About Memoir and Personal Essay

Non-fiction writing is currently the most marketable form of writing: copywriting, technical writing, news writing, and the stuff of cookbooks—these are some common forms. In Memoir: A History Yagoda notes that nonfiction currently outsells fiction four to one. He adds that “total sales in the categories of Personal Memoirs, Childhood Memoirs, and Parental Memoirs increased more than 400 percent between 2004 and 2008”. The niche of creative non-fiction covers a range of genres most recognizable by a strong sense of voice: personal essay, memoir, feature writing. Much of the content on This American Life constitutes as creative nonfiction, and for the purpose of this paper I will focus on memoir and personal essay writing. The distinction from the two can be ambiguous at times, so I’ll divide this paper into a discussion about each.

The Ghost and the Subject

Lynn Vincent is a successful politically conservative writer. Her background led former U.S. vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin to choose Vincent to co-author her autobiography Going Rogue: An American Life.  The book turned out to be one of the publishing industry's biggest successes of the year, but was also panned by critics across the board. Stephen Davis was chosen in 1988 to pen the autobiography of pop star Michael Jackson entitled Moon Walk. Though Jackson was one of the biggest artists in the history of music, the book was only on the shelves for a limited time due to Jackson's refusal to have it released in paperback. Obviously the life of a ghostwriter can be wildly unpredictable. Vincent's book was a commercial success and a critical failure. Davis' book could have been the biggest selling autobiography of a musician ever written, but was marginalized due to the wishes of his subject. The similarity between the two writers is that they both got paid handsomely, whereas many of their peers, who were too proud to lower themselves to write for other people, never had a single review of their novel or made a living by writing it.

Ghostwriting has many advantages over other kinds of writing careers. Ghostwriters get to write about an array of subjects, many of which they normally wouldn't, with people that often lead interesting lives. These are people that are largely inaccessible, sometimes great minds who stand at the precipice of the fields they have achieved notoriety within.

Editing in the Publishing Industry

In a world of increasing technology and screen-oriented media, the publishing industry may seem in peril. Publishing houses produce books in hard copy: bound pages with covers and margins, illustrations and carefully considered fonts, of a certain size and weight with a tangible nature important to English majors and other literary connoisseurs. The emergence of ebooks from Amazon and Apple spurs some of us into a preservationist tirade. We like to dog-ear our pages, scribble our notes in the free spaces and collect more than one edition of a favorite text. Or for those who prefer their library pristine, carefully preserved and leather-bound works may be a bookshelf staple considered an essential element of one’s personality. It’s tempting to see the world in black and white: with the dawn of ebooks, real books are doomed. In fact the issue presents daunting complexities, but nothing indicates that the publishing industry and the iPad or Kindle cannot find a way to live in harmony.

Careers in publishing persist. Authors are getting published; editors have plenty of submissions to consider and the resources to produce them.

The Joy of Self-Publishing by Colin Cowden

Most people will say that they have a great idea for a book and that someday they will get around to writing it. Most don't. But for the few who do manage to find the time and get all their words down on paper (or .doc file format) there comes the daunting tasking of finding an agent who will then work out a deal with a publisher to get the book on the market and to the hands of the readers.

But what if no publisher wants to publish the book that the author worked so hard on? Or worse, what if they can't even get an agent? Was their toiling over a computer screen all for naught? It can be a depressing idea for a writer to think that their work may never see the light of day. However, with modern advances in technology, it is becoming easier for writers to side-step the publishing business and get their work in to the hands of readers without the approval of a big publisher.

Welcome to the world of self-publishing.

Magazine Writer

As an English Major it can sometimes seem depressing to wonder what the future will hold. Perhaps you have been called idealistic, or a Borders-employee-in-the-making. No fun. Not to fret, it appears that there are some options which don’t involve starvation, readily available for you. Yours for the taking! Have you ever thought about magazine writing? If you are looking for freelance jobs to cold call, according to another person’s blog, I’ll pass along the grapevine four very good starting point websites to visit: Mediabistro, MastHeads, Wooden Horse, and Ed2010.

