Robin Hemley on breaking rules

‘I write what I want to write,’ says Robin Hemley, author of eight books, winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Director of the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa and Editor of Defunct Magazine. ‘I tend to break the so-called golden rule [of knowing where you’ll pitch a story before you write it] all the time. Sometimes I’ll pitch it to a magazine and they’ll pick it or they won’t. But other times I just write it because it’s just a weird idea,’ says Hemley.

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He gets inspiration from all around, and has written on a huge range of subjects from the personal, through the anthropological and even academic (though I hasten to add, he’s not an academic writer). Hemley writes fiction too. His most recent book, ‘Reply All’, is a collection of short stories.

‘What I find is that you write the piece you’re going to write. If it’s any good at all you’ll find a home,’ he says. Hemley gives an example inspired in Prague, ‘One of my friends got pick pocketed on the train right in front of us. I started being interested in the whole notion of pickpockets and the art of pick pocketing,’ Hemley says. This began, ‘The Pickpocket Project,’ an essay that was completely written before being picked up by Jill Talbot in ‘Metawritings: Toward a Theory of Nonfiction’. More recently Hemley did a reading of it, and another editor expressed interest. ‘[Your good writing] will make its way through the culture in some way or another,’ he says.

Hemley uses social media to help his writing into our culture, ‘A part of me hates it. A part of me likes it,’ he says. ‘Increasingly writers are becoming these “circus barkers” having to draw a crowd to them. That takes up so much of their energy that when you get to the three-ring circus, what’s in the middle? Not much.’ On the other hand Hemley recognises the advantages of social media, ‘You’re able to very quickly make people aware of something you have written,’ he says. And using social media has resulted in increased sales of his recent book of short stories.

New technologies aren’t considered crucial in the Nonfiction Writing Program at Iowa University (where Hemley is Director). Students are given the opportunity to study radio and video essay production, but they aren’t made to learn these skills. ‘It always helps to be conversant in different technologies but when it comes down to it, it’s how good you are as a writer. It’s about content – not ultimately about the presentation alone.’ Hemley says that, ‘the most important thing is to hone one’s skills as a writer, and to have something that's worth writing about.’

What non-fiction writers choose to write has always been a popular subject in writing circles. The definition of truth has been the centre of countless discussions. But the release of a book earlier this year, ‘The Lifespan of Fact,’ by Hemley’s University of Iowa colleague, John D’Agata (co-authored with Jim Dingle) has fuelled the debate. (This review in the New York Times gives an overview). And it’s something that Hemley, Kate Holden, Lee Kofman and Lee Gutkind will be discussing at the Melbourne Writers Festival this weekend.

Gutkind, Editor at Creative Nonfiction magazine, is a big advocate for truth in nonfiction. By contrast, at the Melbourne Writers Festival ‘In Conversation’ session last weekend, Hemley puts forward an alternative perspective. ‘Fabrication and manipulation are a part of any artistic endeavour,’ Hemley says. ‘Lying,’ he says (using air quotes), is a part of the artistic process, ‘The sooner you understand that, the easier it is to write.’

Hemley won’t comment on D’Agata, but does question some of the decisions his colleague made in his original essay (which is the subject of the book). Hemley argues that even if a writer has meticulous notes, there is always some ‘lying’. To illustrate the point, Hemley does an exercise with his students. He makes them close their eyes and describe the room. ‘They always distort, that’s just part of it,’ he says.

The debate at ‘Fact, Fiction, Truth’ will no doubt be a corker. It’s on Saturday 1 September at 2.30pm.

Creative Nonfiction is keeping it real

More and more, writers and publishers are being counseled to go digital: we must learn a broader set of skills (not just writing), we must be able to present to video, edit an audio file, and charm on social media. Serendipity has enabled me to develop most of these skills throughout my career (perhaps not the charm). But here’s the thing: I like to write. To write is what I want to do. There are times when I worry that my future may involve more multimedia than words (such as at the Future of Digital Publishing event I went to last week). These times can create a mirage of doom and gloom for the future of long form narrative writing. But talking to Hattie Fletcher, Managing Editor of Creative Nonfiction magazine (CNF) has settled my anxiety. The magazine keeps it real with a healthy respect for both the power of words, and the benefits new media can bring.

