Maureen Owen and Barbara Henning: Poets on the Road

Poets on the Road – Maureen Owen and Barbara Henning – City Point Press – 9781947951709 – Paperback – 176 pages – $18 – June 6, 2023 – ebook editions available at lower prices

This is a special book by two very special poets. I know I am biased. They are both friends of mine, and Maureen I have known for almost fifty years. This terrific travelog documents an amazing poetic journey they took in 2019, crossing the country in a small car, with stops for poetry readings, visits with other poets, cheap motels and funky meals from Brooklyn (where Barbara lives), first south, then west all the way to California and back to Denver (where Maureen lives).

It was truly an incredible trip, originally documented in a blog they wrote while traveling. This book collects those stories and features photos of the poets and the people and places they visited along the way.

I loved this story so much, I decided to publish it, and consequently this book is a collaboration of the two poets plus the exceptional book designer, HR Hegnauer and publisher City Point Press.

Here’s an excerpt from Pat Nolan’s wonderful introduction:

Although a road trip across North American calls to mind Jack Kerouac’s youthful meanderings of self-discovery, this reading tour was more in the manner of Bashō’s late life journeys through the backcountry of Japan. . . . The road trip was in a sense a pilgrimage of reengagement with their calling as poets, and a chance to reacquaint with like-minded friends, old and new, in a far-flung landscape of American poetry.

Venues would include upscale bookstores, coffee houses, museums, legendary used bookstores, botanical gardens, university classrooms, art centers, and artist coops—in short, a unique sampling of poetry environments tracing an arc across the Southern States, the Southwest, and up the West Coast before hooking back to the Rockies.

Framed as a personal challenge, the poets hit the road much in the manner of itinerant preachers and musicians, lodging at discount motels, funky hostels, Airbnbs, and with friends along the way. Adding a social media touch, Maureen and Barbara created a blog of their tour so that friends, family, hosts, and fellow poets might also share in their adventure.

It’s always a pleasure to spend any amount of time with Maureen and Barbara, so this conversation was truly special for me, and I hope for all of you as well who will be listening in.

As further full disclosure, let me add that we were also in Tucson when she and Barb came to visit, so I am a participant and contributor to the blog and to the book as well, making it even more fun for me to talk to both Maureen and Barb about it here.

Maureen’s most recent book is let the heart hold down the breakage   Or   the caretaker’s log (Hanging Loose Press)

Barbara’s most recent book is Ferne, A Detroit Story (Spuyten Duyvil)

Maureen’s website

Barbara’s website

Buy Poets on the Road here. (this link is to Bookshop.org, sales will support indie bookstores)

Barbara Henning (photo by Miranda Maher)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Publishing Talks: Interview with Jane Friedman

Publishing Talks started as a series of conversations with book industry professionals and others involved in media and technology, mostly talking about the future of publishing, books, and culture. It was great fun talking with people in the book industry about the evolution of publishing in the context of technology, culture, and economics.

Later this series broadened considerably. In the past few years, I’ve talked with a variety of editors, publishers and others who have been innovators and leaders in independent publishing and bookselling in the past and into the present.

These conversations have been inspirational to me. I have had the pleasure of speaking with visionaries and entrepreneurs, editors, publishers and others who have influenced and changed contemporary literature and culture. I’ve also had the opportunity to speak with a number of friends and colleagues in the book business.

I’ve not had occasion to speak with the same person twice during all the years this series has gone on. But I really wanted to speak again with Jane Friedman, whose insights and knowledge I thoroughly respect, and get her sense of the current state of publishing and bookselling, especially as it affects writers and independent publishers. Our last Publishing Talks conversation was in 2015! Much has changed since then, and there was much for us to talk about.

Jane publishes a terrific newsletter I read religiously called The Hot Sheet. Her most recent book is The Business of Being a Writer (University of Chicago Press). Collaborating with The Authors Guild, she wrote The Authors Guild Guide to Self-Publishing. Her website offers a wide range of services and information for writers: “I report on the book publishing industry and help authors understand the business. I’ve been working in book publishing since the 1990s, but my views are not from the 1990s. Amidst rapid change in the industry, writers need honest and unbiased guidance to make the best decisions for their careers. I hope to offer you a signal amidst the noise.”

And I hope this conversation does the same.