If you are a Portlander like me, there are a lot of local organizations based in Portland which might be good first choices as well. It is known that living in proximity of the center of a field is most likely to get you the job than being best qualified. Get into the heart of the action, and this isn’t hard for a Portlander because although our city is small, we do have plenty of local organizations available to send internship requests for. The more well known magazines based in Portland are: Wend, NW Palate Magazine, Bitch Magazine, Flossin Magazine, and Spot Magazine.

Lots of Pennies for Your Thoughts

If you’re anything like me, you enjoy passing judgment. You love the passion you hear in your own voice as you critique a novel or film. You get a high from labeling things as “cliché” or “self-indulgent.” You’re not a bad person, you just know that you could make the wordy world infinitely better if someone would only listen. You know you could make everyone sound less dweeby if someone just gave you a chance. And maybe pay you for your insights?

Let’s assume that, along with dishing out blunt yet thoughtful critiques, you like to write. But maybe you don’t have any original ideas. Maybe you haven’t the attention span to stick with anything bigger than a haiku. Maybe you’re detail oriented—at your best when adding flourishes and accents to an existing text. If so, perhaps you’d like to be a developmental editor.

Comics: Write Your Own World

Comics are awesome. Hopefully that’s about the mindset you’ve got if you’re looking to be a comic book writer. If so, this is your time to shine. While mass hysteria may be rampant regarding plummeting sales within media such as newspapers and magazines, the comic industry, as well as their heftier brethren, the graphic novel, have surprised many with their vivid success over the past ten years.

Comics boast original stories, unique characters and savvy prose, as well as a wealth of stunning art styles and genres; in a world where the movie remake is becoming its own genre, originality goes a long way when entertaining the hungry masses. Comics have exploded out of their 2D paper world onto the scene in film and literary investigation, painting a colorful swath of movies such as: Spider-Man, X-Men, Ghost World, Sin City, A Scanner Darkly, Fantastic Four, V For Vendetta, Blade, Hellboy, Watchmen, Iron Man, Kick Ass, and Academy Award winner Road to Perdition. And there are even more upcoming features slotted for 2011.

Is Indexing The Career For You?

Most people who get a B.A. in English do not think of indexing as a potential career. This is because the positions, at a professional level are sparse. However, if there's one thing we've learned, it's that all jobs these days are hard to acquire.

As far as indexing goes, the most popular field is that of the freelance indexer. This is where a publishing house sends a book to an indexer and they work on a book to book basis, with no contracts. Cheryl Lenser, the indexer at Pearson explains the career in detail in her publishing career blog.

The Short Story Writer: Outside the Ivory Tower

The first thing you need to do in starting a career as a short story writer is write. This is the advice given to you in every how to write book ever known to man: write and write every day.

A body of work is the most important thing for a short story writer because you must produce and produce often. Once you have short stories that you believe, or the peers of your writer’s workshop believe, or your creative writing teacher believes, that are good, you must sumbit them to magazines, anthologies, anywhere that publishes short stories in your genre.

Ghostwriting

 Is your love of writing exceeded by your desire to make a living wage?  If so, ghostwriting is a great option for a career.

Your writing will likely be read by much larger audiences than your “zine” or blog, and have a greater impact.  Instead of constructing characters, plot and themes, you are presented with a definite task in your work, one which touches on a wide range of experiences.  Ghostwriting exposes you to interesting people, gives you authority in creating your work schedule, and provides opportunities to travel.

A prospective ghostwriter needs to be aware of particular skills that are valuable in the field.    The ability to conduct interviews in which the interviewee is encouraged to divulge insightful information is very important.  Some clients will be apprehensive when you delve into their past, and a good ghostwriter should be acutely aware of this sensitivity.  Because your clients are paying you to write as themselves, they can often be worried about how they see themselves represented, which is a facet of ghostwriting that will be present from the beginning to the end of a project.  Professional ghostwriters know to swallow their pride when such occasions arise, rather than risk losing the client and access to potential clients in the future.

