Our November story on domestic violence (on newsstands now!) has struck a chord. The advocacy community praised it (though I received some understandable flak for not running the crisis hotline number: 251-4445). Survivors identified with it and took the time to let us know. But best of all, we’ve heard an anecdotal story or two about how it helped bring someone the courage to leave an abusive situation.
That’s exactly why we titled the article “Seeing is Believing.” If you see yourself or a loved one in one of those remarkable stories of survival, you might believe in yourself and your situation. You might acknowledge that it’s real, and happening to you, and that you need to get help.
The title was also intended to shed light on one of society's greatest failures because so often domestic violence goes unnoticed or ignored by friends, neighbors, employers and the media. It takes a village to recognize and refuse to allow chronic and dangerous emotional and physical violence. And when we do so, we take the power out of the hands of the abuser. It becomes a community problem—like homelessness, burglary, or jaywalking—that is no longer tolerated just because it goes on behind closed doors. It says to the abuser: what you are doing is wrong, even illegal. So stop, get help, or go to jail.
The subject has so deeply affected the author of the article, Maggie Ginsberg-Schutz, that she is building an online community of support for a new blog called Violence UnSilenced. Here’s Maggie’s latest update on her own terrific blog, which is spawning her new advocacy campaign.
When the domestic violence blog goes live, I’m going to ask survivors to speak out. And because they are brave enough to speak out, I’m going to ask the rest of us to pledge to listen. I hope you will take up that challenge. Please, keep listening.
A few days after Maggie’s article came out, I ran into my friend Bill at the Harmony Bar. Bill is a writer and a poet, a gadfly and a grandpa … an all-around good guy. Though I respect his politics, we usually disagree. And yet, when we got to talking about domestic violence Bill launched (as Bill is wont to do) into a diatribe about women’s liberation. If women are not free, healthy and educated, Bill told me, economies collapse, democracies fail and societies are ruined. The world needs more women in power, he continued, because they won’t let their sons go off to war without a fight of their own.
While Bill was pontificating I thought of the Taliban in Afghanistan and their oppression of women. I thought about how every nine minutes a woman in the U.S. is beaten. I thought about how women still earn substantially less than men, which is often why they can’t leave an abusive situation. I thought about my mom, who helped get my hometown’s first battered women’s shelter off the ground. How she would make me close my eyes when we drove there because even a little girl might tell the wrong person where it was.
But not everybody understands the fundamental truth about women like Bill does—he and I do agree on that one. Which is why we need more survivors telling their stories to Maggie and more Maggies launching blogs and more moms volunteering at shelters and more Bills spreading the gospel from barstool to barstool. We all have something we can offer the cause.
What can you do?
Friday, November 14, 2008
Friday, October 31, 2008
Well Done
So it’s an embarrassment of riches when we are lucky enough to have two well stories in a single issue. In the magazine business, the “well” is the place where you run the meaty, in-depth features, which usually includes the cover story. With our little glossy—as opposed to, say, Vanity Fair—the well is often home to only one feature-length story. We try to dedicate as much space as we can to the well because it’s important to let a story breathe, to let the pictures compel the reader to come join in the conversation. And that it will be worth their precious time. In November we had two important stories to tell, so we decided, come hell or high water, to squeeze them both in.
The first is a profile of Madison’s Police Chief Noble Wray, who we named our 2008 Person of the Year. Public safety is on everyone’s minds—tonight’s Halloween festivities, which haven’t always ended well, are a prime example of why. And while Chief Wray has worked hard to make Halloween less drunken, reckless debauchery and more good, clean fun, citizens throughout the city aren’t feeling as safe these days. So we asked award-winning writer Frank Bures to explore the problem through the lens of a quiet and thoughtful Wray, who is policing a city that can no longer afford to see itself as a quaint little college town.
The second well story is a stunning portrait of seven survivors of domestic violence. Writer Maggie Ginsberg-Schutz weaves the stories of isolating fear and remarkable resilience together in a way that somehow gives me hope. That these women were brave enough to tell us what they went through means we can no longer ignore the pain and suffering that goes on behind closed doors. When women and children are abused and subjugated, societies weaken. Look at the Taliban in Afghanistan for evidence of the worst possible outcome of inequality and rule by ignorance and force. And even in a place like Madison, violence against women happens everyday but we don’t hear about it unless someone is severely injured or killed.
So if I was lucky to have two well stories in the magazine this month, I hit the jackpot with the writers who penned them. Frank and Maggie are two of my favorite storytellers, so I decided to ask them a few questions about how they do what they do so very well.
Maggie: What was it about the story of domestic violence that made you want to write about it? How prevalent it is (one in four women), and how little press it gets unless someone dies. The whole “murder-suicide” thing bugs me to no end, because it makes these events seem like isolated incidences—well, they're not. They are the inevitable end to a long-standing cycle of abuse within a relationship. I also knew that one third to one half of all Dane County arrests are domestic-violence related, so that made the lack of news coverage even more appalling to me. But it’s not that the media is being irresponsible, it’s far more complicated than that. Because of safety and privacy issues, because of fear and shame, these women are essentially muzzled. But abusers get their power manipulating those very same things—so maybe if we keep dragging the issue kicking and screaming out into the open, some of that power can be reversed. Mostly, it was really important to me to give these survivors a voice, and to show everybody else just how common these stories are.
Frank: You’ve profiled Bishop Morlino, Sen. Russ Feingold, brain researcher Richard Davidson and others for me over the last few years. What was different about Police Chief Noble Wray? One of my favorite writers, Gary Smith, says, “Each person’s life is a problem to be solved.” I think that’s really true. And not only is their life a problem they (and you the writer) are trying to solve, but there’s some larger story around their personal story that gives their story meaning. With Morlino it was the search for absolutes in a shifting world. With Feingold, it was a question of how you make the biggest decision of your life. With [UW–Madison men’s football coach] Bret Bielema it was the personal cost of success. With Davidson it was a question of free will. Noble Wray’s story, how he came from a tough background and rose to the top, is the perfect American story. But the larger narrative around that is about how Madison is changing, evolving, and what part Wray plays in that story. The challenge with writing about him was that he doesn’t much like to talk about himself, which is fine if you’re his neighbor, but not so good if you’re profiling him.