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Publishing Talks: Interview with Roxanne Coady of R.J. Julia Booksellers

Publishing Talks began as a series of conversations with book industry professionals and others involved in media and technology, mostly talking about the future of publishing, books, and culture. I’ve spent time talking with people in the book industry about how publishing is evolving in the context of technology, culture, and economics.

Some time ago, this series broadened to include conversations that go beyond the future of publishing. In an effort to document the literary world, I’ve talked with a variety of editors, publishers, booksellers, and others who have been innovators and leaders in independent publishing in the past and in the present.

These conversations have been inspirational to me on many levels. I have gotten to speak with visionaries and entrepreneurs, as well as editors and publishers who have influenced and changed contemporary literature and culture. I’ve also had the opportunity to speak with a number of friends and colleagues I have known over the many years I have been in the book business.

Bookstores have been an essential part of my entire life, even from early childhood, one benefit of growing up with a writer as father. Independent bookselling thrived from the late seventies into the late 1990’s, no doubt reflecting the Baby Boomer generation’s enthusiasm for books and ideas. The last twenty or more years have been very different, and now there are far fewer communities that support bookstores than at anytime in the past fifty years. Bookstores (along with public libraries) are a crucial element of a healthy culture, far more valuable than their size and scope would suggest. Local communities benefit from the presence of bookstores in many ways, and literary culture needs them too, as visible representations of a reading culture. Ideas grow and spread from books, but culture is also built around physically being present with one another.

So it is important for us to find ways as readers and literary citizens, to support bookstores, and it is equally important for booksellers to locate themselves, create and support communities around their stores, to support their workers and to make themselves meaningful enough to be thrive, despite the challenges of being small businesses in a mass-oriented consumer culture.

There are quite a few examples of booksellers who have made just such an impact, and their experiences and ideas are important for all of us to share and understand. It has been a particular pleasure for me to have known and worked with Roxanne Coady, the founder and owner of the exceptional R.J. Julia Booksellers, in Madison, Connecticut. We first met when Roxanne came to Connecticut to establish her new business after pursuing a successful career as a CPA in New York City. Over the years, I have spent many hours browsing their shelves, attending author events, and enjoying the cafe.

R.J. Julia has thrived during the period when local bookselling has faced an array of challenges, first from chain bookstores, then from Amazon and the rise of online retailing, and of course most recently, the pandemic. Throughout this time, Roxanne and her staff have innovated on many levels, including creating a drive-by pickup window for busy parents, putting on over 300 events a year (some of which are with celebrity authors), establishing an active email newsletter, providing online sales with speedy service, podcasting, and building an active book club. Throughout, the emphasis on community, care for staff as individuals, and listening to customers have been paramount characteristics of the enterprise. There is a bit of practical magic at work there, I think.

After more than 30 years of hard work and success, it’s obvious that Roxanne has quite a bit to say about what it takes to be a successful bookseller, to be a locally based business, and to be a crucial part of literary culture. I believe that our conversation should be meaningful for anyone interested in the future success of bookstores and the importance of building a real literary culture within a society that does not put enough value on books, authors, writing.

We need more bookstores! Visit the R.J. Julia Bookseller website and sign up for their newsletter.

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The Brothers Mankiewicz: Hope, Heartbreak, and Hollywood Classics by Sydney Ladensohn Stern

The Brothers Mankiewicz: Hope, Heartbreak, and Hollywood Classics – Sydney Ladensohn Stern- 9781617032677 – University Press of Mississippi – 480 pages – 88 b&w illustrations – October 2019 – Hardcover – $35 – ebook version available at lower prices

There are any number of characters and influencers in the history of modern American film-making, but among the many greats who contributed to its evolution into the dominant form of our popular culture, the Mankiewicz brothers stand out. Between them, they played critical roles in an incredible array of films that comprise our film canon today. Herman (1897–1953) and Joe (1909–1993) either wrote, produced, or directed (sometimes both or all) more than 150 films, from late era silents to almost modern era big budget productions.

Herman is credited with writing the screenplay for Citizen Kane with Orson Welles (though the amount of work done by each of them has long been disputed) and shared the picture’s only Academy Award. Joe won four Oscars altogether, including two for writing and directing All About Eve, which also was awarded Best Picture in 1950.

Both the older Herman and the much younger Joe started as writers and then became successful as producers and in Joe’s case as a director as well. They came to Hollywood as upwardly mobile children of immigrants, brilliant intellectually and wildly witty, and feeling extremely ambiguous throughout their careers about the value and importance of their work in film – concerned it seems, to not be recognized as serious artists, as their novelist and playwright friends had been. The conflict between art and popular culture defined their lives and caused them each great suffering.

