Posts Tagged ‘newspaper columns’
Cindy on September 7th, 2009
Grace must find expression in life; otherwise it is not grace.” — Karl Barth
On vacation in northern Michigan two years ago, I visited a secondhand bookstore and stumbled on a copy of Home Edition, a collection of “Experience” columns by Nancy Brown (a pseudonym for Anne Louise Brown). One of the first advice columnists in the United States, Brown launched her column in The Detroit News in 1919 and kept at it until 1942.
Unlike most advice columnists of the era, Brown wrote “Experience” from the seasoned perspective of middle age, counseling her readers on everything from financial worries to marital woes. Her responses were always compassionate — and considerably longer than the bite-sized paragraphs spooned out in newspaper columns today.
Having been a columnist several times in my own writing life, I’ve always taken a special interest in the work of other columnists, past and present.
Until recently, though, my yellowed copy of Brown’s Home Edition simply occupied space on my bookshelf, a quaint reminder of how column writing has changed over the decades.
Then, one morning last week, I was somehow drawn to the shelf where I’d placed Brown’s book. At that very moment, I was thinking about a recent talk radio program on our country’s financial crisis. The show’s host had focused on the emotional (and spiritual) aspects of losing a job, asking her unemployed callers to share how they’ve been forced to redefine the meaning of success. Their answers were humbling — and inspiring.
So, grabbing Home Edition from the shelf, I felt my heart race when the book fell open to a letter from a desperate middle-aged man who identified himself as “Crowding Fifty.”
Writing in 1938, Crowding Fifty told Nancy Brown that he was once employed by “a large Detroit outfit” that had been forced to liquidate during the Great Depression. Before the bottom fell out, he said, he had enjoyed a life of relative prosperity that included Saturday night dances and a golf club membership. (He added that he and his family had lived within their means — albeit comfortably.)
When “the large Detroit outfit” went under, Crowding Fifty scraped together his remaining resources and tried to start his own small business. But despite his hard work and determination, that business failed, too. He’d nearly hit rock bottom. Describing his own financial crisis, Crowding Fifty wrote: “The present so-called recession has raised havoc with my plans….By the time my insurance premiums are paid, my car expense of $25 monthly and other incidental items are cared for, there is just about enough for food and a few clothes.”
Worst of all, Crowding Fifty’s wife began shaming him in front of their kids — and soon withdrew her emotional support. His whole family, as he put it, “belittled” him.
Crowding Fifty went on to say: “It is beginning to look to me that perhaps I am a washout and a detriment to my family and, looking at it from a bystander’s viewpoint, that to avoid all future scenes and arguments and to promote content to my family, it will be the proper procedure to quietly arrange to cease living — to have my wife collect that $20,000 insurance before it is lost, too.”
While the letter was written more than 70 years ago — and its style seems formal or wooden now — the pain it expressed is still raw on the page. I fought a wave of tears while reading it. It was, if not an official suicide note, a plea to the columnist to convince him that his life still mattered; that there was some way out of the private hell that had swallowed him.
In 13 paragraphs, Brown gave Crowding Fifty a heartfelt answer, which contained some practical solutions as well as words of encouragement and comfort.
“Take a firm hold of yourself,” Brown wrote. “Square your shoulders. And tell yourself that you — are — going — to — make — good — again — and you will. I know it.” Concluding her response, Brown asked Crowding Fifty if he would please send another letter — “ten days from now” — telling her that he had decided to start over instead of taking “the desperate step that would bring nothing but unhappiness to those who love you best.”
For several days now, I’ve been wondering if he ever wrote back.
– Cindy La Ferle
– The photo of Nancy Brown working in her office is from The Detroit News archives –
Cindy on December 18th, 2008
“Journalism is history on the run.” — Thomas Griffith
My mother once told me that printer’s ink runs in my blood. My great-great grandfather was a foreign correspondent based in Washington D.C., and according to family legend, he traveled around the world seven times. While my own freelance assignments aren’t nearly as exotic, I inherited a real passion for newsprint. Regular delivery of the Weekly Reader was, in fact, the highlight of my grade school years.
Earlier this week, I clipped an article from the Detroit Free Press and mailed it to my son — something I do fairly often because I like to share news from home. Hours later, I learned that this major daily newspaper, along with the venerable Detroit News, will be cutting home delivery to three days a week, starting in March. According to the Detroit Media Partnership, which oversees both newspapers, an “abbreviated” print edition will be available at newsstands on other days. Subscribers will be directed to the papers’ Web sites. Meanwhile, upwards of 190 jobs will be eliminated.
