aroma of the mill, maybe a mile from our apartment, lacks the subtlety of even a dime store perfume. My iron lungs will probably set off airport metal detectors when we get home from two years of sucking in the smell. An escape from that smell and the brown ice made this outing downright sublime, even if did take an hour or so of pothole slalom to reach the southern outskirts of our 80-mile-long city.<br /><br />We pulled up to the pit mine's security gate, Lena’s husband got out and talked our way in. It wasn't unlike walking into a national park, only you don’t need to sweet talk the park service. Moments later we walked to the edge of a great chasm, a pockmark on the face of the Earth, like standing on the edge of a popped zit. A little horrifying, but still an amazing sight. The ecological irony wasn't lost on Lena, "Is it like the Grand Canyon?" she asked<br /><br />Yes and no.<br /><br />At almost 1,200 feet deep, 1.5 miles wide and almost two miles long, the seemingly bottomless man-made pit is a spectacle. Oxidized ore on one side even looks like Red Mountain in southern Colorado’s San Juans. Roads and rail lines spiral into the pit. Countless trucks ascend and descend. We stood on a small precipice overlooking the operation, not unlike an overlook at a national park. It truly was something to behold. I could have stayed all day watching the excavators dump raw ore into train cars to be hauled up a spiral of track to a giant conveyor belt pulling the ore from the depths to a processing plant, on its way to the giant, smelly mill.<br /><br />It's one thing to breathe the air of an industrial city. It's another to watch the operations stir up the dust. They say our city boasts its own weather patterns because the five giant pits around town alter the temperatures so much they change the air pressure. They say the bottom of the pit can reach 140 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer.<br /><br />This place is like an ant farm. From our viewpoint off-road haulers with tires taller than I am and elevating scrapers half a block long looked like nothing more than busy little insects gathering food on a crumby picnic blanket. The sheer size of the operation mesmerized.<br /><br />Andre, Lena's husband, worked at the mine for three years after he finished university. His job was in explosives. Once a week miners drill holes into the bottom of the mine. Then they throw in a few thousand pounds of explosives and "boom" one the largest open pit iron ore mines in Europe gets a little bigger, loosening rock to be sorted and loaded into train cars.<br /><br />It’s not too different from standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon and reminding yourself that the little winding brown ribbon of Colorado River carved and is carving the Grand Canyon as you watch. I had to keep reminding myself I was watching similar work in progress as I stared into the pit.<br /><br />Pits and mines like this made Kryvyi Rih an industrial jewel in the Soviet crown. Our region is one of a few on which the USSR relied on for steel production. Here, they mine and make it. What comes from the ground leaves the city as hardened pig iron. Blind, efficient resource extraction and production mark this town.<br /><br />Locals say that during World War II, the Nazis took over the pit and processed the ore here before sending the steel, along with tons of the black Ukrainian top soil back to Germany. It is said that it took several years to rebuild the ore mining and steel-making operations after the German occupation ended.<br /><br />Now, a company that owns one of the giant pits boasts that there is enough ore in the ground there for 60 more years. I'm still trying to figure out how a country that can oversee such an operation can't engineer a way to keep its teachers paid and its streets paved.<br /><br />"We don't have a lot of museums or art in our city," said Andre. "But we do have a lot of mines."<br /><br />After our visit to the open pit mine, we stopped by a store and bought the makings for a picnic: some fried meat, assorted mayonnaise salads, and a little beer – to kill the germs from stale mayo and meat – before heading out to a reservoir on the Ingulyets River.<br /><br />"Extreme," smiled Andre as he negotiated his compact car over the lumps of what seemed to me to be an old Jeep track. What we found at the end of the road sent me reeling into a blue-collar Bruce Sprinsgsteen ballad.<br /><br />There was a small pine forest with families throughout, playing soccer and picnicking. Meanwhile across the lake were the smokestacks, standing sentinel over the industrial empire. It felt like Gary, Indiana or somewhere in New Jersey, maybe.<br />Still, the day managed to wash the stink of winter from my brain. The frozen brown masses had finally melted from the sidewalk. Buds were coming and fresh blades of grass peaked out from the ground.<br /><br />Even the vista of the open pit mine had been appealing. Never has fresh air or the smell of evergreen trees found a nicer home in my nose than that day. After a winter slogging through or balancing on the grime of the city sidewalk, a visit to the pit was just the quarry for my citified bones.<br /><br />Even if it wasn’t the Grand Canyon.<br /><br /><br />(To see more of Zack Barnett's writing, visit <a href="http://zackbarnett.com/">http://zackbarnett.com/ </a>)<br /></blockquote>Katie Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575285451288300805noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805897831800804175.post-51011000623560770262009-06-18T12:28:00.000-07:002009-06-18T12:39:45.525-07:00Telling Stories Short Nonfiction Contest WinnersWe are pleased to finally announce the four winners of the<span style="font-style: italic;"> Telling Stories</span> short nonfiction story contest. We will dedicate a blog post to each of the winners and share their stories and explaining what we liked about them.<br /><br />***<br />Sometimes we have to tell our own stories to fully appreciate where we have been and where we are now. This mini autobiography from Dawn M Tucker gives a perspective on a lifetime of addiction – what causes it, what it begets and what it takes to overcome. Many thanks to Dawn for sharing her story.<br /><br /><blockquote>Three Words<br /><br />By<br /><br />Dawn M Tucker<br /><br /> <br />Why couldn’t I have someone else’s affliction? Grandma Tucker saves every issue of National Enquirer she buys, and Aunt Elsie’s old age insures she only makes hard right turns in the snow. Me? I am an alcoholic.<br /><br /> From the moment I was conceived I wasn’t wanted. Both of my parent’s were married…only… not to each other. I was adopted at nine days old by the man who would become my father. When I was 4 years old he married the woman who would become my mother. We moved into a huge house in Cleveland and I had one sister and three brothers. We were a ready made family, just add water…or alcohol.<br /><br /> I was hit, kicked, stabbed, punched, thrown down, jumped on and choked all by the time I was nine years old. When I was nine years old I got down on my knees and prayed to a God I believed in. I knew there was a God, I just thought he was angry with me. I prayed to him anyway, I prayed for courage.<br /><br />The courage to kill another human being. I wanted to kill my stepmother, the reason for all of the violence and pain. I thought if I killed her, I would also kill the pain. It was a prayer that was never answered. When I was twelve years old I got back down on my knees to pray again. Only, this time I was praying to a God I was certain had forgotten me.<br /><br />I prayed again for courage, the courage to kill myself.<br /><br /> It isn’t my lack of trying that has kept me alive. I slit my wrist 8-10 times. Overdosed on pills and even turned the gas on in my oven and blew out the pilot light, in an attempt to drift off to sleep forever. When I put the razor to my wrists, I don’t know that I wanted to die as much as I just wanted something to hurt worse than my heart.<br /><br /> The violence never got better in my home so I found my own way to deal with it. I took my first drink. It did for me what I couldn’t do for myself. It made me pretty, even though I quit taking care of myself. It made me smart, although I often slurred my words. The best part? It took away all of the pain.<br /><br /> I found another solution to all of the pain. I ran away. I hitchhiked across the United States and got in to cars and trucks with both men and women. Most of whom were willing to supply me with drugs and alcohol. Sometimes for a price, sometimes not, though I was willing to pay whatever price there was.<br /><br /><br /> I married at eighteen years of age and proceeded to have children. I drank through all of my pregnancies. When my children were infants I put them to my breasts, and never put down the drink. I piped my poison into them. When they were toddlers they followed me into the bathroom and held up my hair as I puked. They said things like “It will be okay mommy,” and “You’ll be okay mommy. It was never okay, because I was it, and I was never okay.<br /><br /> I guess I never knew what my drinking was doing to those around me. My family avoided me, my children asked me “Why do grownups drink?” I wondered why I drank? I wondered when my children would pick up their first drink?<br /><br />That was a moment of clarity that finally saved me.