Herman was an early member of the renowned Algonquin Round Table group of wits, and in his unhappiness and self destructiveness, frequently lost all his money gambling. He alienated all the major film studios, and was dead by the age of 55. At the same time that Herman was ruining his career, Joe found significant success as writer, producer, and director, although he was almost addicted to deeply felt romances with the stars he worked with, including Judy Garland, and Joan Crawford, causing terrible suffering to his wife and family.

Biographer Sydney Ladensohn Stern spent ten years in researching and writing this comprehensive portrait of twentieth century American film through the lens of two of its most important and compelling figures. She’s written a thorough and highly readable narrative that gives us a chance to understand the complexities of her characters, and for anyone with an interest in modern film history, this book will be irresistible. The Mankiewicz brothers are among the titans upon which the movie business was built – their writing helped to define the language we see now as emblematic of an entire era in American history. This was a very fun book for me to read and I very much enjoyed talking to Sydney about her book. I think you will enjoy hearing our conversation and you should read this book (now available as an audiobook too).

“one of the best of the recent biographies of screenwriters … One thing I love about her book are the footnotes that trace the lineage of some of the great Mank stories (“The white wine came up with the fish” and “Imagine that, the whole world wired to Harry Cohn’s ass”…) ” –Tom Stempel

Sydney Ladensohn Stern worked as a reporter for Fortune and Money magazines and as an editor and award-winning columnist for the Scarsdale Inquirer before she started freelance writing. Her column, “Suburban Exposure,” covered politics and contemporary culture as well as her family and community, but she discontinued it after her sons left home and stopped providing her with material. She has freelanced for numerous publications including the New York Times. Her first biography is Gloria Steinem: Her Passions, Politics, and Mystique.

Author website here.

Buy the book here.

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Even as We Breathe, A Novel: Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle

Even as We Breathe, A Novel – Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle – 9781950564064 – University Press of Kentucky – Hardcover – 240 pages – September 2020 – $24.95 – ebook versions available for sale at lower prices

This has been a good year to read fiction, and I am really pleased to have discovered this author. She is a fine writer whose storytelling is powerful, yet restrained.

While this novel has some elements of a mystery, it is really a very personal story about family, love and growing up into the world of western North Carolina during World War II. The book’s main character is nineteen-year-old Cowney Sequoyah, who has grown up in the woods of Cherokee land, raised mostly by his grandmother. The novel is set between the upscale Grove Park Inn, an Asheville resort serving as an internment camp for diplomat prisoners of war and their families.

The Inn provides Cherokee men and women with employment off their reservation, and this is Cowney’s first real time away from home. At the core of the story, Cowley is accused of being involved in the disappearance of a diplomat’s daughter and must move back and forth to home as he attempts to understand the basis of the the unfair accusations, and prove his innocence while at the same time wrestling with his newfound love for another young Cherokee, Essie Stamper, and figuring out his complex family history.

There is alot going on in this subtle and quietly told novel! And a number of surprises are in store for the reader that bring the story to a remarkable and rewarding close.

Even As We Breathe is filled with details and moments that identify the Cherokee tribe and its homeland. The story gives Annette the opportunity to express the meanings of the Cherokee culture as it has survived into the modern world, sometimes still with the values of its people in conflict with the world of white people.

A secret room in the Grove Park Inn becomes a place where Cowney and Essie can escape the white world and try to imagine their futures independent of outsider influences. For awhile, it can feel to them that they have a place of their own. But racism and prejudice are constantly present, and both Cowney and Essie must face disappointment, and struggle to define their identities as Cherokees within a complicated environment that does not give them the space they truly need to be themselves.

Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), graduated from Yale University and has a masters from the College of William and Mary. Her unpublished novel, Going to Water won the Morning Star Award for Creative Writing from the Native American Literature Symposium and was a finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. After serving as Executive Director of the Cherokee Preservation Foundation, Annette (National Board Certified since 2012) returned to teaching English and Cherokee Studies at Swain County High School. She is the former co-editor of the Journal of Cherokee Studies and serves on the Board of Trustees for the North Carolina Writers Network.