Likewise, the Daily Tribune, the suburban-Detroit daily that carried my Sunday column for nearly 14 years, just reduced its print version to four days from six. Though I stopped writing the Sunday column last year, I enjoy having a local byline and still contribute pieces occasionally. But at this rate, it doesn’t look as if I’ll be doing so much longer.
As if that’s not enough bad news, The Christian Science Monitor, which has published many of my reviews and essays over the past 11 years, also announced that it’s going “paperless” next April. Its daily content will be available online; subscribers will receive a weekly magazine edition. Words can’t begin to express how sad I felt when I first read about this change in the Monitor.
I’m not the only seasoned freelance writer who’s reeling from the changes in my profession. (And this isn’t just a symptom of Detroit’s long-suffering automobile industry.) Every day, journalist friends around the country report that their newspapers are cutting staff or folding entirely. Popular columns and features are getting zapped with little or no warning — though most of us have been reading the proverbial writing on the wall. We know circulation figures are dropping now that most newspapers and magazines can be read for free online. (As every journalist knows, the free-for-all Internet is both a blessing and a curse.) In response, newspaper advertising revenue is evaporating like puddles on a desert.
So the challenge for newspaper staffers and freelancers everywhere is to find ways to reinvent their careers on the Web. Can stubborn middle-aged print journalists make this transition — and earn a decent living from it? I’m not so sure. Competition is unbelievably fierce.
In the meantime, I’m feeling a bit nostalgic.
I enrolled in Michigan State University’s journalism school in the mid-1970s, when students were still pounding out deadlines on electric typewriters. For me, nothing beats the thrill of holding a real publication — a print publication — and seeing my byline atop an article or column. I prefer tangible proof of my work. Printing my online articles on copy paper — from my own computer — just isn’t the same.
A recent article in The Economist predicted that print editions of newspapers will have gone the way of the manual typewriter by 2011. If that really happens, I’ll miss kicking back with a cup of coffee and a morning edition. I’ll miss the heady scent of newsprint and the ritual of shuffling through the ads to find my favorite sections. I’ll miss mailing local news clips in letters and cards to my son.
Long before my favorite markets started drying up, I supplemented my freelance income by teaching local writing workshops. When I began teaching, I assumed (with a little arrogance) that my biggest challenge would be getting fledgling writers to tighten their paragraphs — or to find topics worthy of publication. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Every year, I meet dozens of new writers whose work is so gorgeous, so full of promise, it breaks my heart. All of them want to be published in newspapers and magazines — and quite a few dream of snaring their own newspaper or magazine columns. Less than a few months ago, I was telling these students to muster their courage and approach the editors of their local papers. That’s the best place to start, I would tell them. Build your portfolio from the ground up. That’s how I did it. Now I’m not sure what to tell them. — Cindy La Ferle
This just in: Another journalist friend shared this link to a hope-filled column on this topic in the Rocky Mountain News.
Cindy on July 23rd, 2008
Lately I’ve been thinking about Sam Lamott, son of best-selling author Anne Lamott. I don’t know of many women who haven’t read Anne’s Traveling Mercies, her collection of candid essays on her long road to sobriety and conversion to Christianity. For many moms in my age group, Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year, was their introduction to a whole new literary genre: the tell-all “momoir.”
Sam (who’s now 18) is often at the center of Anne’s writings. We’ve all watched Sam grow up on the page, from his first smelly diaper to the brutal arguments over his driving privileges.
Legions of us are forever indebted to Anne for admitting aloud that motherhood isn’t one sweet series of Hallmark moments. Still, I can’t help but wonder how the Sam Lamotts of the world — kids who’ve literally grown up in print — really feel about all this. Is Sam scrutinized more closely because of his famous mother’s writings? Is he held to a different standard of behavior? Do his friends understand (or resent) his position? Is the rest of the world also secretly wondering how he’ll turn out? Is it really any of our business?
For years, I’ve wrestled with this issue on a much smaller scale. And I’m still conflicted. My own son, now 22, recently asked me to remove a post I’d written about him on my own blog last month. The post was innocent enough. And the photo of my son was flattering. The verbiage was confined to a very short paragraph about how grateful I am that my son helped me redesign my Web site, and how much I’ll miss him when he leaves the state for his new job.
Problem was, I used his name, he said. The large corporation that had just hired him out of college was in the process of doing an in-depth background check on him, he reminded me. Therefore, he did not want his name or his photo floating around on my blog, no matter how flattering. A little paranoid? I’d say so. But at the same time, I understood my son’s point of view and why he was worried.
We’d been around and through this before. Years before I began blogging, I wrote a weekly column for our local daily newspaper. My assignment was to write about my family life — which naturally included funny or poignant moments involving my son and his friends. No matter how careful I was, my son was hurt or humiliated more than once by what was published in my column. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson by now.