<br /><br /> I crawled into the bathroom on my hands and knees like an animal and pulled myself up by the sinks edge. Looking into the mirror I fully expected to see a stranger staring back at me. Instead I saw absolutely no one. I had ceased to exist. I dropped to my knees and said three words that would save my life; “God help me!”<br /><br /> I am a recovering alcoholic with a wonderful marriage, career and life. My children grew up around the 12 step program I attend, and seem to learn much faster than adults (myself included.) I think my life can't possibly get better, but it does.<br /><br />***<br /></blockquote>Katie Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575285451288300805noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805897831800804175.post-68441594676883421702009-06-18T11:55:00.000-07:002009-06-18T12:25:59.428-07:00Returning to the blogosphereDear Readers,<br /><br />I apologize sincerely. I've been feeling very guilty about how long I've been absent from this blog. All I can say is life took over. Writing, teaching and multimedia projects have meant little sleep in the past six months.<br /><br />In the thick of the busiest times, I'd wake up in a bleary-eyed panic over how I hadn't blogged in days ... then weeks ... then months. I'd vow to post something that day, but then my to-do list would present itself, all full of angry exclamation points and capital letters.<br /><br />Looking back now, it felt like six months of back-to-back deadlines.<br /><br />But I've conquered most of the list and can now turn my attention to blogging. Here's a preview of the exciting posts to come ... the Telling Stories Short Story contest winners, a new web design contest, my latest multimedia projects, author interviews and some great audio slideshows produced by my students.<br /><br />Stay tuned. I promise it won't be long.Katie Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575285451288300805noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805897831800804175.post-91914288244319093162009-02-12T10:36:00.000-08:002009-02-12T11:20:48.461-08:00Amazingly BeautifulVacation photography has been a hobby of mine since age 9 when my parents took my brother and I on a driving trip to Yellowstone gave us 110mm point-and-shoots to document the family vacation.<br /><br />We each shot at least an entire role of Old Faithful. They turned out as bad as you might imagine. I remember flipping through picture after picture of the steaming spot on the ground. Disappointing. The photos didn't capture the energy or the excitement or even what I remember it looking like. In 3X5, the geyser looked puny.<br /><br />But some part of me was hooked and my parents must have recognized it. For the next vacation, they upgraded my gear to a real 35mm point-and-shoot. And ever since it's been kind of a side quest to make photos that look at least half as beautiful as the places I visit.<br /><br />So I was excited this week to learn that one of my more recent vacation photos was selected for inclusion in the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/amazinglybeautifulworld/">Amazingly Beautiful World Gallery</a>. It's the photo below of the Mesquite Flat Dunes in Death Valley. If you look closely you can see a speck on one of the far off dunes. It's another photographer hunched over a tripod.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mG2DXPbvIME/SZR0Ji1b5xI/AAAAAAAAAD0/QN-55g1RDR4/s1600-h/Campbell-The-Dunes.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mG2DXPbvIME/SZR0Ji1b5xI/AAAAAAAAAD0/QN-55g1RDR4/s400/Campbell-The-Dunes.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5301990368640493330" border="0" /></a><br />I encourage you to visit <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/amazinglybeautifulworld/">ABW Gallery</a>. Its name says it all. The photos are inspiring. And I'm so pleased to have a photo residing among such gorgeous images.Katie Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575285451288300805noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805897831800804175.post-29486722764916418022009-01-20T00:49:00.000-08:002009-01-20T01:13:50.656-08:00Dear Inaugural CommitteeOn the day of President Barrack Obama's inauguration, I'm pleased to share a guest column from a dear friend. Lisa Raleigh wrote this letter to the Obama inaugural committee in hopes of earning a ticket to the grand affair in Washington today. But her piece is so much more: It captures a sentiment felt across the country. And so I wanted to share it with you.<br /><br /><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote>Dear Inaugural Committee,<br />When Barack Obama was elected President in November, I thought I would feel only uncomplicated joy. So I was very surprised by the sorrow and grieving that came along with it: sorrow for the suffering and loss of two wars, a bittersweet grief for a long-lost sense of trust.<br /><br />Grief had not been invited to my post-election celebration, but I did not resist it, seeing it for what it was: an opening of the heart. It’s like the moment when an accident is over and the wreckage is cleared and you can finally let down your guard. This election — and its amazing landslide proportions — represented a homecoming of sorts, a sense that I was finally safe after a long, uncertain journey. Safe enough to feel what I’ve been feeling all along, but have hardly let myself experience — for the past eight years, to be sure, and for much, much longer, nearly a lifetime.<br /><br />The two wars I am grieving are Iraq and Vietnam. I am a child of the ‘60s and ‘70s , born in the latter days of the baby boom, and now a 52-year-old woman who honestly can’t wait for the post-boomer era that Obama is said to exemplify. Finally, thankfully, I am ready to get past it: the distancing and resignation that have been my defense for so long.<br /><br />Here’s how I got there: Like so many others, my worldview was formed by indelible images brought into my living room by network news and Life magazine — starting, of course, with the horse-drawn cart of JFK’s funeral. Then fast-forward just a few years to soldiers in triage; Medevacs hovering; body bags on the tarmac; a monk consumed by flames but seated in a perfectly calm lotus; a kneeling man, his face contorted sideways as a pistol is fired into his temple, his executioner just at the edge of the frame. These were overwhelming images for a child in elementary school, for anyone of any age.<br /><br />But then there were the protests, and this made sense to me. I thrilled to learn of young people marching in San Francisco and Berkeley, not far from my home, but I was far too young to join them. I studied the face of Lyndon Johnson, who addressed the nation again and again, but his expression did not reassure me; he looked more and more defeated over time, and in fact he was. Johnson had concluded that the war could not be won, yet he concealed this from us; all he revealed at the time was that he would not run again. Fortunately, Bobby had the fire; even an eleven-year-old could see that. Bobby Kennedy would end the war.<br /><br />I didn’t realize my heart was broken when Bobby died. I couldn’t go there. I felt disgust toward at his assassin, but not sadness for his death. It was the beginning of numbness, a protective shell that I would eventually layer with outrage and cynicism, both of which I cultivated throughout my teens and beyond.<br /><br />Questioning authority is any teen’s prerogative, but my adolescence happened to coincide with Richard Nixon’s presidency, and this was the perfect foil. I didn’t know anything about politics, didn’t feel the need: it was enough that the counterculture reviled Nixon as a schemer. It’s only now, after years of looking back, reading, researching and educating myself, that I know more of the particulars, the machinations devised by Nixon and Kissinger that prolonged the war for years, condemned tens of thousands of Americans and Vietnamese to their deaths and ended finally in the pretense of “peace with honor.” At the time, I scorned this distortion of language as just so much spin (we called it BS then). Yet as uninformed as I was, history has proved this exactly on the mark and so much more.<br />Today, however, we do call it spin.<br /><br />Fast forward 30 years. It is March, 2003, I am 46 years old, and I am driving home from work, tears streaming down my face, listening to George W. Bush reassert his reasons for launching an attack on Iraq, which would commence the very next day.<br /><br />Over the previous weeks, as the Bush administration made its far-fetched case for war, that sense of outrage I had discovered in the Nixon years caught fire as never before and finally found an outlet for expression. I joined millions around the world marching in the streets, protesting the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. But this wasn’t just the realization of a childhood fantasy. This time, I was informed. Not for a moment did I believe that the looming mushroom clouds, ominously invoked in unison by Bush and Cheney and Rice, were anything but a willful delusion — if not a cynical manipulation of our vulnerability and fear of future attacks. But the massive protests failed to halt the crusade; in fact, Bush seemed to welcome the vast scale of resistance (bring it on), allowing him to display his resolve in his reckless rush to war. And so I wept in my car, anticipating the devastation that would come. This rawness was short-lived, however; the sense of helplessness and futility was too big to contain, and gave way to bitterness and resignation. No more tears. Not till November, 2008.