“Debut writer Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle lifts the curtain to show us a South we don’t know, revealed through the struggles of Cowney Sequoyah, a young man growing up within the Cherokee Nation of far Western North Carolina, and yet another surprise setting when he takes a job at Asheville’s fabled Grove Park Inn while it is being used by the US military as a place of internment for Axis prisoners of war during World War II. Even As We Breathe is a wonderful novel, complicated as life itself — thrilling, mysterious, and finally, a revelation!” — Lee Smith, New York Times bestselling author of Blue Marlin

This novel was impossible for me to put down and is one of my favorite books I have read this year. It was a deep pleasure for me to speak with Annette about this book and her writing.

I believe you will enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

Purchase Even as We Breathe from Bookshop.org to support independent bookselling.

Author’s website here.

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American Gospel, A Novel: Lin Enger

American Gospel, A Novel – Lin Enger – 978-1-5179-1054-9 – University of Minnesota Press – Hardcover – 248 pages – October 27, 2020 – $24.95 – ebook versions available for sale at lower prices

I read Lin Enger’s last novel, High Divide, a few years ago and was really taken with his writing and the mythic fictional structures he loves to tell. Storytelling is certainly humanity’s oldest art form. We use stories to explain ourselves to ourselves. Lin seems to breathe storytelling like air. His new novel is very different than his earlier books, at least that it is set more or less in modern times and in northern Minnesota, a place that Lin is completely familiar and comfortable with.

American Gospel begins in 1974 while the rest of the country is fixated on the Watergate scandal, on a north woods Minnesota farm, where Enoch Bywater, a self-styled preacher has had a vision of the Rapture. It is all so real for him, he believes that the end of the world is about to be upon us. His millennial dream is shared by his followers, and then as word spreads about the impending end of the world, his Last Days Ranch attracts a polyglot of dreamers and believers in a completely American quest for emergence.

Enoch’s son, estranged both from his father, and from Minnesota, is an aspiring reporter with his own dreams and ambitions who is attracted back home by the potential for a big story – and the possibility of reconnecting with his high school love who is now a Hollywood star, the biggest thing to ever happen to their small rural town.

And there is still more intrigue involving other characters with their own complex agendas, and the backdrop of the denouement of the Nixon saga.

Lin Enger enjoys telling stories that involve men and their fathers. And he is taken with mythological, almost Jungian figures. In this book we have father figures of all kinds – God, the president, the preacher, and even his son. The psychic wounds of America are on full display and the resonance with our current time is unmistakable.

Enger is a compassionate and perceptive writer whose prose is clean and clear. He plainly loves to shed light on who we are and what we must do in order to live together as humans in a complex, disparate modern world. American Gospel is a quietly brilliant novel that I hope will find a large audience.

Lin Enger grew up in Minnesota and now lives in Moorhead, where he teaches English at Minnesota State University. He’s won many awards for his fiction, which include the novels, The High Divide (2014) and Undiscovered Country (2008). During the 1990s Lin and his brother, the novelist Leif Enger collaborated (as L. L. Enger) on a series of mystery novels for Pocket Books.

I always enjoy speaking with Lin. We had a terrific conversation about this book, and much more for this podcast episode. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Author’s website is here.

You can buy American Gospel from Bookshop.org.

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Stanley Flink: Due Diligence and the News

Due Diligence and the News: Searching for a Moral Compass in the Digital Age – Stanley Flink – Center for Media and Journalism Studies at Indian River State College – paperback – 978-0-578-60291-2 – 214 pages – $19.95 – 12/7/2019 – ebook editions available at lower prices.

I was recently introduced to Stan Flink by a mutual friend. I’d known of him for many years as he was a Yalie of some renown, a journalist for many years who later became the editor of the Yale Alumni Magazine and taught journalism at Yale and at other institutions of higher learning.

With his long experience, as a reporter, editor and lecturer, Stan knows and understands the importance of the news media to the functioning of American democracy. Still active at 95 years of age, Stan has worked as a journalist and editor for many years, in many different venues and platforms.

Flink recognizes that democracy has no life without truth. In fact, democracy is predicated on there being an educated and active citizenry, that tries to know as much as possible the truth and nature of events and human affairs. In Due Diligence and the News, Stan reviews, succinctly and gracefully, the relationship between the press and American civic life from colonial days to the digital age. In a series of interlocked essays, he demonstrates succinctly and clearly that while opinions may differ, facts are not optional. He discusses the important question of how it can be possible to assure publication based on verifiable facts without curtailing differing opinions. This is a central issue for us all to face – understanding and resolving the difference between fact and opinion. We need both elements to have equal weight in our political discourse, and we cannot dismiss either.