But I haven’t. In fact, I’ve been at work on a memoir about preparing for the empty nest, and there’s no easy way to write it without mentioning my son’s first name throughout. Euphemisms like “my son” or “the kid” sound awkward in a longer work of nonfiction. For now, I’ve put the project on hold, despite the fact that an agent and a publisher are interested in it — and despite the fact that I believe my book would be of help to other women facing the empty nest transition.
So I deleted the offending post immediately. My son told me it would have been OK if I’d simply removed his name. But I wanted to prove to him that our relationship is far more important to me than a blog topic. I’m guessing he’ll outgrow this particular sensitivity, once he feels at home in his new job and settles into his new life on his own. But I’d sure love to talk to Sam about this. — Cindy La Ferle
–A shorter version of this post originally appeared on 50-SOMETHING MOMS Blog. Check the June Archives for “Sam Lamott” on the 50-SOMETHING MOMS site, and to read comments prompted by the original post.–
Cindy on June 4th, 2008
Lately I’ve been hearing from a lot of readers who are new to my work. If you stumbled on something I wrote elsewhere and liked it enough to stop by, I’m happy you did!
I’m a card-carrying homebody and freelance writer who’s always on the lookout for the sacred in the suburban. I’ve traveled extensively in this country and abroad — only to find that my quirky hometown is the absolute coolest place to be. Last year, I was appointed to my local public library’s first honorary Writer-in-Residence position, which means I get to fulfill my longtime dream of sharing my favorite books and the craft of writing with others in my community.
Focusing primarily on home, family, and women’s issues, I specialize in personal essays and lifestyle columns. Early in my journalism career, I worked for a reference book publisher and freelanced for several publications. I also spent six years editing a small bed-and-breakfast travel magazine.
After writing a weekly “slice of life” column for 12 years for our local daily newspaper, I discovered that personal columns and essays were the perfect vehicle for reaching others who were also looking for the beauty in the ordinary; the truth in everyday experience. It was one of the best assignments I’ve ever had. For one thing, I could do most of the writing at home while my only child was in grade school. Secondly, the weekly deadlines challenged me to look beyond newsworthy events for small miracles and epiphanies in my daily efforts.
Weeding my perennial garden, for instance, I would suddenly unearth an early memory of my grandparents’ backyard in Detroit. Baking bread in my kitchen while U.S. military forces bombed Baghdad, I renewed my commitment to being a peacemaker in my own community. And while recovering from two major surgeries, I realized how many of life’s fundamental gifts and simple pleasures I had taken for granted.
I live in a 1920s Tudor-style home on a boulevard where the trees are as old as the houses, and the houses always need some renovation or repair. But everyone here appreciates character — in houses and people. I work in a small room — yes, a real home office — with a nice view of the neighborhood. And while I like to think of it as a room of my own, the truth is, I share it periodically with my husband, son, and two cats.
I’ve always believed that the personal is the political, and that what happens in our own homes has a ripple effect on the rest of our world. I write daily to discover what I believe, how I think. And I’m truly grateful for the opportunity to reach others who are also struggling to fit all the pieces together.
My essays and feature stories have appeared in over 50 different publications, from Catholic Digest to Reader’s Digest to Writer’s Digest. Through my inspirational writings, I’ve met a lot of wonderful people from many different faiths who cherish their families and boast an abiding respect for community. My goal is simple: To continue a dialogue with these people, adding what I hope will be a supportive voice on the journey. I post new essays at least once a week in addition to random blogs or updates on my Writer-in-Residence programs. So please come back often — and let me know what you think in the comment space, or send me an e-mail. – Cindy La Ferle
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A favorite quote: “How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.” -- Annie Dillard
Cindy on April 10th, 2008
There’s an interesting article on “mommy blogs” in the 4/10 edition of The Wall Street Journal. Frankly, I’m not quite sure what to make of the mommy-blog phenomenon. (For starters, as another commentator suggested, the use of the word “mommy” here is a bit condescending — as if there’s something small or inferior about motherhood?) But really, it’s the privacy issue — the blazing lack of boundaries — that disturbs me. And I wonder: do younger mothers today lack real-life friends with whom to share their deepest personal issues? Is blogging just an antidote to our boredom or isolation or loneliness?
In the interest of full disclosure, I blog occasionally too. I’ve also written about my family in newspaper and magazine columns, which aren’t exactly private. My son was barely nine when I was assigned to write what my features editor described as âa slice of lifeâ column for our local daily newspaper.
âWrite about things that typical suburban families can relate to,â the editor said. While I didn’t like to think there was anything âtypicalâ about my small family of three, the chance to rehash everyday epiphanies and preserve memories in newsprint initially seemed like a journalistic coup â the perfect beat for a work-at-home mom.