Maggie: You told me you envisioned the way you would write the story before you actually interviewed the seven survivors. How did that evolve as you went through the interview process and then sat down to write? If you’re trying to get me to publicly admit I hear voices in my head, then fine, you win. From the beginning I could hear the women’s voices in a chorus, kind of overlapping. Since I don’t like to go into a story knowing what I’m going to write, I tried to just get out of the way and focus on being a megaphone for them. But as the interviewing process went on, I was really struck by how different each of these women were, but how many of them were saying the exact same core things. One night I dreamed the story in its current format, with the women’s stories connected by identical quotes. So when I sat down to write, the only real outline I did was connecting those quotes in the right order. Then I just let the women speak. You’re welcome, I look totally crazy now.
Frank: I talk to a lot of young writers and journalism students about how in magazine journalism we “show, don’t tell” a story. In your profiles, you often do this by setting some amazing scenes for the reader. Talk a little bit about that process. Yeah, that’s a big difference between magazine and newspaper writing. What I do is sometimes called “narrative nonfiction,” where you’re trying to recreate a scene and transport the reader there. It involves more detailed and imaginative reporting, and I think it’s where my background as a travel writer comes in handy. You want the reader to be able to see and feel and hear the things that were going on, and in a way that contributes to the storyline, not in a way that’s just throwing things in. It’s basically storytelling through pictures and images—you have to visualize it. In the classic anthology, The New Journalism, Tom Wolfe says that with this kind of writing, information isn’t the basic unit of reporting. The scene is. So you have to imagine it, report it, recreate it and interpret it. And this can be hard with profiles, because you’re basically taking someone else’s life and making it your own.
As far as “show don’t tell,” it’s easy to say, hard to do. Basically I avoid adjectives, and try not to write in a way that manipulates someone into feeling/thinking/seeing something. I want them to arrive there themselves.
Maggie: It’s difficult to do these kinds of stories without being personally affected by them. How has this experience affected you? Well, I’m not letting it go. It’s definitely under my skin. I am considering starting a domestic violence blog to keep the conversation going, and I’ll probably keep bugging you for follow-up stories. I am completely humbled by the bravery these seven women showed in trusting me, in allowing me to speak for them— but there are many, many more who don’t have that option at all. Yes, it was emotional and depressing, but more than that it was really inspiring. I’m raising daughters. I feel like it’s my mandate to do my part in solving a social issue this critical. I want everyone else to feel that way, too.
Frank: You have two bylines in the November issue—you also wrote our travel essay and it’s this crazy trip you took from the suburb of Verona to downtown Madison by foot. First, what the hell were you thinking? Second, what are trying to convey to the reader through this kind of travel writing versus the more conventional service-oriented “go, see, do” story?
1.) I have no idea what I was thinking.
2.) One big pet peeve of mine is how everything in our society is preconceived and packaged for sale. This peeve doubles when it comes to travel, because travel is so much about your own experience in a place. And half of that experience—or more than half—is the imagination and insight you bring to it, as well as how you let it change you. So one thing I hoped to do with this piece was to inspire people to create their own experiences rather than just pay to consume someone else’s. There are so many fascinating things in this world, but they’re all on the road less taken. And that road lead me from Verona to Madison. It involved some chafing.
Chafing. I think I’ll leave it at that. Now do you see why I’m a very lucky editor?
The first is a profile of Madison’s Police Chief Noble Wray, who we named our 2008 Person of the Year. Public safety is on everyone’s minds—tonight’s Halloween festivities, which haven’t always ended well, are a prime example of why. And while Chief Wray has worked hard to make Halloween less drunken, reckless debauchery and more good, clean fun, citizens throughout the city aren’t feeling as safe these days. So we asked award-winning writer Frank Bures to explore the problem through the lens of a quiet and thoughtful Wray, who is policing a city that can no longer afford to see itself as a quaint little college town.
The second well story is a stunning portrait of seven survivors of domestic violence. Writer Maggie Ginsberg-Schutz weaves the stories of isolating fear and remarkable resilience together in a way that somehow gives me hope. That these women were brave enough to tell us what they went through means we can no longer ignore the pain and suffering that goes on behind closed doors. When women and children are abused and subjugated, societies weaken. Look at the Taliban in Afghanistan for evidence of the worst possible outcome of inequality and rule by ignorance and force. And even in a place like Madison, violence against women happens everyday but we don’t hear about it unless someone is severely injured or killed.
So if I was lucky to have two well stories in the magazine this month, I hit the jackpot with the writers who penned them. Frank and Maggie are two of my favorite storytellers, so I decided to ask them a few questions about how they do what they do so very well.
Maggie: What was it about the story of domestic violence that made you want to write about it? How prevalent it is (one in four women), and how little press it gets unless someone dies. The whole “murder-suicide” thing bugs me to no end, because it makes these events seem like isolated incidences—well, they're not. They are the inevitable end to a long-standing cycle of abuse within a relationship. I also knew that one third to one half of all Dane County arrests are domestic-violence related, so that made the lack of news coverage even more appalling to me. But it’s not that the media is being irresponsible, it’s far more complicated than that. Because of safety and privacy issues, because of fear and shame, these women are essentially muzzled. But abusers get their power manipulating those very same things—so maybe if we keep dragging the issue kicking and screaming out into the open, some of that power can be reversed. Mostly, it was really important to me to give these survivors a voice, and to show everybody else just how common these stories are.