<br /><br />In the early days of the Obama campaign, when I was first dazzled by his eloquence, I didn’t trust my response. Could this be optimism? Hopefulness? Exhilaration? It seemed so incredibly naïve. But then I literally had to ask myself “what’s wrong with being inspired?” And so I let myself be moved. Moved to exuberance throughout the campaign, moved to tears of joy on election night, celebrating along with so many millions of others this shining moment in our history. It was electric, astonishing. What if we all dared to care and dream and stake our claim in the impossibly possible? Now we knew. It felt like coming home — but to somewhere I had never been before.<br /><br />And yet I was a raw nerve, too.<br /><br />Just after Obama’s election, George Bush appeared before the press to declare, among other things, that he would make history by leaving his successor two active wars. His tone and body language suggested the profundity of the moment, the awesome weight of responsibility — and the absurdity of this struck like a dagger to the heart. There wouldn’t be two wars had he not arrogantly agitated for Iraq; there would be only Afghanistan, and maybe not even that had he prosecuted that war with sufficient commitment and integrity. A legacy of two unfinished wars does not signify greatness. It is not a point of pride. It is an open wound.<br /><br />Bush reminded us, too, that he’s a “wartime president” — and even though I had heard him use this self-aggrandizing phrase before, it was a fresh blow in my vulnerable state. The tone-deafness of it: As if wartime is something he has honorably navigated. As if this particular wartime has not been a catastrophe, the direct result of his failed leadership.<br /><br />It hit full force then: the heartbreak. I found myself sobbing at the spectacle of this cluelessness. The forced language of legacy-making. The incalculable human cost.<br /><br />They crashed into each other, a train wreck, and I wept for all that’s been lost and shattered and ruined, lives, families, futures, the divisiveness at home, the chaos abroad, the shameless disrespect of our intelligence and trust. Then and now. I let the full weight of it in because I could now afford to bear it, because this particular train wreck was all but over, ready to be cleared. The grieving went on for days, not continuously but always ready to be tapped, the tender core of it: We deserved so much better.<br /><br />It’s safe to come out now, is what Obama’s inauguration will mean to me. “Safe” may seem a fragile commodity in the world awash in crises, economic and otherwise. But there’s a more elemental kind of safety, I believe: the security in knowing we are now in the hands of a leader with wisdom, maturity and heart — whose vision inspires confidence, whose authority we can trust. And it’s not just the man himself; it’s the millions upon millions who elected him. We have affirmed, together, that this is what we want, and this collective wisdom is a comfort and a blessing, too, a redemption. I feel as if I’ve found something I lost a long time ago.<br /><br />And so I’m ready. Maybe we’re all ready. To move on.<br /><br />Thank you for the opportunity to put this into words.<br /><br />Sincerely,<br />Lisa Raleigh<br /></blockquote>Katie Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575285451288300805noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805897831800804175.post-2981415068345552312008-12-07T23:01:00.000-08:002008-12-08T00:27:14.530-08:00Behind the Book: Pitch Perfect singers describe the interview process from the subject's perspective<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41iELa25a8L._SL500_.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 110px; height: 165px;" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41iELa25a8L._SL500_.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>This summer I <a href="http://campbell-katie.blogspot.com/2008/08/reviewing-mickey-rapkins-book-pitch.html">reviewed</a> Mickey Rapkin's book <a href="http://www.mickeyrapkin.com/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Pitch Perfect: The quest for collegiate a cappella glory</span></a> for <a href="http://etude.uoregon.edu/">Etude magazine</a>. I enjoyed reading about the lives of these talented students, especially the women from the University of Oregon's female a cappella group, <a href="http://www.uodivisi.com/">Divisi</a>. Since I've lived in Eugene for two years, I've had the chance to see Divisi live a number of times and, I admit, have become somewhat of a fangirl.<br /><br /><br />After reading <span style="font-style: italic;">Pitch Perfect</span>, I found myself wondering what the whole being-the-subject-of-a-book experience was like for these college-age singers. I mean, did they realize what they were getting into having a writer hanging out with them for the school year? Did they like how the author portrayed them? Did they feel like he captured the essence of their experience? Would they agree to be part of a book again?<br /><br />And then I thought, "Well, why not ask them?"<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.uodivisi.com/images/homephoto4.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 294px; height: 207px;" src="http://www.uodivisi.com/images/homephoto4.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Since the women of Divisi are literally on the same campus where I work as an adjunct professor of journalism, I decided to see if they'd be willing to share their view of the behind-the-scenes experience of being in <span style="font-style: italic;">Pitch Perfect</span>.<br /><br />Lucky for me, they were up for being interviewed again.<br /><br />Listening to these young women helped me reexamine at the information gathering and fact-checking process from the perspective of the subject. I was struck yet again by how easy it is for journalists to get the little things wrong and by how much these little factual errors bother the subjects of our stories. When it's in print, it's a record of the truth, so getting it right is paramount. I was also impressed by how much these young women trusted Rapkin who became, as they said, "like a confidant."<br /><br />To hear my interview with five Divisi women (and some of Divisi's fabulous music), <a href="http://etude.uoregon.edu/autumn2008/listen">click here</a>. I'd be interested to hear your impressions.<br /><br />And if you just can't get enough a cappella, here's a Current TV documentary that features both Divisi and Mickey Rapkin.<br /><object height="400" width="400"><param name="movie" value="http://current.com/e/89012257/en_US"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://current.com/e/89012257/en_US" wmode="transparent" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="400" width="400"></embed></object>Katie Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575285451288300805noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805897831800804175.post-9762737941853000212008-11-30T23:41:00.000-08:002008-12-01T00:34:41.570-08:00Extending the contest deadlineBecause of popular demand, <span style="font-style: italic;">Telling Stories</span> is extending the deadline for its short nonfiction story contest from December 1 to December 15, 2008. The response so far has been fabulous and we are very much looking forward to reading all the submissions. (Writers have been sending stories from as far away as Kenya!)<br /><br />Check out this previous post to get <a href="http://campbell-katie.blogspot.com/2008/10/telling-stories-nonfiction-writing.html">the details on the contest</a>. Remember the top 5 winners receive copies of <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.creativenonfiction.org/cnfshop/product_info.php?products_id=122">The Best Creative Nonfiction vol. 2</a>. </span>And multiple submissions are welcome.<br /><br />Maybe the deadline crept up on you or maybe you just experienced a particularly poignant (or painful) Thanksgiving. Whatever the case, you have 15 more days get your short nonfiction story sent to katie.ann.campbell [@] gmail.com.<br /><br />Winners will be announced and published on <span style="font-style: italic;">Telling Stories</span> in January.Katie Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575285451288300805noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805897831800804175.post-68262822801280186072008-11-25T08:00:00.000-08:002008-11-25T17:02:24.154-08:00The Writer-Editor relationshipPoor editors are notorious for being hopelessly vague when critiquing writers. They want something different, but what exactly? Well, they can't quite say or don't quite know.<br /><br />This drives writers crazy.<br /><br />The following video of of this BBC sketch comedy <i>That <a class="autolink" rel="nofollow" title="Click here to read more posts tagged MITCHELL AND WEBB" href="http://gawker.com/tag/mitchell-and-webb/">Mitchell and Webb</a> Look</i> does a pretty good job of capturing what it's like.