Marketing Pays Off?

A few days ago, I had a rare nibble of interest from the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. He wrote back to me in response to an article I’d sent him about the Great Wall of China. He said he already had an article lined up, but that he would see if he could incorporate any of my work into the China issue. I haven’t heard anything since then, and I’m not holding my breath, but it’s more encouraging than anything I’ve ever heard from him before, so I’m cautiously optimistic.

Read All About it at Readerville

My story is live now on the Readerville front page. You can click here to see it.

I can tell that this was an interesting editing exercise for Karen Templer, the wonderful woman who runs the site. It was an interesting exercise in editing for me when I wrote it. I could tell it was going long before I was very far into the story, and I had to stop and ask myself how I was going to deal with that. Usually the answer to a piece meandering into the 2500+ word territory is to cut mercilessly. Occasionally, though, the thing to do is to let it happen, making sure you take the time to treat each element of the story before moving on to another part of the narrative.

I chose the latter approach for this essay. I’m not saying it was the right decision; I’m just saying it was what I chose. As a consequence, the story did turn out longer than Karen wanted (i.e. longer than normal people will give an online story). So she cut some parts out. I don’t blame her. Something had to go, and you probably won’t even notice. (I once left all the sugar out of a dessert recipe by mistake and nobody noticed. It’s amazing what you can do without when you have to.) I’m just saying, if you are left wondering how I got full from a dinner I never mentioned eating, or what exactly I overheard Sarah say, the answers were once there.

Of course, you probably you never would have asked. It can be hard when you write something to tell what’s important and what isn’t. That’s what editors are for.

Readerville to the Rescue

Several months ago I went to an event where I saw a speaker who runs a web site called Readerville. It’s a site by and for literary people, dedicated to the idea that people still read for pleasure. I hadn’t heard of the site before, but I loved the idea and tried to think what I could send them.

I did think of something, and today I’ve been working with the editor to prepare a piece for publication. It’s a long story about a summer I spent in Taiwan when I was in college. It’s too long—and took place too long ago—to be published in most conventional venues. I still have hope that the full-length piece will appear in an anthology someday. But soon—maybe as soon as tomorrow—a mercifully abridged version will appear online. I’ll post a link when it’s live.

Published

This is a pleasant surprise: Several months ago, I had an essay accepted by the San Francisco Chronicle Sunday Magazine. I had thought it would appear next Sunday, but it actually ran yesterday.

(Pipi saw it first and showed the page to me, and my first thought was “Oh, no, someone stole my title!”)