Frank: You’ve profiled Bishop Morlino, Sen. Russ Feingold, brain researcher Richard Davidson and others for me over the last few years. What was different about Police Chief Noble Wray? One of my favorite writers, Gary Smith, says, “Each person’s life is a problem to be solved.” I think that’s really true. And not only is their life a problem they (and you the writer) are trying to solve, but there’s some larger story around their personal story that gives their story meaning. With Morlino it was the search for absolutes in a shifting world. With Feingold, it was a question of how you make the biggest decision of your life. With [UW–Madison men’s football coach] Bret Bielema it was the personal cost of success. With Davidson it was a question of free will. Noble Wray’s story, how he came from a tough background and rose to the top, is the perfect American story. But the larger narrative around that is about how Madison is changing, evolving, and what part Wray plays in that story. The challenge with writing about him was that he doesn’t much like to talk about himself, which is fine if you’re his neighbor, but not so good if you’re profiling him.
Maggie: You told me you envisioned the way you would write the story before you actually interviewed the seven survivors. How did that evolve as you went through the interview process and then sat down to write? If you’re trying to get me to publicly admit I hear voices in my head, then fine, you win. From the beginning I could hear the women’s voices in a chorus, kind of overlapping. Since I don’t like to go into a story knowing what I’m going to write, I tried to just get out of the way and focus on being a megaphone for them. But as the interviewing process went on, I was really struck by how different each of these women were, but how many of them were saying the exact same core things. One night I dreamed the story in its current format, with the women’s stories connected by identical quotes. So when I sat down to write, the only real outline I did was connecting those quotes in the right order. Then I just let the women speak. You’re welcome, I look totally crazy now.
Frank: I talk to a lot of young writers and journalism students about how in magazine journalism we “show, don’t tell” a story. In your profiles, you often do this by setting some amazing scenes for the reader. Talk a little bit about that process. Yeah, that’s a big difference between magazine and newspaper writing. What I do is sometimes called “narrative nonfiction,” where you’re trying to recreate a scene and transport the reader there. It involves more detailed and imaginative reporting, and I think it’s where my background as a travel writer comes in handy. You want the reader to be able to see and feel and hear the things that were going on, and in a way that contributes to the storyline, not in a way that’s just throwing things in. It’s basically storytelling through pictures and images—you have to visualize it. In the classic anthology, The New Journalism, Tom Wolfe says that with this kind of writing, information isn’t the basic unit of reporting. The scene is. So you have to imagine it, report it, recreate it and interpret it. And this can be hard with profiles, because you’re basically taking someone else’s life and making it your own.
As far as “show don’t tell,” it’s easy to say, hard to do. Basically I avoid adjectives, and try not to write in a way that manipulates someone into feeling/thinking/seeing something. I want them to arrive there themselves.
Maggie: It’s difficult to do these kinds of stories without being personally affected by them. How has this experience affected you? Well, I’m not letting it go. It’s definitely under my skin. I am considering starting a domestic violence blog to keep the conversation going, and I’ll probably keep bugging you for follow-up stories. I am completely humbled by the bravery these seven women showed in trusting me, in allowing me to speak for them— but there are many, many more who don’t have that option at all. Yes, it was emotional and depressing, but more than that it was really inspiring. I’m raising daughters. I feel like it’s my mandate to do my part in solving a social issue this critical. I want everyone else to feel that way, too.
Frank: You have two bylines in the November issue—you also wrote our travel essay and it’s this crazy trip you took from the suburb of Verona to downtown Madison by foot. First, what the hell were you thinking? Second, what are trying to convey to the reader through this kind of travel writing versus the more conventional service-oriented “go, see, do” story?
1.) I have no idea what I was thinking.
2.) One big pet peeve of mine is how everything in our society is preconceived and packaged for sale. This peeve doubles when it comes to travel, because travel is so much about your own experience in a place. And half of that experience—or more than half—is the imagination and insight you bring to it, as well as how you let it change you. So one thing I hoped to do with this piece was to inspire people to create their own experiences rather than just pay to consume someone else’s. There are so many fascinating things in this world, but they’re all on the road less taken. And that road lead me from Verona to Madison. It involved some chafing.
Chafing. I think I’ll leave it at that. Now do you see why I’m a very lucky editor?
Friday, October 17, 2008
Get Thee to the Festival!
The Wisconsin Book Festival is one of those community events you can take pride in—even if you had absolutely nothing to do with its launch or its success. You read. You buy books. You read some more. Of course you’ve contributed to the cultural milieu that could sustain such an enlightened gathering of authors and book worshippers! I, for one, can’t say the same for the Ironman. Swim, bike and run all you want. Make Madison look like the fittest city in the country—at least for one day—and I’ll be proud as punch. But I can’t lay any sort of claim to that remarkable survival of the fittest.
But if you are a book lover then this is your weekend to flex your literary muscles. If you like books and cooks, you might want to come on down to the Dardanelles on Sunday evening, where two of my favorite writers and foodies will be sharing stories and advice on how to ready a recipe for publication. Since I flirt with my microwave far more than my stove, it’s always amused me that the lovely Joan Peterson (see bio on book fest website), author of the terrific Eat Smart series of culinary travel books, has asked me to keynote the event for the last few years. I’m so grateful, though, because I get the chance to listen to and mingle with smart, fascinating people who experience both the joy and the art of eating in their lives.
My friends Terese Allen and Ronnie Hess are headlining the evening, followed by food sampling and conversation with the who’s who in local food writing and publishing. So come on out and join us at six for the talk and 7:15 for the food.
Hey, Ironman: it’s the ideal spot to load up on carbs!
For a primer on the event, I chatted with Terese Allen, who is busy preparing recipes for Sunday’s event, called The Book and the Cook.
What kind of stimulating conversation and delicious flavors we expect at the Book and the Cook? When people think about translating recipes there’s two ways to look at it: the writing of the recipes for publication and the process you go through. We start with the testing process … and how you might have to convert metric measurements from foreign languages or reduce recipes from a large size to a small size. Or it could be a professional chef’s language translated into everyday cooking language, or a language spoken in history with different terms or ingredients.
Ronnie is going to take a couple recipes and demo them. I’m going to take a recipe from each of four categories—professional, historical, café cook, and a home cook—and illustrate the before-and-after and why things need to be worded differently to be recreated in today’s home kitchen.