Some of the questions he raises include:

How can the media restore the trust of the reading/listening public?

Is it ever possible for the news media to create mechanisms, like the Hutchins Commission, that can make workable rules of self-governance and professional standards for itself?

Can government—international, national, state or local—serve as a watchdog on the media without violating the Constitution?

Can the news media, assuming it is truthful, do less than full due diligence in commenting on a public official?

These questions are addressed thoughtfully throughout this well-written book, but no one, not even Stan, can answer them conclusively and for all situations. Ultimately, as Stan takes a look forward into the digital age, the age of learned intelligence, he poses what may be as yet unanswerable questions about the future of the press in our fast-changing society. I think we have alot to learn from this book and the questions that Stan provides are ones we should be discussing far and wide as we try to heighten the importance of truth among our fellow citizens.

STANLEY FLINK grew up in a New Jersey. He entered Yale University a few months after Pearl Harbor and soon after enlisted in the Army. After service in the Pacific, he returned to Yale to continue his education. He graduated in 1948 and became a correspondent for Time, Inc. in New York and then in California, where he reported on such people as William Randolph Hearst, Richard Nixon, and the first appearances of Marilyn Monroe.

In 1958 he transferred to television news at NBC and later CBS. In 1962 he took up a series of assignments in London where he lived for eight years. In 1972 he returned to Yale to become the founding director of the Office of Public Information. From 1980 to 2010 he taught an undergraduate seminar called “Ethics and the Media.” In 1994 he was awarded the Yale Medal.

Stanley Flink is the author of many articles and profiles, and among his books are a novel called But Will They Get It In Des Moines? about television, published by Simon & Schuster; and Sentinel Under Siege, an historical analysis of freedom of the press in America, published by Harper Collins.

Mr. Flink and his second wife (of 45 years) Joy, live in a retirement community in North Branford, Connecticut, where he still lectures on the media. Through it all, he has never lost his deep affection for golden retrievers. He celebrated his 95th birthday in May, 2019.

Watch this video of Stan talking about the ethics of journalism here.

Support independent bookselling by buying the book online from our friends at R.J. Julia Booksellers.

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Publishing Talks: David Wilk interviews writer and entrepreneur Rachel Lehmann-Haupt

Publishing Talks began as a series of conversations with book industry professionals and others involved in media and technology, mostly talking about the future of publishing, books, and culture. As every media business continues to experience disruption and change, I’ve been talking with some of the people involved in our industry about how publishing might evolve as it is affected by technology and the larger context of culture and economics.

Rachel Lehmann-Haupt is best known for being an expert on the future of family life, career timing, and the influence of science and technology on fertility, pregnancy and family.

She is the author of In Her Own Sweet Time: Egg Freezing and the New Frontiers of Family. Her articles have been featured in a wide range of magazines and websites.

Rachel graduated with a degree in English literature from Kenyon College, and has a Masters in Journalism from the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. At UC Berkeley, she apprenticed under Clay Felker, the founder of New York Magazine. She has spoken on numerous panels at bookstores, hospitals and corporate events, and has delivered keynotes at universities.

Rachel’s newest venture, StoryMade Studios, a content development and editorial production studio was what introduced me to her work and caused me to want to talk to her for this Publishing Talks podcast series.

Much like my own work with content creators, and similar to the way movie studios work, Rachel builds teams that include writers, designers, developers, and video producers, and then manages the creation and editing of all the elements of a digital media story. StoryMade Studios focuses on health, parenting, advanced reproductive technology, neuroscience, women, sustainability, and food.

In recent years, Rachel has been a senior content strategist and strategic advisor for a number of technology start-ups, media properties, and non-profits including TED Books, The Dwell Store, Wired Magazine, BabyCenter.com, The Women 2.0 Conference, Code for America, Bridge Housing, Shebooks, and Dr. Dean Ornish/Healthways.

It was a pleasure to spend some time with her for a lengthy and wide ranging conversation when she was recently in New York City for a visit. I wanted to talk to her about her work as a writer and as a facilitator of book and other content projects, but in particular, I thought it would be really interesting to talk to Rachel about what it was like to have grown up as the child of two writers in the hothouse environment of New York City literary culture and how it influenced her own professional and personal life.

Thank you Rachel for a great conversation!

You can buy her book from RJ Julia here.

Visit Rachel’s own website here. Read about her book,In Her Own Sweet Time. 