<br /><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Zo1XFz0kac0&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Zo1XFz0kac0&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed></object><br /><br />Yes, in this sketch they're talking fiction, but this can happen just as often with nonfiction writing. For example, I've had an editor say something like this... we need a really great anecdote here, you know, something shows how the main character feels about his mother or something like that, but not necessarily that. And even though the story may have nothing to do with the character's mother, you, the writer, go back and observe your main subject patiently or even ask leading questions, searching in vain for something "like that but not necessarily that."Katie Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575285451288300805noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805897831800804175.post-9129630598142433072008-11-20T00:06:00.000-08:002008-11-20T01:00:16.017-08:00The New Yorker's Multimedia: Photojournalists Eating on the RoadCompared to most newspapers, magazines have been slower to enhance their web product by adding multimedia, but now even <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/">The New Yorker</a> has regular <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online">online multimedia features</a>.<br /><br />Check out this <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/multimedia/audioslideshow_081124_photographermeals">multimedia feature of photojournalists</a> showing their images of and talking about some of the strangest meals they've eaten while on assignment around the world. It's very simple. But brilliant all the same.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/multimedia/audioslideshow_081124_photographermeals"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 441px; height: 294px;" src="http://www.newyorker.com/images/2008/11/24/p465/081124_meals01_p465.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />What The New Yorker and other magazines (like <a href="http://podcasts.theatlantic.com/">The Atlantic</a> with its podcasts and videos) have done is put a lot of thought into what stories would really lend themselves to multimedia. Too many newspapers have fallen into the rut of adding multimedia just for the cache, demanding their photographers or reporters produce web video more because it makes the newspaper look like it's on the cutting edge, rather than because it's the best way to tell that particular story.<br /><br />The problem with this mentality, in my opinion, is that you end up with a lot of garbage.<br /><br />Since the world online is already cluttered, doesn't it make more sense to increase the quality rather than the quantity? Or at least to really consider the questions: What kind of multimedia would <span style="font-style: italic;">enhance</span> this particular story? What can we do with multimedia that we couldn't do with text and still images?<br /><br />That's what I love about this week's audio slideshow from The New Yorker. It's not rocket science: A handful of photos thrown into a slideshow with audio of the photographers talking about the images in the style of sort of a photographer's notebook. (<a href="http://campbell-katie.blogspot.com/2008/10/telling-stories-with-audio-slideshows.html">Here's a post on how to do it yourself</a>.) But this piece was a perfect feature for The New Yorker's food issue. It makes sense and it's captivating.Katie Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575285451288300805noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805897831800804175.post-11107102560428701402008-11-07T01:40:00.000-08:002008-11-07T02:06:16.780-08:00Q&A with narrative writer and humorist Beth Lisick<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.metroactive.com/metro/01.02.08/gifs/EVENTS_BethLisickPhoto.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 164px; height: 187px;" src="http://www.metroactive.com/metro/01.02.08/gifs/EVENTS_BethLisickPhoto.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><a href="http://bethlisick.com/">Beth Lisick </a>wears about a billion hats. She's a poet, essayist, short fiction and narrative nonfiction writer. She also a humorist and spoken word artist, who does freelance voice work and even some acting. This New York Times bestselling author also moonlights as a giant banana that hands out fruit on the street. No kidding. This woman is worth getting to know.<br /><br />After reading her latest book about her adventures in the self-help business, <a href="http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9780061143960/HelpingMeHelpMyself/index.aspx"><em>Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, 10 Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone</em></a><em>, </em>I interviewed Lisick and, I have to say, the result of the Q&A session is one of the funniest we've done at <a href="http://etude.uoregon.edu/">Etude</a>.<br /><br />So take a read below and get to know Ms. Lisick and what she has to say about being a storyteller. You won't be disappointed.<br /><blockquote><br /><em>Q: You majored in American Studies at UC Santa Cruz and once aspired to be a pastry chef — how did you learn how to tell stories and write?<br /><br /></em><span style="font-style: italic;">A:</span> My last couple years in college, while I was working as a baker, I started writing things down in notebooks. Mostly overheard conversations or childhood memories, nothing even remotely resembling a poem or story. That part seemed too daunting, the act of writing something “real.” It wasn’t until after I was out of college and stumbled upon an open mic that I really got serious about trying to write things. I liked the immediacy of that scene, the fact that you could write something and test out whether it was working or not. Still, what I was writing was only intended for people to hear, not to read on a page. When the publisher from Manic D Press asked to see my manuscript of spoken word poems and stories, I didn’t want to give her what I’d written. I was embarrassed. What was I doing? Once she talked me down, helped me out, and put out that collection (Monkey Girl), I began writing with a reader, not just a listener, in mind.<br /><br />As far as telling stories goes, I have always been a superfan of listening to other people’s stories. The ham gene is definitely in me, the one that makes me like to get up on stage and tell stories, but I also have a good dose of the observer. I had two best friends growing up and we would always try to tell each other good stories, even if it was just about going to Costco with our parents or trying to reenact something that happened at a school dance. I love thinking about how you sequence events to maximize hilarity or drama. You know, do you reveal what your dad said about the enormous can of frank and beans before or after you’ve described the stockboy’s hairdo? That kind of stuff.<br /><br /><em>Q: Besides being a writer, you are also a spoken word artist and a humorist. Being funny on paper isn’t easy — the humor often doesn’t translate. How have you developed this skill and how do you know when it’s working?</em><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">A:</span> I like to write conversationally and I’m always thinking about whether what I’m writing is going to translate to a spoken performance or not. So I’ll read stuff out loud to myself to see how it sounds. A lot of it is trial and error. Sometimes I write something for a book and I just know that I will never read that section out loud at an event. Conversely, I write things to read out loud that I would never publish. You can do a lot in performance, using your voice and body language, to make up for mediocre writing. Hurray for that! The trick is learning how to distinguish between what you publish and what you read to a crowded bar. Sometimes a piece of writing can be both, but I am still learning.<br /><br /><em>Q: For your latest book, Helping Me Help Myself, you dedicated yourself (in 2006) to a year-long experiment in self-improvement, devoting each month of that year to an area you wanted to work on (e.g. fitness, organization, spirituality, personal finances, etc.) What were the easiest and most difficult months of the experiment to write about?</em><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">A:</span> The absolute easiest was the home organization chapter. I wanted so much to improve that area of my life that I was pretty dedicated to following the advice of the expert. Just about every other chapter felt difficult. Even the Richard Simmons cruise where all I had to do to be entertaining was describe what was happening and throw in some of Richard’s direct quotes. He’s so intriguing. I really struggled with that book because there is so much to make fun of in the self-help world, but I didn’t want to go with the easy laughs all the time. It was a constant battle, juggling the sarcasm and irony and honesty. Also, the chapters on sex and fashion completely evaporated because I could not bring myself to do them. I’m pretty complacent with both of those areas of my life — not that I’m a sex machine with a killer wardrobe — but it just seem disingenuous to dedicate entire chapters to things that I ultimately wasn’t that unhappy with.<br /><br /><em>Q: Of all the self-help advice you consumed two years ago, what has stuck with you most?