How is your latest book project coming along? We’re in the galley stage … It’s called The Flavor of Wisconsin, and it’s a revised and expanded second edition of Harva Hachten’s The Flavor of Wisconsin, which came out in 1981. It’s been a generation and everything’s changed…. The Wisconsin Historical Society Press asked me to fill in the historical dots and talk about what’s happened in Wisconsin culinary history. We’ll have 450 recipes with eight essays that take you through Wisconsin’s food and cooking history, both by chronology and by topic. Most of the recipes were in the first edition. This book was researched throughout the 1970s and during that time Harva and her staff were collecting recipes from Wisconsin kitchens. It’s just this really wonderful collection … they narrowed it down from 900 recipes. My job was to round out what possibly could’ve been missing from that and then to include recipes from New American cuisine and Wisconsin’s role in it, which is much bigger than people realize. I also added two chapters that expand greatly on her chapter on food and business.
*Ed’s Note: Harva Hachten (who wrote articles and columns for Madison Magazine) died suddenly in April 2006. “I wish she could’ve seen it but I’m very happy she knew before she died we were in this process,” says Terese.
Cookbooks and culinary writing seems to thrive here. Why? It absolutely does. Madison being the food town that it is, and also Wisconsin in general being such a literary place with lots of writers—a lot highly concentrated in Madison. I don’t think people understand what an epicenter we are, with the local food movement, the farmers’ market, the university, the seasonal cooking restaurants. We’re drawing from so many different interests around here. So the food and cooking comes together. It’s just a wonderful place to be if you’re interested in both… I’m sitting pretty!
When I started writing about regional food back when I was a chef at Ovens of Brittany in the eighties, I didn’t feel quite legitimate. It’s wonderful to look back now and see what’s happened. And it’s become a national phenomenon.
This Just In: I just got a press release reminding me that “October is pizza month! Although it's almost half way over, pizza is a timeless culinary treat you can savor any day of the week. To celebrate, the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board has put together an assortment of delicious recipes, from a traditional Margherite pizza to an innovative Bananas Foster pizza.”
And you thought ham and pineapple was a little weird...
P.S. Joan Peterson, author of the Eat Smart series of culinary travel guides, will also be appearing at the Madison Food & Wine Show this weekend!
But if you are a book lover then this is your weekend to flex your literary muscles. If you like books and cooks, you might want to come on down to the Dardanelles on Sunday evening, where two of my favorite writers and foodies will be sharing stories and advice on how to ready a recipe for publication. Since I flirt with my microwave far more than my stove, it’s always amused me that the lovely Joan Peterson (see bio on book fest website), author of the terrific Eat Smart series of culinary travel books, has asked me to keynote the event for the last few years. I’m so grateful, though, because I get the chance to listen to and mingle with smart, fascinating people who experience both the joy and the art of eating in their lives.
My friends Terese Allen and Ronnie Hess are headlining the evening, followed by food sampling and conversation with the who’s who in local food writing and publishing. So come on out and join us at six for the talk and 7:15 for the food.
Hey, Ironman: it’s the ideal spot to load up on carbs!
For a primer on the event, I chatted with Terese Allen, who is busy preparing recipes for Sunday’s event, called The Book and the Cook.
What kind of stimulating conversation and delicious flavors we expect at the Book and the Cook? When people think about translating recipes there’s two ways to look at it: the writing of the recipes for publication and the process you go through. We start with the testing process … and how you might have to convert metric measurements from foreign languages or reduce recipes from a large size to a small size. Or it could be a professional chef’s language translated into everyday cooking language, or a language spoken in history with different terms or ingredients.
Ronnie is going to take a couple recipes and demo them. I’m going to take a recipe from each of four categories—professional, historical, café cook, and a home cook—and illustrate the before-and-after and why things need to be worded differently to be recreated in today’s home kitchen.
How is your latest book project coming along? We’re in the galley stage … It’s called The Flavor of Wisconsin, and it’s a revised and expanded second edition of Harva Hachten’s The Flavor of Wisconsin, which came out in 1981. It’s been a generation and everything’s changed…. The Wisconsin Historical Society Press asked me to fill in the historical dots and talk about what’s happened in Wisconsin culinary history. We’ll have 450 recipes with eight essays that take you through Wisconsin’s food and cooking history, both by chronology and by topic. Most of the recipes were in the first edition. This book was researched throughout the 1970s and during that time Harva and her staff were collecting recipes from Wisconsin kitchens. It’s just this really wonderful collection … they narrowed it down from 900 recipes. My job was to round out what possibly could’ve been missing from that and then to include recipes from New American cuisine and Wisconsin’s role in it, which is much bigger than people realize. I also added two chapters that expand greatly on her chapter on food and business.
*Ed’s Note: Harva Hachten (who wrote articles and columns for Madison Magazine) died suddenly in April 2006. “I wish she could’ve seen it but I’m very happy she knew before she died we were in this process,” says Terese.
Cookbooks and culinary writing seems to thrive here. Why? It absolutely does. Madison being the food town that it is, and also Wisconsin in general being such a literary place with lots of writers—a lot highly concentrated in Madison. I don’t think people understand what an epicenter we are, with the local food movement, the farmers’ market, the university, the seasonal cooking restaurants. We’re drawing from so many different interests around here. So the food and cooking comes together. It’s just a wonderful place to be if you’re interested in both… I’m sitting pretty!
When I started writing about regional food back when I was a chef at Ovens of Brittany in the eighties, I didn’t feel quite legitimate. It’s wonderful to look back now and see what’s happened. And it’s become a national phenomenon.
This Just In: I just got a press release reminding me that “October is pizza month! Although it's almost half way over, pizza is a timeless culinary treat you can savor any day of the week. To celebrate, the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board has put together an assortment of delicious recipes, from a traditional Margherite pizza to an innovative Bananas Foster pizza.”
And you thought ham and pineapple was a little weird...
