Anne Trubek

What I’ve Been Up To Lately

Anne Trubek — Fri, 11 May 2012 14:47:49 +0000

–I’m now writing for Buzzfeed weekly, and super-excited to be so doing. My beat will be books and tech, so I’ll be writing about tech books (like Andrew Keen’s forthcoming Digital Vertigo), and books with a significant tech presence (like Gary Shtyengart’s Super Sad True Love Story, the theme of my first post, here).

–CBC’s Day 6 interviewed me about spelling. Listen to it, and read the comments (can you guess whether they are positive or negative?) here

–My second “How To Pitch” course is underway, and this group is phenomenal. People are posting pitches daily, and receiving many comments from other participants. We’ve had one sale, some internal challenges, and lots of chat about how freelancing really works.

–Otherwise, I have been moving sweet woodruff from one place to another in my garden, my copy of Bring Up The Bodies arrived, and I got crazy points for spelling “qwerty” on Spell Tower.

Words With Friends: The Problem of Social Reading

Anne Trubek — Tue, 01 May 2012 14:15:34 +0000

We have accepted social media. We have accepted ebooks. Can we now accept their marriage–can we learn to love social reading?

“Social reading” is what happens when you connect with others through an ebook or mobile app. You can tweet your annotations as you read James Gleick’s The Information on your nook. On your Kobo, you can read comments left by other readers about that sentence on page 57. On your iPad, you can download Subtext and watch a video by the author, no longer a shadowy absent-presence behind the words.

But wait– isn’t reading defined by its very privacy? Is it not to escape the social that we delve into books? Remember when everyone touted “curling up in bed to read a book” as the main reason ebooks would never fly? It seems unseemly to fill our beds with so many people.

Maybe. But reading is not, actually, a de facto solitary activity. We just made it seem that way in the twentieth century. Before then–well, Homeric bards spoke to crowds; St. Ambrose shocked other monks when he read words silently rather than out loud to himself, as had always been done; Dickens was read in reading circles, the orator near the candle, the rest listening. So it is no abomination: let’s be like Greeks and chat with each other while we read.

However, the field of social reading is crowded and proprietary–your nook and my Kindle can’t talk to each other. Most “social” features have been created top-down, by companies, not devised by readers themselves in an end-user innovation sparked by desire to connect. Nor is it clear what, exactly, people want to be social about: their favorite lines? videos of the author explaining to us her conceit? links to the wikipedia page explaining a reference? Authors are still writing self-contained works they imagine to be bounded between boards–or at least contained within one file–so the social aspect often comes in post hoc, awkwardly.

We readers know how to read socially–on the web. For social reading of books to be meaningful, the definition of “book” might need to change.

Here’s one definition of “book” I’ve been playing with: prose without links. Think about it–might we imagine two reigning models of reading–linked (or extractive, horizontal) and unlinked (or immersive, vertical)? A problem I see with “social reading” of books is that it asks us to link what we perceive as unlinked. As it were.

Also, “social reading,” as it is currently defined, shortchanges the ways in which “traditional” reading, including 20th century private practices, is already social: it forms the body of references, the cultural touchstones, with which we navigate our frames of references, our ways of being with others–”the social.” The history of the book is filled with examples of readers talking to each other: an author comment on a kindle is simply a newfangled quotation mark.

I’m a champion of digital forms of reading and writing, but I wonder if “social reading” is both a forced term and something we have been doing all along.

DIY Teaching And The Problem With Institutions

Anne Trubek — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:17:39 +0000

In March, I started what might be called artisanal teaching. I developed an ad hoc course for freelancers after thinking about how opaque that world can be, and with a desire to create greater transparency. I’ve taught my entire adult life, but this year is my first without a syllabus to write. I was feeling the itch I guess.

I really enjoyed working with the folks who signed up, and the course filled up quickly. So I set up another one for May. It is filled up quickly. The enrollees are predominantly female, but otherwise they span a range from Very Accomplished National Magazine Freelancers to college students interested in learning more.

Now I’ve just announced a June “section” of “How To Pitch.” I’m still doing this ad hoc–I announce new courses when the previous one fills up, and I’m not sure how long I’ll keep doing this.

Sometimes I consider offering other types of courses–a workshop to critique pitches? A course just on writing personal essays? I’ve done two face-to-face workshops in Cleveland, and may continue those as well.

But it’s funny, this leaving teaching only to devise my own personal educational system, as it were. And it’s interesting, this word-of-mouth thing. My advertising budget is nil. I use twitter and Facebook to let people know about the courses. That’s it.

When I’ve talked with friends about these courses, and the irony of my taking a leave from teaching only to start teaching again, they all immediately begin discussing institutions and their discontents. The bureaucracy, the overhead, the wasted time.