</em><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">A:</span> Probably the idea from <em>The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People</em> that you need to determine what your life purpose is. I always thought that kind of thing was unbearably cheesy, that it messed with my laidback m.o., but it started to make a lot of sense. Once I defined my main creative purpose as storytelling — and I did this just by thinking about what makes me really happy and excited — I felt more focused and inspired. I could better see that my life isn’t the random and chaotic mess I sometimes perceive it to be. Not that I have become a streamlined machine. I’m just a little more confident about what I do. And it’s still hard to write this stuff without cringing.<br /><br /><em>In the chapter on personal finance, we learn that making a living as a writer isn’t easy — even for a New York Times bestselling author. What advice do you have for other writers when it comes to money?</em><br /><br />Don’t expect too much and then you’ll be happy when it comes! I love talking about money because it’s such an uncomfortable subject. People often email me about that chapter, surprised that I could be so strapped for cash when my books are seen as being pretty successful. I think I make about as much money a year as a public school teacher, which I’m proud of, though I do a lot of other things besides write to earn it (and while I’m at it, if anyone in charge of anything is reading this, schoolteachers should be paid more.) I emcee events, run a storytelling series, teach writing to high schoolers, dress up in a banana costume, judge writing contests. I got a hundred and fifty bucks last week to have dinner with some marketing people for Levi’s and talk about What Women Want. Plus I got some free jeans. And then there’s the fact that I live in the Bay Area, which is an expensive place to be, and my husband is a self-employed musician and recording engineer, so neither of us have a job with health benefits. We pay a ton for private insurance. When I say that I will pretty much do anything for a hundred bucks, I mean it. I don’t think my money issues are very different from regular middle class people, but if you get your picture in a magazine, people sometimes think you also must have a hot tub and a cleaning person and no credit card debt. Very few writers get rich doing it, so you have to make sure you love to write. But you can make a living. Don’t listen to people who tell you that you can’t. </blockquote><br /><em>For the complete interview, visit <a href="http://etude.uoregon.edu/autumn2008/">Etude's new fall edition</a>.<br /><br /></em>Katie Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575285451288300805noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805897831800804175.post-6193571781550242172008-11-04T13:04:00.000-08:002008-11-04T13:58:39.560-08:00The Obama Ground Game - A narrative<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2007/0712/obama_ground_1211.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 360px; height: 235px;" src="http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2007/0712/obama_ground_1211.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />In honor of Election Day, I'm posting an excerpt from a recently published narrative piece that gives a ground-level view of the inside of the Obama campaign. The writer, Nancy Webber, has been on the trail for Obama since January, campaigning in Oregon, California, New Mexico, Texas and Colorado.<br /><br />After you vote, take a break from CNN and check out Nancy Webber's story. It's well worth the read.<br /><br />For the entire piece, visit <a href="http://etude.uoregon.edu/autumn2008/">Etude, the journal of literary nonfiction</a>.<br /><br /><blockquote>January 13, San Francisco<br />A week later, I walk into Obama's San Francisco headquarters during a precinct captains’ meeting. The organizer asks, “Who is volunteering on a campaign for the very first time?” More than 80 percent of the people raise a hand. These people don't know it yet, but some of them will form lifelong friendships because of this campaign. As I listen to the organizer prepare this new group of volunteers for what she wants them to do, I'm struck by her approach. She doesn't jump right into the instructions, she asks them why they are here. It's standard procedure on the Obama campaign to ask, because it prepares canvassers for a different way of reaching voters.<br /><br />“He was right when a lot of people were wrong, including myself, about the war,” said a Naval Academy graduate and veteran of the first Gulf War. The vet thought he probably had more in common with McCain, but that Obama had the potential to make real change.<br /><br />“It’s personal," said Ben Muhammed. "My son had five job interviews with no call backs. He came and asked me if he could change his name to something other than Muhammad. We talked about it and I finally agreed to see if it made any difference. He changed his last name, sent the same resume to the same institutions, and he got three different offers.”<br /><br />Each volunteer in turn speaks and the bond is formed. The work of contacting voters isn't easy, but they have learned that their job is not to persuade others to believe in Obama, but to persuade voters to believe in themselves — that their concerns are valid and that they can be agents of change. After today, this group will be back many times. They now owe it to each other. ...<br /><br /><br /></blockquote>Katie Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575285451288300805noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805897831800804175.post-52644258482956773282008-10-25T11:13:00.000-07:002008-10-27T03:16:45.371-07:00Telling Stories With Audio SlideshowsMichael Werner and I are giving a workshop today at the Society of Professional Journalists' Building at Better Journalist Conference in Eugene, Oregon.<br /><br />For those of you who can't be here or those who did attend but want some resources to refer back to later, I've uploaded a quicktime movie file of our powerpoint presentation.<br /><span style="display: block;" id="formatbar_Buttons"><span class="" style="display: block;" id="formatbar_CreateLink" title="Link" onmouseover="ButtonHoverOn(this);" onmouseout="ButtonHoverOff(this);" onmouseup="" onmousedown="CheckFormatting(event);FormatbarButton('richeditorframe', this, 8);ButtonMouseDown(this);"><img src="http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif" alt="Link" class="gl_link" border="0" /></span></span><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzFxu0HW4ZCilniwWLE3Vr3_qaSf97KHj3LpMKfpdJk3VTkh23UvxmQ_lJFenMwiCqY0Y0L2_xSwmseer3_RA' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br /><br />As we explained in the workshop, <a href="http://www.soundslides.com/">Soundslides</a> (downloadable from the link) is a handy tool for compiling photos and audio (but not for editing photos or audio). You must prepare your photos (save as jpgs) and audio (save as mp3s) in other programs. Uploading them to Soundslides is the easy part.<br /><br />Here are links to more info helpful in producing slideshows.<br /><br />Check out the <a href="http://www.jtoolkit.com/audio/index.html">Audio Journalist's Toolkit</a> for info on audio gear, editing software and handy guides to using Audacity. Here are sites where you can download free music and sounds: <a href="http://www.freeplaymusic.com/">Freeplaymusic.com</a>, <a href="http://creativecommons.org/">CreativeCommons.org</a>, <a href="http://ccmixter.org/">CCmixter.org </a>and the <a href="http://www.freesound.org/">Free Sound Project</a>. Be aware, however, that just because they're free to download, doesn't necessarily mean they are copyright free. If you're making a sideshow for journalistic or commercial uses especially, read the fine print.<br /><br />Check out the <a href="http://www.jtoolkit.com/photojournalism/index.html">Photojournalist's Toolkit </a>for info on basic photo composition rules and Photoshop basics.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mG2DXPbvIME/SQOQkEVO5iI/AAAAAAAAADM/rc2rKwLh3hg/s1600-h/Soundslides_Workflow.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 99px; height: 129px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mG2DXPbvIME/SQOQkEVO5iI/AAAAAAAAADM/rc2rKwLh3hg/s320/Soundslides_Workflow.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5261207739011360290" border="0" /></a>Here's a workflow map of how to use the Soundslides software. If you click on this, you'll open a larger version to print. Let me know if there are problems. I can email you a pdf.<br /><br />After you finish compiling your slideshow, you'll want to "export" it. This is one of the fussy aspects of Soundslides. It doesn't export a neat, compact file. It creates a folder called "publish_to_web" and that entire folder is what you need to publish. If you're working with a web team, just hand them over the folder, they'll know what to do. If you want to email it or publish it to your own personal website or blog, follow these instructions on the <a href="http://soundslides.com/support/index.php?pg=kb.chapter&id=6">Soundslides online manual under "exporting and publishing." </a>Katie Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575285451288300805noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805897831800804175.post-67183659697079276182008-10-21T00:03:00.000-07:002008-10-21T01:08:06.619-07:00Pre's Rock PilgrimageIn the hills above Eugene, Ore. there's a roadside memorial that draws hundreds of people each year from around the country, people who pay homage to a long-distance runner that went by the name Pre.