P.S. Joan Peterson, author of the Eat Smart series of culinary travel guides, will also be appearing at the Madison Food & Wine Show this weekend!
Friday, October 10, 2008
The Beat Goes On
Despite the fact that former Isthmus executive editor Marc Eisen won’t write for me (not yet, anyway), I thought it would be fun to let folks know what he’s been up to since he opted to become a staff cut. When the alt-weekly had to make some tough budget decisions this year, the veteran journalist decided it was time to try something else. Fortunately for all of us, Eisen had no intention to stop writing.
Since leaving Isthmus in August he’s picked up gigs with Milwaukee Magazine and The Progressive, even landing the latter’s November cover story, an interview with Berkeley professor and “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” author Michael Pollan.
Here’s how Eisen describes his very successful career, which is still very much in the making:
“I spent 30 years at Isthmus over two tours of duty. I also worked at The Capital Times, The West Bend News and The Racine Labor paper, and had a cup of coffee at The Janesville Gazette."
Here’s a bit about his personal life:
“My youngest daughter Hannah is a senior at East High and my oldest daughter Lauren ls a senior at UW-Oshkosh. Both have been instructed to not go into journalism. I'm married to Connie Kinsella, who is an executive with the University Medical Foundation."
Marc’s not the kind of guy that spends too much time contemplating his own navel. He’s too busy reporting and writing about the issues and ideas of the day, which is why I decided to ask him some unconventional questions. You could say I took the easy way out … or you could say that I was smart enough to know I’d be too easily beaten at my own game.
Since I left Isthmus I....have consciously made an effort to be less of an idiot with technology and to go to the Y regularly. There is no connection between the two except that my IPod is really loaded these days.
It never works when....I violate my deeply held belief to always anticipate—and avoid—situations where nothing will work.
The thing about journalism is....that lately I think of it more as an art than a craft.
The thing about journalism....is that the economic model that sustains it is collapsing with amazing speed.
The thing about journalism is….that the cyberspace version is very different from print—and in some ways deficient.
The thing about journalism is….that today people can create a media world—through TV, radio and the Internet—in which they never expose themselves to a single word that challenges their existing beliefs.
Barack Obama and John McCain....are engaged in the most important presidential election in 40 years: The winner will have to deal with the fact that America, after eight years of George W. Bush, is in decline.
I've always wanted to know....how neuroscientists and evolutionary biologists explain the internal monologues that run through our minds. Think of James Joyce's stream of consciousness. Wait, you mean you don't hear those voices?
If I ever wrote a memoir....it would be an act of extreme conceit. My life isn't that remarkable. Now, how I process my daily experiences in that internal monologue is another story. As a writer, I wish I could tap into that never-ending narrative.
Since leaving Isthmus in August he’s picked up gigs with Milwaukee Magazine and The Progressive, even landing the latter’s November cover story, an interview with Berkeley professor and “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” author Michael Pollan.
Here’s how Eisen describes his very successful career, which is still very much in the making:
“I spent 30 years at Isthmus over two tours of duty. I also worked at The Capital Times, The West Bend News and The Racine Labor paper, and had a cup of coffee at The Janesville Gazette."
Here’s a bit about his personal life:
“My youngest daughter Hannah is a senior at East High and my oldest daughter Lauren ls a senior at UW-Oshkosh. Both have been instructed to not go into journalism. I'm married to Connie Kinsella, who is an executive with the University Medical Foundation."
Marc’s not the kind of guy that spends too much time contemplating his own navel. He’s too busy reporting and writing about the issues and ideas of the day, which is why I decided to ask him some unconventional questions. You could say I took the easy way out … or you could say that I was smart enough to know I’d be too easily beaten at my own game.
Since I left Isthmus I....have consciously made an effort to be less of an idiot with technology and to go to the Y regularly. There is no connection between the two except that my IPod is really loaded these days.
It never works when....I violate my deeply held belief to always anticipate—and avoid—situations where nothing will work.
The thing about journalism is....that lately I think of it more as an art than a craft.
The thing about journalism....is that the economic model that sustains it is collapsing with amazing speed.
The thing about journalism is….that the cyberspace version is very different from print—and in some ways deficient.
The thing about journalism is….that today people can create a media world—through TV, radio and the Internet—in which they never expose themselves to a single word that challenges their existing beliefs.
Barack Obama and John McCain....are engaged in the most important presidential election in 40 years: The winner will have to deal with the fact that America, after eight years of George W. Bush, is in decline.
I've always wanted to know....how neuroscientists and evolutionary biologists explain the internal monologues that run through our minds. Think of James Joyce's stream of consciousness. Wait, you mean you don't hear those voices?
If I ever wrote a memoir....it would be an act of extreme conceit. My life isn't that remarkable. Now, how I process my daily experiences in that internal monologue is another story. As a writer, I wish I could tap into that never-ending narrative.
Friday, October 3, 2008
How Ya' Doin? (No, This Isn't About Sarah Palin)
People always ask me, “How’s the magazine doing?” Lately, though, the apologetic tone of the question feels more like somebody’s asking me about my terminally ill uncle than my place of work.
“Better than newspapers,” I tell them, because the magazine business really is OK. In fact, the outlook is very promising. Readership is up, which includes a nice spike in the younger demographic, and with the decline in newsrooms people are hungrier than ever for in-depth stories about the world they live in.
Sure, the advertising has slowed down in a sluggish economy, but by no means has it dried up. Businesses still need to hock their wares, and our magazine has produced great results in all of our core categories, from home, health and travel to dining, retail and entertainment. In a down economy, you want an advertising vehicle you can count on.
You also want content you can trust, which is how our magazine has consistently distinguished itself from the local competition. Sure, good press doesn’t hurt, but if you or your ad agency buys an ad because a magazine says it will write about you if you do, the press you get is tainted, and readers don’t trust it. What we offer instead is editorial integrity, which attracts eyeballs—more than 107,000 sets of them—attached to Madisonians who are invested in their community, and in concepts like buying local, whether it’s a meal, a car, a health care plan, or a kitchen table.