If you don’t know about CNF, then your writing and reading life is about to change. To me it is the Mecca of the best non-fiction reads, and the kind of writing I can only ever aspire to. It celebrates the power of narrative and storytelling. It’s writing that stays with you, that makes your soul sing.

The magazine was originally published in a journal format with a focus on essays. In 2010 it expanded to magazine format and introduced articles on the creative non-fiction genre. It has since embraced some aspects of e-publishing and continues to explore new media. But thanks to a recent reader survey, CNF isn’t going digital anytime soon. ‘We have a lot of readers who are interested in having a really nice physical object that they can hold onto. We don’t think of it as a throwaway magazine. It’s a little bit closer to a book,’ says Fletcher.

Things like video are a long way off. ‘So far there are enough people who do just want [words],’ says Fletcher. She acknowledges that some readers may enjoy more multimedia, and cites a brief foray into podcasts by the magazine. As a reader herself though, Fletcher says she seldom engages with the multimedia extras in digital magazines, ‘I wonder sometimes how many people really do,’ she says. So do I.

CNF’s approach to new technologies is refreshingly pragmatic. ‘We’re a tiny organisation. And so it’s a question for us of what the benefit in doing this is, and what we can actually work into our process,’ says Fletcher. A great access-point for writers is to submit ‘tiny truths’ to CNF’s daily Twitter contest (via #cnftweets). ‘We get a lot of people who come in new to the CNF tweet contest. But there’s a core group of die-hards who’ve been doing it since the start. And they’re looking out for each other,’ she says. Unlike multimedia extras, this kind of engagement in new media has benefits.

‘For us as a publication social networking has been great. It’s really helped us get closer to our readers and the community, and have closer contact with the people who are reading the magazine,’ says Fletcher. Making this direct contact with readers is an asset for publications struggling on small budgets. But Fletcher isn’t certain that it’s a must for writers to join the social media babble.

‘I think it’s something related to a person’s temperament,’ she says cataloguing writers who excel as equally in social media as they do in a room full of people, ‘They’re just intuitive networkers anyway.’ And while social media can be useful for journalists in finding sources Fletcher says, ‘the flip side is that it can be a huge time-suck. There are people who probably Facebook more about writing than they actually write.’ (If you missed it, there’s a great article in the Guardian by Ewan Morrison who, like Fletcher, questions the value of social media to writers).

Hail the voice of reason from Hattie Fletcher - but don’t be quick to label her a Luddite. In fact she sees many opportunities for the future of long form in new media.

‘On the one hand we have the incredible shrinking attention span because everything is quick. [But on the other hand] you see things evolve technologically that have helped. Definitely Byliner, Longform and Longreads [have] all helped provide a better home for long form,’ she says. It could be argued that pieces between 5,000 and 15,000 words fell into an uneasy middle ground during the era of print. But Fletcher says that, ‘in some ways it’s a really good time to be a long form writer because you have more potential ways of reaching an audience.’

Fletcher’s Editor Lee Gutkind is in Melbourne for the Writers Festival and will be presenting a number of sessions from the 31^st of August.

Included in these events will be the launch of the latest issue of CNF which is on the theme of Australia (Leah Kaminsky was guest editor).

The magazine will be making announcements soon about its digital future – so follow @cnfonline on Twitter if you’re interested in getting updates.

Oratory, rhetoric, poetry and prose

So the saying goes, as does a session at the Melbourne Writers Festival, ‘Campaign in Poetry, Govern in Prose’. If you have an interest in the power of words – or politics – it will be one for you. It’s a session, ‘about political rhetoric in America in an election year,’ says Sally Warhaft, anthropologist, broadcaster, former editor of ‘The Monthly’ magazine and author of ‘Well May We Say: The Speeches that Made Australia’.

