The Review Revolution: Improving Culture through Kvetching

Help for New Writers: A Plug for My "Writer's Market Guide to Getting Published"

Does it count as shameless self-promotion if your name isn't on the front cover of the book you're trying to plug? I don't think so! So here goes.

Writer's Digest Books, which is part of F+W Media here in Cincinnati, recently hired me to revamp their old Writer's Market Companion and bring it completely up to date. This I gladly did, revising all the content, cutting some chapters out completely, and adding lots of brand-new material, including a chapter on self-publishing and a whole new multi-chapter section on marketing and publicity for authors. I had a great editor, Melissa Hill, who helped me craft the book according to the needs of WD's customers--mostly new writers who are wondering how the heck to get started in what often feels like a mysterious and even cruel business.

I'm proud of the results, and happy that the book covers a broad spectrum of what it means to make a living as a writer--books, magazine writing, screenwriting, the works. The book is available at a low price ($19.99 list, and about $14 with Amazon's hefty discount). Check it out!

Here's what WD says about Writer's Market Guide to Getting Published on its website:

"Everything you need to succeed in the business of writing! You have the ideas and the desire—but how do you get your writing published? Find out here! Writer's Market Guide to Getting Published gives you the inspiration and instruction you need to achieve long-term success in an ever-changing industry. This authoritative guide explores the ins and outs of the business of writing to provide you with:

• an exclusive look at the latest publishing industry trends
• guidelines for writing and selling fiction, nonfiction, and scripts
• techniques for conducting productive research
• innovative marketing and self-promotion strategies
• a comprehensive look at viable self-publishing options
• contract negotiation tips that really work
• a pricing guide so that you always know what your work is worth in the marketplace
• a glossary of publishing terms to give you a competitive edge

Plus, get insider tips from magazine and book editors and successful freelancer writers on what works—and what doesn't.

With Writer's Market Guide to Getting Published, you'll know exactly what it takes to get your work out into the marketplace, get it published, and get paid for it."

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: Rhoda Janzen's Memoir of Going Home

When I worked at Publishers Weekly, my mailbox was constantly filling up with people’s therapeutic memoirs of recovering from conservative religions. These writers had left evangelicalism, Orthodox Judaism, Mormonism, Christian Science, you name it. All of these memoirs had a flavor of the counter-apologetic: This is why I left my childhood faith, and how my life has changed dramatically for the better since I came to my senses. Many were well-written, and some were thoughtful. But there was a sameness about them.

 

Rhoda Janzen’s memoir is different, and refreshing, in its affection for the Mennonites who raised and formed her. This is a woman who appreciates her family and her heritage even though she is no longer a believer, who holds her insular childhood religion up to the light of the larger secular world and finds in it many useful and beautiful things to carry her forward. The book doesn’t end with her coming back to the fold in a religious sense, but in a familial sense, she never really left.

 

I should back up and tell you her story, which opens with the demise of her marriage. Although a spendthrift himself, her husband Nick shows a remarkable practicality where Rhoda is concerned: when she asks his advice about a proposed hysterectomy, he reminds her of the family policy to throw out anything that hasn’t been used in over a year—organs included.  She has the operation, but it doesn’t go well, and during her weeks of recovering from a punctured bladder (fun!), Nick leaves her for a man he’s met at gay.com. In the ensuing weeks, Rhoda has a serious car accident and crippling financial problems—all of which is a whole lot funnier in the book than it sounds in this barebones relay of information—and heads home to California to recover in the arms of her Mennonite family.

 

I love the way she depicts her family. The portraits are hilarious, but they are not caricatures. Her parents are provincial in their Mennonite heritage, but they are also globe-trotting ambassadors for their faith and for social justice. Her sister Hannah is a model of intelligence, passion, and humor. Even her super-conservative brother gets mad props for allowing his daughter to pursue her love of dance despite its being verboten in Mennonite circles. This is a family of love.

 

The memoir includes some hysterical reminiscences of growing up Mennonite, from the eye-popping tightness of Mennonite braids to the top five “shame-based foods” in a Mennonite child’s school lunch. (By this, she means the most embarrassing and smelly foods that Mennonite kids did not want to be caught dead eating in front of their peers.) And while she has issues with the way her Mennonite childhood failed to equip her to challenge male authority (and may have enabled her disastrous decision to remain with Nick through years of his bipolar disorder and verbal abuse), she also credits her upbringing with a strong support system and unconditional love. And hey, she knows how to make 1,000 different recipes out of a head of cabbage. That has to be worth a lot.

 

Yo, Glenn Beck! Stop Hijacking the Mormon Faith

This morning, I read with delight Phil Barlow's comments in the New York Times, about how Glenn Beck's remarks against social justice do not represent the heart of Mormonism. I was (as ever) inspired by Phil's example; he is one of Mormonism's most thoughtful, kind, and intelligent ambassadors, and I am so proud to call him my friend. Phil managed to put into gentle words my frustration with Glenn Beck and all the self-centered jingoism he stands for.

My response was to write this brief op ed piece for Beliefnet about the ways that Beck has ignored the teachings of the Book of Mormon, the lessons of our history, and the example of our beloved current prophet, Thomas S. Monson.

I am tired of people assuming that Glenn Beck is representative of Mormonism just because he has a loud voice and a bully pulpit. He does not represent the best of who we are as a people. Mormonism is about how, when you are in the service of your fellow human beings, you are always in the service of your God. (Mosiah 2:17, The Book of Mormon)

Jana