<br /><br />Steve Prefontaine died in 1975, but the track star's legend continues to flourish.<br /><br />During the 2008 Olympic Trials, which were held in runner's mecca of Eugene, more than 3,000 people visited the rock -- Pre's Rock -- which commemorates the location of the car crash that caused his death. These pilgrims brought offerings of sorts: old running shoes, jerseys, socks, flowers, letters, track metals. Some treated the memorial almost like a sepulcher.<br /><br />A team of graduate students from the University of Oregon Folklore Department documented this pilgrimage, gathering more than 10 hours of raw video.<br /><br />It was my job (at <a href="http://cascade.uoregon.edu/2008/09/thousands-flock-to-the-rock-du.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Cascade</span></a> magazine) to decide how to tell a story with the footage.<br /><br />Here's what I came up with ...<br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzEfSYD5FKRMK896uy6sDSaLjobMz6snfqRvkl9F4Rl5KXtmQLUoL3G7unTMh2lF7j6O37NY_U6_SIpzSUBVw' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br /><br /><br />I got the idea to do time lapse on split screens from a multimedia piece I saw a this spring in the New Yorker. <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/2008/04/21/080421_elevators?xrail">Check it out</a>.<br /><br />I remember thinking, gee what a simple yet perfect use of raw video to tell a story. Ever since I came across it, I've been watching for an opportunity to use that technique.<br /><br />What do you think? Does it work?Katie Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575285451288300805noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805897831800804175.post-65980344203024562132008-10-17T10:50:00.000-07:002008-10-17T11:01:56.452-07:00Telling Stories Nonfiction Writing Contest<span style="font-style: italic;"></span>I decided recently there aren’t enough short nonfiction writing contests. Take a look. A quick google search will turn up oodles of “short story contests,” but by “short story” they mean fiction. I mean nonfiction.<br /><br />In response to this realization, we at <span style="font-style: italic;">Telling Stories</span> have decided to host a short <span style="font-size:130%;">nonfiction</span> story contest to encourage those of us compelled to tell true stories.<br /><br />Beyond those two rules—true and short—anything else goes.<br /><br />Submissions could take the form of a compact narrative, a mini essay, or simply the description of a person, a moment or a memory. Submissions can blend genres, be experimental, be creative, be humorous. It could be the type of story you tell your mom when she calls. Or the type your inappropriate uncle tells on Thanksgiving when he thinks only the guys are listening.<br /><br />Really, anything goes. We at <span style="font-style: italic;">Telling Stories</span> just love a good story and aren’t persnickety about the form.<br /><br />Need more motivation? How about this—winners will receive their very own copy of the recently published <a href="http://campbell-katie.blogspot.com/2008/02/best-creative-nonfiction-vol-2.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Best Creative Nonfiction, vol. 2</span></a> (autographed if you like).<br /><br />Now I know you’re excited. Okay, go to it. Ready, set, write!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Rules</span><br />1. It must be true.<br />2. Keep it short. (As my editor Dave Schwartz used to tell me, <span style="font-style: italic;">Write it as long as it needs to be and not a syllable more</span>. You decide what that means.)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Prizes</span><br />1. The top five will receive a copy of <a href="http://www.creativenonfiction.org/cnfshop/product_info.php?products_id=122"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Best Creative Nonfiction, vol. 2</span> (W.W. Norton), 2008</a>.<br />2. The top five stories will be published here on Telling Stories with the author’s bio.<br />3. The winners can add the following title to their resumes: “Winner of the 2008 Telling Stories Nonfiction Writing Contest”<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Deadline</span><br />Email your story to katie.ann.campbell [at] gmail.com by <span style="font-weight: bold;">Dec. 1, 2008</span>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Judging</span><br />Submissions will be judged by myself and narrative nonfiction writer Michael Werner, who is a visiting professor of journalism at the University of Oregon.Katie Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575285451288300805noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805897831800804175.post-18406025201269152962008-10-12T13:57:00.000-07:002008-10-12T14:18:24.267-07:00Books gone bust?I’ve been hearing lately that unless you’re Tina Fey, it’s not a good time to be selling a book.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/pix/fey_tina_cp_5775311.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 170px; height: 233px;" src="http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/pix/fey_tina_cp_5775311.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>You may have seen the <a href="http://www.nypost.com/seven/10012008/business/fey_eyes_big_payday_131570.htm"><span style="font-style: italic;">New York Post</span></a> report that one publisher right off the bat offered our beloved Sarah Palin look-a-like a $5 million advance (and that the subsequent bidding war likely raised that to $6 million). Hmmm… Hardly seems like a sign that the financial crisis has hit the book business. Unless you view it from the perspective that publishing houses aren’t gambling on anything but the sure bestseller.<br /><br />So how is this global financial crisis affecting publishing?<br /><br /><br />Here’s an anecdote I can offer: Last week a writer friend lost a book deal. After two years of perfecting a book proposal and securing a publisher, this writer was sent back to the drawing board. No more deal.<br /><br />I’ve also recently talked to other authors who shared concerns about their chances of securing their next contracts. These aren’t folks looking to break into the industry. These are proven, multi-book authors.<br /><br />Beyond the anecdotal, what’s the word from industry insiders?<br /><br />I haven’t seen too much yet.<br /><br />Victoria Barnsley, CEO of HarperCollins UK, told <a href="http://www.thebookseller.com/news/68721-page.html">thebookseller.com</a> this week: "People always say books are the last thing to be affected by an economic slowdown, but the magnitude of this crisis is surely making everyone nervous. However, publishing is a gambling business and, as usual, I’m sure we’ll see a couple of fairly insane offers being made next week—if they haven’t already been made."<br /><br />Would the Fey book deal be one of those insane offers?<br /><br />But as media fellow Peter Osnos pointed out in a <a href="http://www.tcf.org/list.asp?type=NC&pubid=2055">Sept. 30th column for The Century Foundation</a>, people have been proclaiming for decades that the end of the publishing is nigh. And many have said for years that it’s an industry that ought to die. For example, The Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan recently decried, “If any industry deserves oblivion, it’s book publishing.”<br /><br />Yet somehow books and publishers remain. How? Why?<br /><br /><a href="http://laurenkessler.com/">Lauren Kessler</a> recently took a closer look at the question of the death of books (which was written before the stock market tanked). <a href="http://etude.uoregon.edu/summer2008/craft/">Her piece</a>, called “R.I.P” was published this summer in <a href="http://etude.uoregon.edu/">Etude</a>. Here’s how it starts:<br /><br /><blockquote>"The book is dead.<br /><br />That’s the title of the book I’m currently reading. Of course the fact that this book was written and published, that I bought it and am reading it would seem a powerful argument against its main premise.<br /><br />In fact, 172,000 books were published in the U.S. last year. If you count vanity press and print-on-demand, a new book of fiction is right now being published every 30 minutes in America. How can the book be dead?"<br /></blockquote><br />So dear readers, can any of you offer any evidence of the health of the publishing industry? Or thoughts on the future of books? Or advice on how an author who doesn’t have her own TV show gets a book deal?Katie Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575285451288300805noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805897831800804175.post-5702967950082306152008-10-09T13:00:00.000-07:002008-10-09T22:56:20.494-07:00The Boundaries of MemoirMemoir inhabits a nebulous place in the literary world.<br /><br />In memoir, fact and fiction aren’t always black and white, emotional truth may not match historical truth and ethics and aesthetics often collide.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mG2DXPbvIME/SO5mt7xCEvI/AAAAAAAAAC4/WTb3IUS0DQU/s1600-h/Panel_5_08_0121.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mG2DXPbvIME/SO5mt7xCEvI/AAAAAAAAAC4/WTb3IUS0DQU/s200/Panel_5_08_0121.