Warhaft will chair the event with panelists Don Watson, Martin Indyk and Tom Clark. The stellar line up alone will interest politicos. But I reckon there’s something in it for writers too. At the core of it, Warhaft says, is, ‘what speech and words can and can’t do.’ This session is exploring rhetoric.

Too often rhetoric borders on being a dirty word – a shorthand for the phrase ‘empty rhetoric.’ But rhetoric can be a beautiful thing. It can move people, it can inspire. Rhetoric can capture imaginations. It can tell a story.

In his 2008 election campaign (and well before it) Barak Obama used great oratory and rhetoric to capture the imagination of a nation and the world. The promise of Obama and his campaign of hope are central to this session.

It will look at, ‘the tension between [Obama’s promise], what the reality has been, and what was probably going to be the reality (of being the president in very challenging times),’ says Warhaft. ‘I would like the audience to walk out with a real sense of that tension.’

If Obama’s been governing in prose will he become a poet again anytime soon? ‘I suspect he will. I think it’s just within him,’ says Warhaft. ‘You probably don’t have to be a natural to give a great, important and memorable speech.’ But, ‘you’ve got to say what you believe. The things that used to be important are no longer important. It used to be essential that you had a big booming voice – before amplification. But people have to believe you. And for people to believe you, you generally have to be telling the truth as you see it,’ she says.

Confidence is also a factor. It’s easy to be lifted by the oratory of Josiah Bartlet and Matt Santos (fictional characters played by actors in Aaron Sorkin’s acclaimed TV series, the West Wing). ‘President Bartlet made some wonderful speeches that you never forget,’ Warhaft says. ‘But then you ask yourself, “If Aaron Sorkin gave up a year of his life and came to Australia [to write speeches for] Julia Gillard… Would that actually help?” I think the answer would be, “only a little bit”. You need somebody to deliver as well.’

As oratory is a part of making a memorable speech the session will no doubt consider the hallmarks of convincing delivery. And though you may think it a long bow to stretch, delivery is becoming more relevant to writers. (At a seminar last week, an editor stated that he no longer hires writers who can’t write for video or present to camera). But rhetoric and oratory aren’t the only aspects of your writing life the session is likely to inspire. The speakers are all writers, and have their heads in the wider sociopolitical environment.

The session may also ask whether the state of political communication reflects the state of a culture. ‘In Australia I think that our culture is healthier than our political culture. But I think there is also a relationship,’ says Warhaft. ‘We’re living in a culture that prizes things that aren’t always that interesting – like consumption. And there’s an emptiness… I really hope we don’t get the government we deserve.’

Speaking of governance, we discuss the curatorial responsibilities of chairing. ‘I love chairing. I think it’s a challenging thing to do,’ says Warhaft. ‘You’ve got to read their work. You’ve got to study it. But then you’ve got to let go as well. And just relax. They know what they’re talking about.’

‘Campaign in Poetry, Govern in Prose,’ will be at 11.30am on Sunday 2 September.

It's not a gift...

Writers festivals get us out of our garrets and into an audience. They can make us swap our view of keyboards and screens for that of a stage. They take us outside the stories we are writing, and into those of other writers. They can be inspiring. And intimidating. My local - the Melbourne Writers Festival (MWF) - is looming. As an official ‘Emerging Blogger’ for the MWF (thanks to the Emerging Writers Festival) I have pored over the program.

I count down the days. But I temper myself too. I know how starry-eyed I can become in the face of my hero-writers. Thoughts like, ‘I don’t have the gift that writer does,' or 'I could never do that,’ used to trot through my head. These days I’m still humble, but more knowledgeable.

While researching an article on Singapore and creativity, I came across a book ‘Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation’  by Dr R Keith Sawyer. It was a watershed read for me. In it Sawyer debunked various myths about individual creativity. Referring to his and other studies he demonstrated that creativity is not god given, or hereditary, or related to one side of the brain. Creativity stems from a very different place:

‘The most important predictor of creative output is hard work, dedication and intrinsic motivation.’[1] (Sawyer)

It’s that simple.