Editing Careers in the Publishing Industry

A couple Google searches about the trade publishing industry reveal that this career track consistently calls for an undergraduate degree in English. Other degrees may apply, and certainly a publishing house has a need for such varied credentials as legal, art and economics degrees. My particular interest lies in editing. Apparently editors play many roles at a publishing house, with various titles and responsibilities. Publishing houses employ editors to work with authors and develop texts, to check for grammatical, spelling and factual errors and for consistency, to commission manuscripts and review unsolicited submissions, and to manage the process of bringing a text to fruition, including planning and budget. Editorial departments have to work closely with the design, marketing, production and sales departments.

Publishing is an apprenticeship industry, where most of the experience that earns you a career comes from an entry-level assistant position rather than an advanced degree. Workplace experience trumps educational experience in this industry. Although a higher degree might not be a necessary asset when entering the publishing industry, unpaid experience like internships and time writing at a school newspaper is valuable. Personal and business connections made during internships and assistant positions provide resources that formal education can’t match. One common entry-level position for a college graduate is as editorial assistant.

Become a Literary Agent

If you are one of those English majors who while standing in line at the grocery store handle the paperbacks that pack the display rack, turning them over to see how much they cost while wondering if people really buy that stuff, you are well on your way to a career as a literary agent. Yes, people really buy that stuff, and literary agents are there in the thick of it, making it happen.

As most commercial publishers will not consider work that is not represented by an agent, agents are indispensable cogs in the ever churning mill of the book business. Publishers and their editors rely on agents to supply them with manuscripts which are primed and marketable, creating a steady stream of potential bestsellers. An experienced agent knows the market and can sell to those publishers, convincing them of the profit in packing the display racks with their clients' work.

But becoming a literary agent is no easy road. You must really want it and not fakingly kinda want it because you will need to work long and hard for years. And the first thing you will need to do is move to a city where most successful book publishers are located, which is New York City. After landing but before taking off your shoes, you will want to take your expensive four year degree and hunt down an entry level job with one of those publishers. English majors can usually find work as low level editors. This may seem like a waste of time, steering you away from your true calling, but there is purpose in this step as you will be learning the publishing business from the inside while establishing contacts.

Novel Writing

“Writing is easy. All you do is sit staring at the blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead.” —red smith

Even if it were as easily done as it is imagined by the many who “want to write a book someday,” the actual writing of a novel is just the beginning. A novelist is typically someone who has published several successful works of fiction, non-fiction, or memoir. Getting your novel onto the shelves is an increasingly long and difficult endeavor. You must be self-motivated, able to work alone, and willing to risk failure (success being defined here as profit).

If you are a first time author, begin with a finished, polished manuscript and a query letter describing your novel. Although it is possible to proceed independently, chances of getting published will greatly increase if you hire an agent—someone who knows the industry, has connections to editors, and can help make your manuscript more marketable.

One Word Two Words Three Words More--by N Otis Richerson

Just after high school but before college, I laid in bed with the sheets pulled up to the crook of my arms. I hunched over large books as poor bedside light washed over thin pages. I labored over Dostoevsky and Hesse. I bit my nails over Nabokov and Tolstoy. I took small morning coffee sips over Hemingway and Salinger. I took lunch with Kafka. I read the greats. I read only the greats. I said to myself, “ I’m getting smarter-greater by their words.” I wouldn’t own a television. I believed in the image.



Ten years later, with two drawers full of term papers and a small country’s debt, I ask myself, “What are the books that really changed your life?” I’m not irrecoverably changed because of Hemingway, Tolstoy, or Joyce. It was the book Hey, Dummy, that really effed my shit—if you’ll excuse the cliché—that rocked my reading world.

Beer Career

Did you know that beer is recession proof? It's true. In 2008, Budweiser rose 4.6% in sales--and this was during a recession. How can a person with an English degree get into this eternally growing field? There are a few options.

First is via marketing. English majors are great when it comes to marketing products. Companies desire someone who can be creative with word play, lettering design, and product descriptions to put on a website or the side of a box.