And about Story Made Studio here.

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Maureen Owen and Barbara Henning reading in Tucson, Arizona

What a great trip! Starting January 18, 2019, with a reading at McNally Jackson Bookstore in Brooklyn, New York, poets Maureen Owen and Barbara Henning, started a cross country journey together (you can view their trip itinerary here).

Appropriately, their story and journey began in Brooklyn, where Barbara lives, and this amazing cross-country jaunt ends in Denver two months later, where Maureen lives.

The two writers have been blogging about their adventure here – their writing is terrific and fun, it is always fresh and lively, truly poets’ reportage, and reading their travel log will make you feel like you are along for the ride with them. They are having alot of fun and meeting and talking with some wonderful people along the way. They are getting to see some beautiful parts of our country too. Their two months on the road will feature 16 public events, and innumerable anecdotes and stories. It’s really fun to follow along with them as they travel, and when they are done, this will make a really interesting book.

I had the good fortune to be in Tucson, Arizona, when the two writers arrived there on February 14. Maureen is an old friend and colleague, so it was wonderful to get together with her, and to meet Barbara for the first time. When I went to hear them read for the POG Poetry reading series at the Steinfeld Warehouse Community Art Center, 101 West 6th Tucson on Saturday, February 16, and I recorded the event for this Authors Voices series here on Writerscast.

Local writer Steve Salmoni introduced the event. Poet and publisher (Chax Press) Charles Alexander introduced Maureen, and artist Cynthia Miller introduced Barbara, who lived in Tucson for a few years and has many friends there still.

It was a great event, and a wonderful opportunity to hear two terrific writers, both of whom engage with their audience and their writing. I’ve known Maureen for a long time, and believe she is one of the best poets of our time. Getting to hear Barbara Henning was a treat for me, as she is also a terrific writer of both poetry and fiction. I’m very pleased to have the opportunity to present this reading here.

Poet Maureen Owen was born in Minnesota, lived and worked in New York City and Connecticut, and has been living in Denver for a number of years, where she has long taught at nearby Naropa University. She was the founder of Telephone magazine and Telephone Books, worked at the Poetry Project in NYC, and is the author of a number of wonderful collections of poems.

Barbara Henning is a poet and fiction writer, born in Detroit, who has lived mostly in New York and Tucson since the early eighties. Aside from being the author of a number of books of poetry and fiction, she was also the editor of a book of interviews, Looking Up Harryette Mullen, and The Selected Prose of Bobbie Louise Hawkins. She is professor emeritus at Long Island University, where she taught for many years.

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Publishing Talks: David Wilk interviews Dan Blank of We Grow Media

Publishing Talks began as a series of conversations with book industry professionals and folks active in media and technology, at that time, mostly talking about the future of publishing, books and culture. At the outset of this series, I was mostly interested in exploring what people were thinking about the changing economics and culture of publishing and reading.

Now, I’ve  expanded these talks to go beyond the future of publishing – in some cases, by going backwards to discuss the recent history of publishing, and in some instances, sideways into various other realms that interest me. I’ve talked with editors and publishers who have been innovators and leaders in independent publishing in the past, and into the present, and will continue to explore the ebb and flow of writing, books, and publishing in to document the cultural milieu around books, authors and publishers.

Dan Blank is an inspiring and practical thinker about books, authors and readers. We met a number of years ago, and in working with him on a project to help self publishing authors, I was impressed with his thinking and ideas for ways to help writers conceptualize marketing. I first talked to him for Publishing Talks all the way back in 2012 – you can listen to that interview here. I have continued to follow his work through his excellent email newsletter, and frequently, have been inspired by his writing, especially his view of how writers can thrive in a challenging environment. Since so much has changed in the publishing landscape over the past several years, I thought it would be valuable to talk to Dan again about his current work with writers, books, readers, and the way they are connected.

Dan did not disappoint. This interview is full of great advice for writers and anyone who is interested in connecting with audiences in today’s media-rich environment.

As Dan says about himself on his website, he “help(s) writers and creative professionals share their stories and connect with their audience.” He’s worked with hundreds of authors and many publishers as well. And he has written his own book too, making the process of writing and publishing the book part of his experience-based coaching – Be the Gateway: A Practical Guide to Sharing Your Work and Engaging an Audience.

Dan’s website, wegrowmedia.com is well worth spending some time with, and his newsletter has been a valuable source of ideas and inspiration to many.

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