In fact, studies on creativity align with writers’ mantras. Firstly there’s ‘just write’: highlighting the importance of getting on with your work. According to Sawyer creativity researchers agree it takes a decade of working within a domain to become creative. So as your heart soars with the prose you hear at the festival, think back to when you started writing seriously, keep writing and count forward.

Another mantra ‘make time to write’ aligns with creativity research. Tardiff and Sternberg (quoted in Sawyer’s book) wrote that, ‘creativity takes time… the creative process is not generally considered to be something that occurs in an instant with a single flash of insight, even though insights might occur.’ [2]

Creative people make time for their work, and they also manage it in a particular way. Writes Sawyer, ‘Creative people multitask in networks of enterprise… While they’re consciously attending to one project, the others are on the back burners. They know that good ideas require some incubation time. So they schedule their workday to accommodate this process.’[3] In other words, they allow time to think.

Many attribute success of a particular story to an ‘aha-moment'. But creativity experts see these moments as part of a wider process. They are, ‘sparks, nothing but rough outlines; the creator usually experiences a continued cycle of mini-insights and revisions while elaborating the insight into a finished piece.’[4] (Sawyer again) And lo! There’s our next writers’ mantra, ‘revise’. That’s where the ‘mini-insights’ come into play.

Being creative depends on shared cultural knowledge, and emerges from a group of people – not a single individual. So though it may feel a little intimidating, going to writers festivals, talking to others, workshopping and putting your work out there will help!

Fortified with this information, I shall be sure to stay on the inspired (rather than the intimidated) side at the festival. I hope you will too!

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[1] Sawyer, Keith R, Explaining Creativity; The Science of Human Innovation, Oxford University Press, New York, 2006, p. 54 (Second edition published 2012)

[2] T Z Tardif and R J Sternberg, quoted in Sawyer, Keith R, ibid, p. 139

[3] Sawyer, Keith R, ibid, p. 62

[4] ibid, p.70

Writer wanted

I just popped a sign in the window at the front of my house. It says ‘Writer of long form non-fiction wanted – ENQUIRE WITHIN.’ Don’t worry, there’s no chance some unsuspecting writer will knock at my door. You can’t see the sign from the street, and anyways no one comes past. The sign is intended for me.

There must once have been a time when publishers advertised writing jobs just like this. I picture these in black and white celluloid; they were long before colour, Technicolour and the Internet.

Now contemporary writers have a galaxy of channels to get their work to readers. Publishers are just one part of an entrepreneurial whole. That’s why I put the sign in my window. As far as funding, publishing and getting readers for my work, I must ultimately rely on myself. I am the incorporated company. Readers, not publishers, are my clients. But there’s another thing I like about my new sign and it relates to the writers’ mantra: ‘just write’.

As obvious as it sounds, the missive to ‘just write’ is among the best advice an aspiring writer can get. Writing somethingis a 100% improvement on writing nothing. When I took on some contract work unrelated to my writing a couple of weeks ago, I made sure to set aside time for my writing. Within days I had absorbed the details of the contract work: the deadline, the challenges, the personalities, the pace and how different it was to my everyday. When I sat down to write I lacked direction and focus. I had effectively buried my muse within the contract work’s minutiae.

It was a brief but valuable lesson on the need for writers to make time to think. This is the other thing I like about my sign. When I sit at my desk it reads backwards – as if in reflection. It’s a prompt that I must make time to ponder, make connections and inspire ideas. (Though we mustn’t confuse that with procrastination!)

One humble sign sums up the requirements of emerging long form non-fiction writers in the new media galaxy. On the one hand, we must rely on ourselves to be entrepreneurial. On the other, we must also be thoughtful and reflective.

Next month the Melbourne Writers Festival launches on the theme 'Enquire Within'. I hope we can be inspired by the writers there – whose success I suspect is driven by their own initiative and reflection.

Meanwhile I have my sign to remind me of what’s important. It was easy to make – perhaps you should make one too!