If you don’t believe me, here’s a snippet of media expert James Brady’s conversation on Forbes.com with former chairman of Magazine Publishers of America president Jack Kliger on the topic:
“I don’t know if the magazine business will ever again be as robust,” [Kliger] said. “But ads will still be very important, the dominant revenue. Magazine advertising really works. And consumers like magazines. There’s value to original and trusted third-party content. Young people may not like newspapers anymore, but they like magazines. And we really do have good print journalists and editors who can learn the new digital platforms."
Original and trusted. And doing just fine, thanks.
“Better than newspapers,” I tell them, because the magazine business really is OK. In fact, the outlook is very promising. Readership is up, which includes a nice spike in the younger demographic, and with the decline in newsrooms people are hungrier than ever for in-depth stories about the world they live in.
Sure, the advertising has slowed down in a sluggish economy, but by no means has it dried up. Businesses still need to hock their wares, and our magazine has produced great results in all of our core categories, from home, health and travel to dining, retail and entertainment. In a down economy, you want an advertising vehicle you can count on.
You also want content you can trust, which is how our magazine has consistently distinguished itself from the local competition. Sure, good press doesn’t hurt, but if you or your ad agency buys an ad because a magazine says it will write about you if you do, the press you get is tainted, and readers don’t trust it. What we offer instead is editorial integrity, which attracts eyeballs—more than 107,000 sets of them—attached to Madisonians who are invested in their community, and in concepts like buying local, whether it’s a meal, a car, a health care plan, or a kitchen table.
If you don’t believe me, here’s a snippet of media expert James Brady’s conversation on Forbes.com with former chairman of Magazine Publishers of America president Jack Kliger on the topic:
“I don’t know if the magazine business will ever again be as robust,” [Kliger] said. “But ads will still be very important, the dominant revenue. Magazine advertising really works. And consumers like magazines. There’s value to original and trusted third-party content. Young people may not like newspapers anymore, but they like magazines. And we really do have good print journalists and editors who can learn the new digital platforms."
Original and trusted. And doing just fine, thanks.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Local Sleuth Is A Writer, Too
I hate that saying about how nice guys finish last. I don’t believe it. I just think they have to wait patiently while the mean guys do each other in. Not only is Kevin Hughes one of the nicest guys I’ve never met, he waited forever to find a publisher for his second novel, Casualty Crossing (StoneGarden.net Publishing, $14.95). And then he waited even longer for me to write about it.A few years back Hughes’ day job as a Dane County Sheriff’s Office detective inspired his night job as a writer of detective novels. Hughes’ characters are so well developed, and his plots so interesting that it’s easy to lose yourself in one of his mysteries. He’s a thoughtful and conscientious guy, and his books reflect not only his passion for his career but his optimistic outlook on life—remarkable given his line of work. You’d think after more than thirty years investigating crimes a person could get a little jaded. His main character Toby Jenkins sure does.
Now Hughes is hard at work on his third book, a sequel to Casualty Crossing, and he says the fourth is slowly materializing in his head.
I talked to Hughes about his books, his job, and while I was at it, I threw him some tough questions about Madison and whether or not it’s a safe place to live anymore. Hughes was decent enough to answer them, proving once again my theory about nice guys.
What did you learn from your first novel, Just Another Shade of Blue, that helped you in crafting Casualty Crossing?
After I had written Just Another Shade of Blue, I enrolled in a writer’s course in which I was paired with a novelist who was also a former staff editor for the New York Times. This one-on-one training afforded me some valuable insight into what makes a novel tick. By using chapters from Blue I was able to see how certain applications can make your characters and plot much more believable. I ended up reworking Blue based on his teachings and was happy with the results.
I applied the techniques to Casualty Crossing from its onset and as a result, the methodology proved to be quite successful. One of the most important things I learned is that a good editor can make a huge difference in your final product.
Your characters have so much depth. They could jump off the page and start walking around. They’re very real. I imagine your ability to get inside people’s heads is what makes you such a good detective. Also, I loved the Madison references—dinner at Paisan’s, the construction of the new Dane County Courthouse, the lakes, politics. Did you have to think about basing the story in Madison with the kind of work you do?
What I do for a living didn’t enter into my decision-making process too much. My trepidation was rewriting the complete novel only to find the change of milieu was a poor choice. Once I worked on a few chapters, it was obvious to me that the story was meant for Madison and not in a fictitious city in Ohio.
The transition allowed me to bring TJ and the other characters alive in a setting that was familiar to me, which fortified the sense of place that plays such an important role in a novel. The added bonus was the opportunity to share my perspective of Madison with the reader.
At times the crime, in particular the brutal rape of the woman, which led to Toby’s courtroom outburst and suspension, felt more real because you situated it in the city in areas I’m very familiar with. It was a bit of a harsh reminder that bad people are out there doing bad things. The spate of recent murders here not withstanding, most of us feel pretty safe.
When I was a kid, I could hardly wait to grow up because I thought life would be so much easier. And back in those same old days, Madison and Dane County were growing up with perhaps the same expectations as a kid. And, we both are still learning that be it a kid or a city, growing up isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
As Madison continues to mature, the challenges of the community increase and one of those challenges is crime. All of us bear the responsibility to keep our cities and towns safe but in the process, we must not fall victim to the fear of crime to a point that it causes us to alter our lifestyle in a drastic fashion.
Wherever you are, no matter what time of day, you must be aware of your environment and digest what is occurring in your vicinity. I’ve lived by a rule that has saved me more times than embarrassed me, which is to follow my gut instinct. The rule should apply to everyone: if you think something is amiss, you are more than likely correct and you should act accordingly. Don’t live with the regret that you could have helped mitigate a terrible incident if you’d only made a call or written down a license number.
Madison is facing issues that have impacted other medium-sized cities, some of which are dealing with the issues quite well and others that have fallen into the abyss of hopelessness. It is expensive to run a city, village, township or a county. Residents must decide where their tax dollars are spent and inform their elected officials. Our representatives are charged with moving their constituents’ agenda forward. But in order for our politicians to act on our behalf, we all must make an effort to inform them of our priorities so they can make the correct decisions regarding public policy.