This was back in the day before the blog, so the thought of reaching 16,000 people every week was pretty heady. I’d already published articles and personal essays in several national magazines, but my byline was hardly a household name. A weekly column would change that, at least locally. Of course, not everyone bothered to read the lifestyles section in which I appeared, and not everyone was keenly interested in the poetics of keeping house. But before long, I had established a small but faithful Sunday readership â just enough to help me earn the title of âlocal writerâ and reap some recognition in the produce aisles and the post office.
Writing about real life — my real life â turned out to be a great way to work through some prickly domestic issues I’d been grappling with, plus I got paid to do my thinking on paper. It further proved that, despite all the laundry and the carpooling, I also had an inner life. But it didn’t occur to me, at first, that personal writing made public could be a tad self-indulgent if you get too careless — or that what you might consider a âcuteâ family anecdote could mean nothing less than lunchroom hell to your kid. My son, who was in grade school then, was the first to expose the hubris in all of this.
âIf you’re going to write about me, you better get it right or don’t publish it,â he exploded after I wrote about the time I discovered a sticky stockpile of empty soda pop cans under his bed. The column, which had mercilessly trashed the housekeeping habits of little boys, also chronicled my terror upon discovering that one of the pop cans hosted a small colony of honey bees. I had also stretched the facts a bit, implying that my son was keeping the bees as pets. This infuriated him. Everyone else thought the piece was hysterical, but my son’s pride was wounded, especially after his teacher brought it up in class the following Monday.
Another time, when he was 10, he pointed out that I had misquoted him in a piece that, in my view, was flattering to him. I tried to explain that it’s not easy for mothers or writers to quote accurately from memory, unless they diligently record every scrap of conversation in a notebook. But the jig was up. Feeling used, he was rightfully suspicious of my motives.
We came to a critical juncture when my son reached middle school. In a fit of total ignorance, I’d made a passing reference to the fact that he had dressed as Spock from âStar Trekâ one Halloween. After the offending paragraph appeared in the paper, I was told that I did not have permission â or the right — to write about his personal business. I had no idea that Halloween costumes qualified as personal business, but of course, it wasn’t really about the costume.
âI wish you’d quit writing about me,â he repeated, fighting tears as he ran upstairs. âI don’t want to ruin your job, but that’s just how I feel.â It was a very brave thing to say, since he knew he had posed a serious dilemma: The small-but-faithful readership had made it clear that the âkid columnsâ were my best stuff and they wanted more.
I was momentarily caught off guard. Hadn’t I been too careful all along? I was already worried that I’d be dismissed as a wimpy journalist, usually eschewing hot-button topics. It’s true that I always tried to render emotionally honest stories — yet I published what most writers would consider âsafeâ material, knowing full well that my son had to face the village at school while I hid behind a desk at home. Even from a personal angle, I avoided the sort of brutal honesty I’d been reading in the work of other essayists and newspaper columnists. I routinely read my columns aloud to my husband before sending them to the paper, just to ensure the pieces weren’t too revealing, too invasive. But I hadn’t done the same with our son.
And so, after our tearful talk at the top of the stairs, I decided to honor my son’s request and agreed to a temporary ban on the kid columns. The ban was lifted in high school after my son grew thicker skin and facial hair. But I still avoided forbidden material, tempting though it was, including his budding relationship with a girl at school. (As testament to my prudence, his first car accident was quietly resolved without a single paragraph in the Sunday paper.)
Today, while I am a fan of literary memoirs, I can’t help but wonder how the more candid (i.e., brutally frank/angry) material is being tolerated by the authors’ children. As much as I admire courageous, confessional writing, I get squeamish when too much is revealed about youngsters who, like my son, might be melting in the spotlight while their moms negotiate story fees. So much depends, I realize, on where the work is published — and when (or if) the authors’ children see it. But kids aren’t stupid; they know when their every move is being scrutinized.The dilemma still haunts me; still nags at my conscience. Yet this much I know for sure: Too much of our culture is fueled by celebrity. We all want more than our 15 minutes of fame and a terrific agent. (Are we terrified of being invisible?) But after two decades of professional writing, it occurs to me now that the most important stories are those imprinted on our hearts. And maybe it’s just as well to keep some of those stories to ourselves.
Having spent the last 19 years of motherhood trying to teach my son the importance of respecting boundaries, I’ve finally learned how to respect his. And thanks to my son’s willingness to express his own feelings honestly, I have learned how to strike a compromise between my desire for recognition and his need for privacy. Before hitting the send button, I also pause to consider the motivation behind every single piece I publish about him. – Cindy La Ferle
—Parts of this essay were originally published on Literary Mama.com and in MetroParent magazine.—
