Telling (And Selling) Cleveland Stories To Others
January 11th, 2012
Two things happened recently to lead me to the below: 1.) I received a CPAC Creative Workforce Fellowship, and want to give back, and 2.) I went to a meeting of the Ohio City Writers in which people debated Cleveland, thumbs up or down and I realized that I had finessed this issue in my own work by writing for national publications, which takes some heat off this local debate. (My pieces have ranged from puff to balanced to negative-ish)
And, so, this:
Pitching Cleveland Stories To National Publications: A Free Workshop.
Tuesday, February 7, 7:00-9:00
Loganberry Books
Do you want to write for Wired or The Millions or Foreign Policy or any other national publication, online or print, paying or not? Are you aware of things happening in town and want to write about them for non-Clevelanders? Then you might find this workshop worth your time.
For the first hour, I will share with you pitches I wrote for Smithsonian, O, The Oprah Magazine, Gourmet, The American Prospect, The Economist and other publications about Cleveland. I will explain how I came up with the story idea, how I chose who to pitch it to, and how the process went from pitch to acceptance to published piece to payment. I’ll sprinkle in some rejection stories, too.
For the second hour, we will work as a group, brainstorming story ideas and possible markets, and working to come up with new angles or new publications. We’ll also brainstorm ways to find story ideas in town.
I’m offering this for free (though if you decided to go to amazon to buy a copy of my book, who am I to argue?). I’ll take as many as want to attend up to a reasonable seminar-type number.
BUT: this workshop will not teach you the basics of freelancing, so it’s best if you have some experience and knowledge. Maybe I’ll do another workshop on freelancing 101. Watch this space. This will work for writers who have some experience-writing reported articles, personal essays or cultural criticism for edited publications.
Thanks to Harriet Logan, we will be able to meet at Loganberry Books on Larchmere: http://loganberrybooks.com/
Who am I? I am a tenured professor at Oberlin where I have taught narrative non-fiction and magazine writing, so that gives you the teaching credentials. I’m on a break from that job now, and am a full-time freelance writer. I have written articles, criticism and personal essays for many national publications, and some of those pieces were about Cleveland.
update: This workshop is full. If you are interested in attending one I may offer in the future, shoot me an email.