Regarding the unsolved crimes in Madison, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Madison is fortunate to have such a competent, talented and professional police force. I know that the police are putting forth a great effort to solve pending cases and are committed to locating and charging the person or persons involved for their actions.
Do you share some of main character TJ’s frustrations with the court system, about how sometimes the very same rules that can save an innocent person can also free a criminal? Justice isn’t always served.
Okay, TJ is a fictional character so he’s on his own on this one. As for me, I hold Dane County and Western Federal District juries in high esteem. I have learned that when those twelve to sixteen jurors sit in that box, they are attentive, intuitive and most of the time render what I believe is the correct verdict based on the facts of the case and information that the court allows them to consider.
What do you love most about writing? I love the creativity of fiction, which is my forte for now. When I’m in the writing phase of a project, oftentimes the characters will highjack the plot and, although this might sound a little odd, I let it happen because I become curious as to where they will end up, which can be quite different than my original concept.
I was amazed by your level of detail. You describe every scene right down to the pattern on the couch. I imagine that’s the kind of trait good detectives must have in order to solve crimes.
My writing technique is somewhat based on the reports I’ve prepared regarding investigations during my career in law enforcement. Prosecutors are very fond of the minutia of a case and I strive to include as much detail as possible to convey the situation as well as the perspective of the victim, witnesses and suspects. Based on that experience, I believe an author should never fake the details of a procedure. Doing so demonstrates lack of respect toward the reader.
Some of the scenes involving Billy’s abuse at the hands of his stepfather are pretty graphic. They were hard to read. What was it like writing them, or had you seen it all before combing through police reports so it was easier to write?
In spite of my experience with abuse victims, I still had difficulty writing the abuse scenes. I honestly thought I had toned down the brutality, but I also knew I had to convey the message of the hell-on-earth lifestyle that so many children must endure. Among the investigations I’ve worked, abuse cases have been some of the toughest and most rewarding of my career. There were not always happy endings, but I always felt that if my actions changed the course of a child’s life I had made an impact on the world.
How do you emotionally detach yourself from the tragic side of your work?
I spent nearly two hours trying to answer this question when I finally realized it could all be summed up in one succinct paragraph: What works for me is to understand that I do not work in the real world. The real world has much more good than evil or we’d really be in trouble.
Who are your favorite fictional detectives?
My all-time favorite was Lenny Briscoe of the old Law & Order shows (I loved his attitude and cheap suits); Harry Bosch, the protagonist in the series by Michael Connelly; Matthew Scudder, the police detective turned private eye in the Lawrence Block series and the list would not be complete without Andy Sipowicz of NYPD Blue—I’ve never met a cop who didn’t love his character.
Are you a patron of the Madison bookstore Booked for Murder?
Uh-oh, not really. I sent an e-mail and dropped off a sell sheet asking them to carry CC, but I don’t think it happened. I’ve been thinking that I might just drop of a copy for the owner and see if reading it will prompt her to stock some copies in her store.
What made you decide on a sequel to Casualty Crossing as opposed to a whole new plot, and can you give us a sneak peek at what Toby will be up to?
Primarily because I think the characters work so well that the reader will want to keep in touch with their endeavors. And of course, I enjoy the cast and have a lot of fun hanging out with them whenever I’m in the writing or development mode.
Hmmm ... a sneak peek at [third novel] Dogging Truth ... well, I can’t give too much away because it’s somewhat based on Casualty Crossing, but here’s a clue or two: This story is based on a murder in Madison in which a deputy sheriff is the defendant. TJ’s ex-wife, Elizabeth, just can’t leave well enough alone and conjures a way for the two of them to work together on the case, which leads to a very interesting journey that involves the cast of Casualty Crossing. Dogging Truth is set to be released on May 19 and around the first of the year, I’ll share a few more details with everyone on my website. In the works is Archer, the third in the series that will be published in 2010 ... can’t offer a clue on that one because a lot of it is still in my head, which means that all bets are off on where it will end up once the characters take over the keyboard.
Monday, September 15, 2008
When Memory Fades
It’s amazing what you find out about a person after they’re dead.
My grandmother, Elizabeth Sullivan Nardi, died two weeks ago at age 91. I read in her obituary that after she graduated from high school she worked at the Grit Newspaper in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. I had no idea anyone on my dad’s side of the family had any sort of a career in journalism. I didn’t have time to ask my grandfather what she did at the paper. I assume it was some sort of administrative work, but even still, it was fun to know that she and I had shared that kind of experience in our lives.
Nanny, as we nine grandkids called her, was my godmother and I her namesake—Elizabeth is my first name. She and my grandfather, Francis Anthony Nardi, moved into their small but brand-new brick bungalow in Harrisonburg, Virginia, in 1946, raised seven kids there, and until this summer when my grandmother suffered a stroke and moved to a nursing home, lived the respectable, small-town, middle-class life together. They were married for an unbelievable 67 years. Their house on 310 New York Avenue was just a few blocks from my junior high and high school, and so I spent lots of lunch hours and weekdays after school hanging out with Nanny and Pop-Pop. They were wonderful to my two older sisters and me—always proud of whatever we were up to and happy to have us around.
A few years ago, Nanny’s diabetes began to take its toll on her body, while dementia set in to play tricks on her mind. She had finally quit smoking on her 83rd birthday, and we all got a kick out of how she swore it was the reason she started feeling so cruddy after all those years of relatively good health. Thankfully, my aunt and several uncles were around to take care of Nan as her health declined. Pop is very healthy for 92 years old, but his knee aches a lot and, hell, it’s hard enough taking care of your own self at that age. I’ve often thought of how remarkable it is that they were able to stay in their home, and our family is grateful for the love and sacrifice their kids made to see to it that they were together for as long as possible.