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255250754511442674" border="0" /></a>A few months ago I moderated a live roundtable discussion on the topic for <a href="http://cascade.uoregon.edu/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Cascade</span></a> magazine.<br /><br />On the panel were three writer/professors from the University of Oregon, one who writes memoir, one who analyzes and writes autobiography and one who refuses to write memoir. The fraud memoirist and former UO student <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/books/04fake.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=books">Peggy Seltzer (a.k.a. Margaret B. Jones)</a> was the inspiration for the debate.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mG2DXPbvIME/SO5m9Zi4_WI/AAAAAAAAADA/wWbCQxLxwm4/s1600-h/Panel_5_08_0062.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 360px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mG2DXPbvIME/SO5m9Zi4_WI/AAAAAAAAADA/wWbCQxLxwm4/s320/Panel_5_08_0062.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255251020203228514" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Here’s a <a href="http://cascade.uoregon.edu/2008/08/feature-two.html">link to the magazine where you can read highlights</a> from the discussion and <a href="http://cascade.uoregon.edu/2008/08/bonus-two.html">listen to some of the most interesting parts</a>. [Photo info: Laurie Drummond, Gordon Sayre, David Bradley and me. Photos by <a href="http://www.manta.com/coms2/dnbcompany_xmn5d">Jack Liu</a>.]<br /><br />One thing is clear: Memoirs continue to be wildly popular. The “memoir craze,” as its called, is still going strong. Here are a few memoirs on the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/pages/books/bestseller/">New York Times best seller</a> list this week:<br /><br /><ul><li><span style="font-style: italic;">The Year of Living Biblically</span>, by A. J. Jacobs, a memoir of his attempt to obey the Bible as literally as possible; </li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">A Long Way Gone</span>, by Ishmael Beah, about his life as a child soldier from Sierra Leone and his drug-crazed killing spree; </li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">Through the Storm</span>, by Lynne Spears, you can imagine what it’s about;</li><li>and don’t forget <span style="font-style: italic;">Stori Telling</span>, the actress’s memoir. </li></ul><br />We could argue whether the last two are actually memoirs. The label memoir usually implies that we’re going to learn part of the life story of a relative nobody. (And the fact that the Spelling book has been on the list for 18 weeks kind of freaks me out. How interesting could it actually be?)<br /><br />The more memoirs that are published, the more dramatic they seem to be. <a href="http://www.ew.com/">Entertainment Weekly</a> this summer put together a list of the types of lives captured in recent memoirs: A child of a woman who left the convent and assumed a false identity. A man who double dates with his recently widowed father. A woman who survived an unhealthy religious fixation (on top of having an eating disorder).<br /><br />Every potential memoirist should check this list first to see if their life story has already been done. <a href="http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20203167,00.html">It’s a long (and quite hilarious) list</a>.Katie Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575285451288300805noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805897831800804175.post-82525115155052672322008-10-03T00:35:00.000-07:002008-10-03T02:06:29.789-07:00Published!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mG2DXPbvIME/SOXfs2ZrKHI/AAAAAAAAACw/J7c-9odzf6U/s1600-h/BestCreativeNonficionv2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mG2DXPbvIME/SOXfs2ZrKHI/AAAAAAAAACw/J7c-9odzf6U/s200/BestCreativeNonficionv2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5252850502007990386" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">The Best Creative Nonfiction vol. 2</span>, is now in bookstores, marking my initiation into the book world. (That is if we don’t count my appearance in Rupert Sheldrake’s book, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Sense of Being Stared At</span>, for my powers of telepathy — if you ask, I just might tell).<br /><br />As soon as my personal copy of the Norton anthology arrived in my mailbox, I tore open the package and turned the pages until I saw the title of my story about egg donation called, “The Egg and I” on page number 131, sandwiched between a piece that appeared in Harper’s last year about the amazing oceanic journey of thousands of plastic floatable toys and a previously unpublished essay that shed light on the challenges of being a part of a 21st century multiracial family.<br /><br />I’ve been reading the pieces slowly, enjoying them immensely. My copy is already feathered with post-its, noting favorite phrases, poignant real-life observations and well-told dramatic moments. The opening piece by Anne Trumbore is gripping—I don’t want to say more for fear of spoiling the read. David Bradley’s essay about the death of the N-word is at once hilarious, reflective and instructive. And Laura Sewell Matter’s story called, “Pursuing the Great Bad Novelist” is the ultimate example of the kind of down-the-rabbit-hole adventures we writers often send ourselves on when we're avoiding writing. Only in this rabbit hole, she found a story worth telling.<br /><br />Critics have given high praise to the anthology. Here’s what Publisher's Weekly said in a starred review:<br /><b><br />From Publishers Weekly</b><br />In his follow-up to last year's volume, the first in a re-launched, annual version of his journal Creative Nonfiction, Lee Gutkind gathers another fresh collection of exemplary essays from a wide range of authors and sources, tackling everything from multiracial love and familial exile to the connection between memory and digital photo manipulation. Relatable situations and eccentric writers keep the stories intelligent but accessible, and often poignant; especially resonant is Gwendolyn Knapp's attempt to rehabilitate her mom's terminal case of pack-rat fever. Sarah Miller-Davenport provides some levity in a piece on guilty (and expensive) pleasures called "Here I Am in Bergdorf Goodman." Many accounts run up the old stranger-than-fiction flag, most notably Sewell Matter's piece regarding her discovery, on an Icelandic beach, of a page torn from a book; captivated by the "amazingly, almost unbelievably, bad" excerpt, she sets off on a global search for the complete novel. Proving again his chops as an anthologist, Gutkind's latest collection-which also includes Heidi Julavits, Pagan Kennedy, William deBuys and the guy behind IAmGettingFat.blogspot.com-is a 30-run homer, a whirlwind of moods and thoughts captured by some of the biggest talents on the essay and blog beat.<br /><br />You can <a href="http://www.creativenonfiction.org/cnfshop/product_info.php?products_id=122">The Best Creative Nonfiction, Vol. 2</a> at any bookstore. Here's a <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/2-9780393330243-0">link to Powells Books</a> where you can order it from for $15.<br /><br />I'm have a number of copies to give as prizes ... I just waiting for inspiration on what the contest should be. Any ideas?Katie Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575285451288300805noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805897831800804175.post-65929160617998162122008-08-22T10:09:00.000-07:002008-08-22T11:52:52.036-07:00The King's English Bookshop<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_mG2DXPbvIME/SK8J5_JIrPI/AAAAAAAAACg/0B5LCdTfhNk/s1600-h/KingsEnglish.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 409px; height: 226px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_mG2DXPbvIME/SK8J5_JIrPI/AAAAAAAAACg/0B5LCdTfhNk/s320/KingsEnglish.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5237415783462120690" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Literary nonfiction writers are always complaining that books within this genre have no real home in bookstores. If you visit the big box bookstores, here's what you'll find: Adrian Nicole LeBlanc's <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio?PID=28734&cgi=product&isbn=0684863871">Random Family</a> is filed under "Sociology." Susan Orlean's <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780449003718-8">The Orchid Thief</a> is under "Gardening" and "True Crime." And Ted Conover's <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-9781596006034-0">Rolling Nowhere: Riding the Rails with America's Hobos</a> is in "Travel Writing" of all places.<br /><span style="display: block;" id="formatbar_Buttons"><span class="on" style="display: block;" id="formatbar_CreateLink" title="Link" onmouseover="ButtonHoverOn(this);" onmouseout="ButtonHoverOff(this);" onmouseup="" onmousedown="CheckFormatting(event);FormatbarButton('richeditorframe', this, 8);ButtonMouseDown(this);"></span></span><br />That's why I felt like I had to pinch myself when I entered <a href="http://kingsenglish.booksense.com/">The King's English Bookshop</a> in Salt Lake City last weekend and found a section -- in fact about three floor-to-ceiling shelves -- called "Literary Nonfiction."