So here’s my thesis, my point-last point: Behind the “crowd sourcing, start-up, kickstarter” culture we are developing may lie a troubled distrust of conventional institutions. It’s a rather Republican sentiment, in a way. I’m not entirely comfortable with this conceptually or theoretically. However, I’m extremely comfortable with the DIY teaching I’ve been doing.

How To Pitch: The Online Course, June 8-22*

Anne Trubek — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:22:42 +0000

I do love helping others with their writing. That explains those 15 years teaching writing at Oberlin College, I suppose. I’ve been posting a lot about the VIDA stats and my post on how to pitch VIDA publications has been extremely popular. Now I’m offering an online course to help writers pitch publications.

So here’s the deal:

I am offering a two week course. It will run via an online blog. I’ll post daily on freelancing basics, such as developing pitches, researching publications, coming up with story ideas, writing and submitting personal essays, and making you case (bio, clips,, etc.). I’ll also share some of the queries I’ve sold, the emails I have had back and forth with (names redacted) editors, the process I went through submitting personal essays, payment information, contracts, etc.

Since I started offering these courses I’ve developed a database of what I’m calling “intellectual journalism” publications that I’ll share with you. It contains editor, pay and contact information for 40 publications, and some say it alone is worth the cost of admissions.

In addition, I will answer any and all questions you have about selling freelancing articles, book reviews and personal essays (the areas I have experience with). We’ll have a community of people sharing insights and asking questions. You’ll post your question to the group, I’ll respond, and others can chime in with their responses, further questions, experiences, etc.

If you’re interested in feedback on specific pitches, essays and/or review ideas you have sitting around or plan to write, I can do that, too. I’ll provide you with one-on-one feedback on pitches or an essay as often as you like during this two week period (I promise a two-day turnaround).

The fee is a freelance-friendly $100. If you want the one-to-one feedback as well, the fee is $250. The class is limited to 15 participants total, and I have 5 slots for the one-on-one option.

There is no time commitment–think of it as information you will be receiving for the cost of admission. We won’t “meet” at any specific time, I won’t give you homework, and if you want to just lurk and not ask questions, that’s fine, too. The materials I post stay online for one month after the course ends.

If all goes well, we’ll form a community, get to know each other and take our writing and freelancing one step further.

The course will work for brand new newbie rookie never before freelanced types of people and experienced freelancers who want to get to know other writers, have a community to offset their solitary work, hear about new markets, have an incentive to pitch ideas languishing in draft folders .

To sign up for the June 8-22 course, just send a payment using PayPal to my email address. I’ll send you a confirming email back letting you know I received it and add you to the list using the email you use. If you want to pay by check, send me an email first, letting me know which option you are choosing, and I’ll reply with my address, etc.

See the comments below for some nice words by former participants.

Anything else you want to know? Shoot me an email at anne.trubek[at]gmail.com

*if you’ve enrolled in the May 4-18 course you should have received an invitation to the course blog. If not, let me know! Also, check your bulk mail–some invites are landing there.

Awesome, Ruined Letters

Anne Trubek — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 18:52:27 +0000

I just spent a week in Greece, which involved lots of souvlaki and the loss and gain of awe. The temples just sit there on the hill, utterly public, defying defiling, brighter and bigger than you imagined. The Acropolis is lit at night but in the day the stones, the ones that fell off or were kicked over by the Christians, the Ottomen, the Lords of England, just lie about, so heavy they taunt us, as if the Gods had placed them there to remind us of our weakness, and poppies bloom in the cracks, so now we know why they call them poppies. These are the most ruinous of ruins.

I always love preserved decay (cue rust belt jokes here), but these offered something new to me: letters. Ruined letters, letters on ruins. I was transfixed. To whit:

I want to describe for you the emotional response I had to seeing so much writing carved on rocks. I saw writing on walls, written by slaves who helped build the oracle’s temple at Delphi upon their freedom, and on chips of massive, fallen columns.

But I can’t, yet, describe, other than through cliche–the mark of the hand, the presence of the past, the embodiment of history. I’ll work on it.

Meanwhile, I’ve been reading up on epigraphy, the study of inscriptions, particularly ancient ones. While I was in Greece I read Don DeLillo’s The Names, which may have literature’s only epigrapher as a character (have I missed another?).

Where are the carved words today? We lament the passing of handwriting, but I’m wondering about an earlier writing technology. The first example that comes to my mind is this:

See what I mean? Emotional.

(update: thinking about this some more, and chatting about whether there were any poems about stone carvings with some folks on twitter, I started googling, and found this amazing story and transfixing clip about Simon Armitage, who is carving poems on stones in Yorkshire: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-14224391)

(and my fellow writing history traveler, Matthew Battles, alerted me to a Robinson Jeffers poem, “To The Stone Carvers“: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/182236)

My Alt-ASME list of women bylines

Anne Trubek — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 19:11:17 +0000

This post is a really elongated tweet , written in haste, because I should be doing other things but can’t shut my mouth (or laptop) until I get this off my chest.