When I saw Nanny for the final time last November, she was confined to a walker and spent most of her days nodding off in a recliner. As always, Pop wasn’t more than a holler away, poking around on the computer he’d discovered with joy a few years back. She was mostly blind and deaf, and we talked loudly and repeated ourselves for the hour or so we spent with her. She remembered who I was, though, and marveled at how far we’d driven to visit. We probably told her about the 1,000-mile trip from Wisconsin to Virginia four or five times that afternoon—she was always amazed by each rendition.
After I got back from the funeral last week, I was cleaning out some files and stumbled on a children’s book by a local author, Jeannie L. Johnson. It’s called Do You Have A Moon At Your House? and it’s the tale of a young girl named Madison, who is bewildered by her grandmother’s struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. The title is the question Grandma poses to Madison in the final passage of the book, after they share a lovely moment looking through a telescope one evening. “I felt it was a perfect story to help children learn about this painful disease that takes their loved ones away in degrees,” writes Johnson in the postscript, who also reveals that the book is based on the true story of her mother’s battle with Alzheimer’s. Johnson’s nephew, Lukas Gaffey, complements her very nice writing with lovely illustrations that capture the heart of the story. It’s a warm tribute to Johnson’s mother, and I’ll keep it around in case I have any friends or family who might benefit from the story’s intent.
As I read Johnson’s book I thought of my own grandmother’s memory loss over the last few years. It really bugged her, and she was harder on herself than I thought she would be when she couldn’t conjure up a name or finish a thought. I suppose … Nanny was no dummy. She knew what was happening to her and she didn’t like it one bit.
I’m pretty sure my grandmother’s stint at the Grit Newspaper was one of the last jobs she ever held. She was your typical 1950s housewife, busy raising six sons and a daughter like society expected. My uncles told some great stories at the funeral. My favorite is the one about how she’d pump up the boys before a big game. My dad and his brothers were short and skinny, so the pep talks had to be good. “It’s not about the dog in the fight,” she’d tell them. “It’s about the fight in the dog.” That’s pretty much how my grandmother lived her final days. I know they weren’t easy but she lived them with dignity and surrounded by love. Nanny was a tough broad, with lots of grit. I’m gonna miss her.
My grandmother, Elizabeth Sullivan Nardi, died two weeks ago at age 91. I read in her obituary that after she graduated from high school she worked at the Grit Newspaper in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. I had no idea anyone on my dad’s side of the family had any sort of a career in journalism. I didn’t have time to ask my grandfather what she did at the paper. I assume it was some sort of administrative work, but even still, it was fun to know that she and I had shared that kind of experience in our lives.
Nanny, as we nine grandkids called her, was my godmother and I her namesake—Elizabeth is my first name. She and my grandfather, Francis Anthony Nardi, moved into their small but brand-new brick bungalow in Harrisonburg, Virginia, in 1946, raised seven kids there, and until this summer when my grandmother suffered a stroke and moved to a nursing home, lived the respectable, small-town, middle-class life together. They were married for an unbelievable 67 years. Their house on 310 New York Avenue was just a few blocks from my junior high and high school, and so I spent lots of lunch hours and weekdays after school hanging out with Nanny and Pop-Pop. They were wonderful to my two older sisters and me—always proud of whatever we were up to and happy to have us around.
A few years ago, Nanny’s diabetes began to take its toll on her body, while dementia set in to play tricks on her mind. She had finally quit smoking on her 83rd birthday, and we all got a kick out of how she swore it was the reason she started feeling so cruddy after all those years of relatively good health. Thankfully, my aunt and several uncles were around to take care of Nan as her health declined. Pop is very healthy for 92 years old, but his knee aches a lot and, hell, it’s hard enough taking care of your own self at that age. I’ve often thought of how remarkable it is that they were able to stay in their home, and our family is grateful for the love and sacrifice their kids made to see to it that they were together for as long as possible.
When I saw Nanny for the final time last November, she was confined to a walker and spent most of her days nodding off in a recliner. As always, Pop wasn’t more than a holler away, poking around on the computer he’d discovered with joy a few years back. She was mostly blind and deaf, and we talked loudly and repeated ourselves for the hour or so we spent with her. She remembered who I was, though, and marveled at how far we’d driven to visit. We probably told her about the 1,000-mile trip from Wisconsin to Virginia four or five times that afternoon—she was always amazed by each rendition.
After I got back from the funeral last week, I was cleaning out some files and stumbled on a children’s book by a local author, Jeannie L. Johnson. It’s called Do You Have A Moon At Your House? and it’s the tale of a young girl named Madison, who is bewildered by her grandmother’s struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. The title is the question Grandma poses to Madison in the final passage of the book, after they share a lovely moment looking through a telescope one evening. “I felt it was a perfect story to help children learn about this painful disease that takes their loved ones away in degrees,” writes Johnson in the postscript, who also reveals that the book is based on the true story of her mother’s battle with Alzheimer’s. Johnson’s nephew, Lukas Gaffey, complements her very nice writing with lovely illustrations that capture the heart of the story. It’s a warm tribute to Johnson’s mother, and I’ll keep it around in case I have any friends or family who might benefit from the story’s intent.
As I read Johnson’s book I thought of my own grandmother’s memory loss over the last few years. It really bugged her, and she was harder on herself than I thought she would be when she couldn’t conjure up a name or finish a thought. I suppose … Nanny was no dummy. She knew what was happening to her and she didn’t like it one bit.
I’m pretty sure my grandmother’s stint at the Grit Newspaper was one of the last jobs she ever held. She was your typical 1950s housewife, busy raising six sons and a daughter like society expected. My uncles told some great stories at the funeral. My favorite is the one about how she’d pump up the boys before a big game. My dad and his brothers were short and skinny, so the pep talks had to be good. “It’s not about the dog in the fight,” she’d tell them. “It’s about the fight in the dog.” That’s pretty much how my grandmother lived her final days. I know they weren’t easy but she lived them with dignity and surrounded by love. Nanny was a tough broad, with lots of grit. I’m gonna miss her.
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