<br /><br />Gaping in awe and disbelief, I peered through the stacks finding books by some of the genre's darlings including Didion, Wolfe, Dillard and McPhee. Feeling all warm and fuzzy, I gushed to the people at the front desk, "I LOVE that you have a section for literary nonfiction. Thank you, thank you, thank you."<br /><br />The next time you're in Salt Lake City, find a moment to visit the eight cozy, book-packed rooms of this independent bookshop. Owner Betsy Burton opened the shop more than 30 years ago and has written a book (called <a href="http://kingsenglish.booksense.com/NASApp/store/Product?s=showproduct&isbn=1586856871">The King's English</a>, of course) about the adventures of running an independent bookstore.<br /><br />If you're like me and not in the vicinity of the Great Salt Lake, you can admire The King's English from afar by checking out their blog called <a href="http://thekingsenglish.wordpress.com/">The Inkblotter</a>.<br /><br />Does anyone else have any favorite independent bookstores we should know about?Katie Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575285451288300805noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805897831800804175.post-58123243704538986542008-08-05T17:57:00.000-07:002008-08-05T18:33:39.430-07:00Reviewing Mickey Rapkin's book Pitch Perfect<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41iELa25a8L._SL500_AA240_.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 216px; height: 216px;" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41iELa25a8L._SL500_AA240_.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:times new roman;">It’s hard enough to pull off a book about music. (Wouldn’t radio or film be a better choice?) And then to go and choose a cappella — sounds like certain disaster. </span><p style="font-family:times new roman;">But writer Mickey Rapkin discovered just the opposite. In his book <em>Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory</em>, Rapkin proves that the world of competitive a cappella is rich with fascinating factoids and entertaining, albeit gossipy, stories. It’s anything but the snooze fest one might imagine from a story about a musical genre where even the harmonica is forbidden.</p> <p face="times new roman">Writing from the informed perspective of a former insider (Rapkin’s an alumnus of the all-male singing club at Cornell), the a cappella veteran pokes fun at this dorky yet lovable subculture while also offering plenty of evidence as to why these kids should be taken at least half as seriously as they take themselves. Rapkin, senior editor at <em>GQ</em>, has ferreted out and woven in such jaw-dropping details as the fact that some groups net $30,000 a year from shows and record sales. Top-tier groups are hired to sing at Disneyland or even travel abroad for gigs. As additional proof, Rapkin outs other now-famous former undergrad a cappella-ites like John Legend, Anne Hathaway<em>, </em>Art Garfunkel, and Diane Sawyer. Even Osama bin Laden sang in an a cappella ensemble. </p> <p face="times new roman">Throughout <em>Pitch Perfect,</em> Rapkin incorporates the history of a capella, tracing it from its religious roots through to its recent revolution. Breaking almost completely from traditional barbershop, a cappella today favors the arena of rockin’ pop hits. The cover songs they produce sound nearly indistinguishable from the originals, making you ask, “Did they really manage to sing that guitar solo?” Rapkin answers all those how-the-heck questions, providing ongoing mini music lessons on what it takes to transform a multi-instrument composition into an all-vocal arrangement. The reader can almost hear the imitation snare drum and a bass, as Rapkin describes it: <em>sh-sh-k-ts-sh-sh-k-ts.</em></p> <p face="times new roman">But the book is about much more than music. Rapkin chronicled the seasons of three collegiate a capella powerhouses, which all happen to be at a crossroads. The University of Oregon’s red-hot, all-female group Divisi is about to compete for the first time after being robbed of the 2005 international championship title. Tufts University’s Beelzebubs, legendary in a cappella circles, are back in the studio stressing over how to produce an album that will stand up to their last — the CD that redefined contemporary a cappella. And finally the rowdy, frat-boyish Hullabahoos of the University of Virginia are trying to figure out how to get serious without losing their signature cool.</p> <p face="times new roman">Along the way, Rapkin introduces readers to a handful of singers from each group, but opts for breadth over depth. Most of the people in <em>Pitch Perfect</em> are sketched lightly — Rapkin makes the real characters the groups as a whole. As each chapter progresses, we become embroiled in each ensemble’s plight, its inner politics and inside jokes.</p> <p face="times new roman"><em>Pitch Perfect</em> is like the a cappella culture’s <em>Best In Show</em>, but sweeter and more heart-breaking. The only missing piece is the soundtrack.<br /></p><p face="times new roman">--</p><p face="times new roman">Book Details: <span style="font-size:100%;">Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">By Mickey Rapkin</span> 275 pp. Gotham Books, 2008 $26.00</p><p style="font-family: times new roman;">Rapkin also maintains an entertaining <a href="http://pitchperfect-thebook.blogspot.com/">blog</a> on all things a capella that's worth checking out.</p><p style="font-family: times new roman;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://media.collegepublisher.com/media/paper859/stills/4222deaf9abcb-59-1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;" src="http://media.collegepublisher.com/media/paper859/stills/4222deaf9abcb-59-1.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />And you simply must take a listen to <a href="http://www.uodivisi.com/">Divisi</a>. They've posted a number of their <a href="http://www.uodivisi.com/divisistore.php">songs online</a>. I have their latest CD <a href="http://cdbaby.com/cd/divisi3">Roots</a> and highly recommend it.<br /></p> <h2 style="font-weight: bold;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></h2><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><br />This review was published this month in </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://etude.uoregon.edu/summer2008/books/pitch.php">Etude</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;">. Visit Etude for more reviews of new narrative nonfiction, including books by </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://etude.uoregon.edu/summer2008/books/voyage.php">Tony Horowitz</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> and </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://etude.uoregon.edu/summer2008/books/bonk.php">Mary Roach</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;">.</span>Katie Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575285451288300805noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805897831800804175.post-62595982807246521182008-08-02T11:44:00.000-07:002008-12-09T11:43:28.444-08:00Literary Nonfiction Reading<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_mG2DXPbvIME/SJSrmncUxEI/AAAAAAAAACY/X0stk95ok7s/s1600-h/IMG_3068.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_mG2DXPbvIME/SJSrmncUxEI/AAAAAAAAACY/X0stk95ok7s/s320/IMG_3068.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5229993747195151426" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />The day after graduating from the Literary Nonfiction graduate writing program at the University of Oregon, we held a reading of our final projects at Tsunami Books in Eugene.<br /><br />Here are the five graduates for 2008: (left to right) Aaron Ragan-Fore, Misty Edgecomb, Katie Campbell, Michael Werner, Sabena Stark.Katie Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575285451288300805noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8805897831800804175.post-59590514795116965082008-07-30T10:14:00.000-07:002008-12-09T11:43:28.529-08:00What I've been up to<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mG2DXPbvIME/SJSluCUtyRI/AAAAAAAAACQ/1uiFwCk9t8U/s1600-h/IMG_3027.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mG2DXPbvIME/SJSluCUtyRI/AAAAAAAAACQ/1uiFwCk9t8U/s320/IMG_3027.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5229987277600311570" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Maybe only my dear friend Henry A. Stephens has noticed the absence of my blog posts, but I thought an explanation was in order. (He demanded one actually.)<br /><br />I've been a tiny bit busy.... graduating.<br /><br />This photo is my offer of proof. Pictured here are myself and my partner, Michael Werner, and in the middle is Lauren Kessler, the director of the the literary nonfiction graduate program we completed this June at the University of Oregon.<br /><br />The push to the finish was intense, fueled by gallons of coffee and small doses of sleep. But I'm sure in a few years, I'll only remember the excitement of it all.<br /><br />Naturally, in the wake of graduate school, I've needed a little time to recover: to break my addiction to coffee, to soak in Oregon's amazing summer months and yes, to return to a more healthy (and sustainable) writing life.<br /><br />More soon. I promise. But I must go pick some blueberries first.Katie Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09575285451288300805noreply@blogger.com1