The ASME awards shafted women writers. (cue links to read many blogs and articles to come).

So who would I have nominated?

Jill Lepore, for several features, but if I had to choose one it would be this

Emily Nussbaum for her columns & commentary in either/both New York or New Yorker.

Ruth Franklin for columns and commentary in The New Republic.

Laura Miller for columns and commentary for Salon.

I’ll post more anon; maybe you will add some names/articles, too.

The Difference Between Being Rejected And Getting A No: A Gender Issue?

Anne Trubek — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 14:16:32 +0000

I’ve been AWOL from this blog for awhile, mainly because I’ve been having fun and working hard with my How To Pitch class.

But today I want to make a few notes about rejection. These are inspired by my VIDA posts, my subsequent online class and some conversations I’ve had recently. I am developing a theory about the difference between being turned down and being rejected.

Two stories:

A woman friend of mine works at a Very Prestigous National Magazine. She sits in on the weekly pitch meetings with editors. She notes that some women bring up ideas, have them shot down, and then stop bringing up ideas and the weeks go on. The men bring up ideas, have them shot down, and then keep bringing up ideas.

A woman senior editor at the Very Big Publication wants to do some freelancing. She pitches. She does not receive any response–just silence. She interprets silence as rejection. She gets discouraged about her ideas. She decides not to keep pitching.

Point of these stories? Women take a no as a rejection, something that hurts, and they take rejection hard. Theyare quicker to interpret signals that could mean a host of things as rejection as well. This may play a role in the completely absurd gender inequity we see in (what I’ll call) “Prestige Publishing.”

One way to offset the sting of rejection is to be horribly arrogant and consider the rejectors the idiots, not you. To just say screw you, get angry and prove them wrong by getting an acceptance elsewhere. Perhaps we should have more arrogance training courses?

Or maybe we all need to share rejection stories, so as to depersonalize them?

Hey, I have one! I recently did something I had sworn off: I wrote a “sample” story for a prospective blogging gig. The job would be to write about a topic I enjoy, once a week, for a decent rate. I felt pretty confident the sample would end up running (and thus I’d get paid for it, as the editor said would likely happen), so I wrote off my “never write for free” pledge.

I had lots of conversations, on the phone and via email, with the editor–all very friendly, and included some exchanges that went beyond the job at hand to colleagues we have in common, links she sent me related to my book research etc. So I was confident this was a pro forma trial and the gig was mine. I wrote the piece.

The editor responded with a generic: “Given our needs we won’t be able to work with you at this time. Thanks and I’ll keep your information on file.” No comments on the piece, no explanation.

I was pissed. With myself. I beat myself up: I had phoned in the story in, I should have found better sources, I should have picked a better topic, etc.

Then I added insult to injury: I got pissed at myself for blaming myself instead of getting mad at her. Really, no explanation? Really, that cold of a brush off?

Then I got angry: I sent her a note asking for more explanation and a kill fee for the piece. She hasn’t replied.

I’m still feeling a mixture of anger and rejection. But I know the rejection is misplaced: I should just be angry.

So I keep learning how to not be rejected. Which is a different thing than having others turn down my work. So do being told no and being rejected need to become different categories in my mind–one solely professional, the other emotional?

More How To Pitch

Anne Trubek — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 14:59:12 +0000

….I’m offering the How To Pitch course again from May 4-18. Interested? See the previous post for details.

VIDA Continua: Step-By-Step Guide On How To Pitch

Anne Trubek — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 16:11:13 +0000

How do you pitch the publications listed in the VIDA count, or any publication for that matter?

I live in Cleveland–far from any literati metropole. I started freelancing when I was an academic, and nobody I knew within academia knew how this world works. I am not well-connected with friends who work at big pubs, nor do my parents know x or y editor. In other words, just about all of my publications have come from cold pitching unknown-to-me editors.

It took me awhile to figure it all out. (You can read a bit about how I did it here). Here are some steps anyone can take to get their ideas to editors. Will it work? Who knows. But hopefully this information will clarify what can be an overly opaque process:

1.) Go to the website of the publication you want to pitch. Look for “about us” or “contact us” or “writers’ guidelines” or submission requirements” or some such. Sometimes that information is useful. Sometimes it is more of a screen to cut down on hundreds of unwanted emails (understandably). I’ve never pitched the Boston Review, though I’d like to, because the tone, response time and information on this page dissuades me.

