Journalist’s Trade

Several journalists have participated in Michele Weldon’s Writing to Save Your Life memoir writing workshops during the past decade. While she finds that journalists are at an advantage because of…

‘… it would be a while before people would say, “Hey, this is a book.” ’

‘I have come to realize that my obsessive precision—a great virtue in a reporter—wasn’t necessarily the greatest quality in a would-be memoirist.’

‘I teach nonfiction books. I study them, praise them, and pick them apart, and as I do so, I often wonder what’s holding me back from writing one.’

‘The biggest shift in going from journalism to books is not from scribe to artist, but employee to entrepreneur—suddenly self-employed, with no benefits, no expense account, and no security.’

With a forthcoming book about undercover reporting—along with a reporter-friendly database of historic examples—a j-school professor keeps her focus on familiar topics.

‘At one point, my mother, a woman who is anything but acid, told me: “Get a job, and get a life.” She said this out of love and concern because…

Among the minority who dominate the online conversation is ‘the digital equivalent of the loudest drunk in the bar.’

‘Community journalism assumes its value in finding ways to connect people—by identifying passions and concerns they share, linking neighbor to neighbor, and motivating people to act.’

‘We’ve torn down the dividing wall and now we can listen closely to the voices once behind it. That’s what our changes are about.’