2.) Ask and look around for more information. Here’s another example. I have never written for The New York Review of Books, thought I would love to, because I have no idea how to approach them (and they even reviewed my book!). I haven’t found any networks, friends, connections, market guides, etc. to help me. So if I wanted to pitch them I’d look at their masthead. Then I’d choose a senior editor, maybe an assistant editor. I’d put their name into the google box, see if I can find an email address. I just did this with one of the senior editors. I didn’t find an email but I did find a twitter address. So I’d follow this person, and if she followed me back I’d DM her asking how to pitch. Would it work? Who knows. I would not take it personally if no one answered a pitch I sent via this sort of blind googling. (And if anyone wants to give me more information about writing for NYRB, or any of the pubs I list below as ones I’d like to write for, I’m all ears. )

3.) Pay the fee to access media bistro’s “How To Pitch” feature or FreelanceSuccess.com or check out the *free* database at the (science oriented) Open Notebook. If you are a book reviewer, join the NBCC: they provide members with a guide to pitching book reviews, editor info, pay, etc. that has been invaluable to me. Even if the information is not accurate or up to date, the discussions of how the publications work on these sites are invaluable. In fact, you could teach yourself most of what you need to know about freelancing works just by reading these websites, their archives, etc. Not all publications are listed, though. NONE of the publications included in VIDA have “how to pitch” information at media bistro, for instance.

4.) Go to conferences, workshops, or other places where editors show up and explain their processes. (for me, this is usually too expensive or prohibitive due to other commitments. ROI seems low…)

5.) Figure out the email formula for the editor you want to pitch (after reading the masthead, or the bios on the website). This is not too hard: just sometimes takes lots of googling. All publication will have a consistent email formula, like “Firstnamelastname@nameofpublication.com. If you can find out the formula (google all the name on the masthead or look around the website: you just need to find one person). Then plug the name of the editor you want to pitch into the formula. I have sometimes used this method to great success (though sometimes with “Undeliverable” failure emails before I got the formula right).

5.) Beyond that, it comes down to networking, asking, magic, luck.

6.) Never take rejection or, more commonly, silence (no response at all) personally.

VIDA pubs

Here’s what I know about the publications in VIDA. I’ve left out a few: trust I know nothing about those.

The Nation: I’d love to write for them. I’ve never seen any writers guidelines other than what is on the website, and I don’t have any contacts. I’d love to learn more.

The Paris Review: I’ve never looked into this, but I’ve also never seen anything about it.

The Atlantic. I did publish a piece in the March 2012 issue. I had been pitching for a few years, to different editors. I got the name of the first editor I pitched from a friend. Then I kept pitching, and was referred to other editors by people there. I haven’t seen any market guides for them. The masthead and email formula aren’t hard to find, though.

Boston Review: see above.

TLS: As with NYRB, Boston Review and The Nation: I’d like to pitch them. Without any public or inside scoops, I have not yet–though I could take my own advice above and do some sleuthing.

Granta: I’ve pitched, and have not received any response. My sense–could be wrong– is that they cultivate writers–they seek out writers rather than respond to pitches.

Harpers: Nothing I’ve seen publicly, but I have found editor emails, pitched, and received responses back. So far, just rejections, but thoughtful and helpful ones. Cross your fingers for me the next one is a yes!

The New Republic: In the TLS, NYRB, Boston Review and The Nation column. I did once DM an assistant editor there, asking how to pitch. She didn’t respond. I should work more on this, as I think their book pages are fantastic and I’d love to write for them.

NYRB: see above

New Yorker: I have found editor emails and sent pitches. Some pitches have gone unresponsed to, some have gained me pleasantly worded rejections.

New York Times Book Review. I’ve received assignments from them via cold pitches to editors.

That’s as far as I can go without giving out information that might upset some of these publications. But if you email me I’ll respond privately and give you more information if I have it.

(p.s. I’m available for individual mentoring/coaching. I’d be happy to run an online course version of this as well, if there’s interest.)

Talk of the Nation, the NYT Op-Ed Page and VIDA

Anne Trubek — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 15:50:03 +0000

Phew! A whirlwind day yesterday: two big events, and I didn’t know either one was going to happen when I woke up:

Yesterday afternoon I was on NPR’s Talk of the Nation and had a debate about spelling, complete with time limitations and bells to cut us off (though I always came in short–probably not good debating practice). You can read the transcript and/or listen to it here.

This morning, I was delighted–so delighted!–to see the fruition of a project I have been working on with my mother–an op-ed about her experiences fighting for women’s rights. Read the op-ed in today’s New York Times. And share it with all your friends! I am so thrilled for my mother (and happy, too, that I could ply some writing and pitching know-how to get her story out there).

Speaking of women’s rights, the VIDA discussion continues. I talk about it here and here. I have had some women take me up on my offer of help, which is gratifying. And I thought the proposed solutions in this piece in The American Prospect make sense, too.