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WRITERS' Journal

Table of Contents
July/August 2009
Volume 30, Number 4

      .....Editor's Note, by Leon Ogroske 

   According to Wenona Napolitano, on page 19, articles with a green theme can find a home in many markets. Green is a topic touted by online and print publications everywhere. Hardly any environmental topic is discussed without some mention of its green implication.

   Have you ever wanted to be a biographer? On page 21, Susan Stroh explains some important steps to becoming an authoritative biographer. She shows us how to gather, categorize, and compile information in order to produce a biography that will please your client and perhaps land you more assignments.

   What is fair use? How do I obtain permission to use another person’s work in my own? Do I need permission to quote a celebrity? These are just a few questions answered on page 44 in Travis Heermann’s article on copyright laws. He addresses how to use copyrighted material in your work without violating the law.

   Your story character meets people, interacts with them, recruits a few to help in his dastardly deed, and well, basically needs a sidekick. Read how Melanie Faith in “Four Tips for Crafting Creative Sidekicks” on page 58 adds pizzazz to a story.

   Betty Ulrich is giving away judging secrets on page 59! That’s OK. She is mentoring writers by showing them how she, as a contest writing judge, sizes up a story—not unlike an agent or editor might scrutinize your manuscript. I think you will find the winning story of this year’s Fiction Contest fills the bill.

   Speaking of the Fiction Contest, the judges had a very difficult time placing the top two stories. How do you think they did? All the entries were top-notch, but “The Sin Eater’s Son” and “Redemption” stood out and thus won the top prizes. Thanks to all who entered and made judging difficult.

Leon Ogroske, editor

Columns

 4       .....Readers' P.O.V.

 6       .....Marketing Helps, Janet Elaine Smith
          Me? An Expert?

 7       .....Massaging the Muse, Lynne Pisano
          Economy

 8       .....Effective Screenwriting, by Christina Hamlett
          The Plot That Goes Like This
          Throughout most of his adolescence, I had a tradition of taking my nephew, Eugene, to San Francisco every Christmas break to go shopping, look at Alcatraz through the telescopes at Pier 39, and experience fine dining. He'd often use the occasion of the long drive in the car to tell me about the latest movie he had seen. In his zeal not to leave anything out, his summaries were generally longer than any of the actual films and by the time we rolled back into the driveway, he had yet to reach the ending and refused to get out of the car until he had properly finished....

 11      .....Computer Business, by Angela Render
           Capitalizing on the E-Book Trend
           As we move deeper into the Information Age, we're seeing drastic changes in the publishing landscape. The e-book is yet one more piece of this mechanical puzzle, but it can be a lucrative one. WRITERS' Journal will run a feature on marketing e-books, so I won't dwell on that aspect. What I want to impart to you here is how easy it is to create one and to give you a few tips on making it effective....

 13      .....Photography Techniques, by Ronald D. Kness
           The Art of Color Management
           Color management involves aligning a digital camera, monitor, and printer so colors look the same on—or, in the case of the printer from—all of these digital devices. While there is a good deal of science in this process, there is also a certain amount of art....

 58      .....For Beginners Only, by Melanie Faith
          Four Tips for Crafting Creative Sidekicks
          Sherlock Holmes had Doctor Watson, and Don Quixote had Sancho Panza. In more recent literary history, Janet Evanovich's popular Stephanie Plum has the wonderfully brash, gun-fumbling Grandma, who thinks she's every bit the detective her granddaughter isn't. What do these diverse characters have in common? For every protagonist, there's a supporting character in the wings, enhancing readers' understanding of the main character....

 59      .....Words...Tools of Our Trade, by Betty Garton Ulrich
           How Does Your Story Measure Up?
          As some of you already know, several people act as judges of the story contests sponsored by WRITERS' Journal, with the final decision, of course, resting with the editor and publisher of the magazine (who, buy the way, take the judges' opinions very seriously)....

 61       .....WRITERS' Journal Market Report, by Laurie Graziano
            July/August 2009 Market Report
            This issue's markets are highlighted with publications about crafting, sport and exercise, technology, archaeology, and more....

                   Markets: Fitness, Quick & Easy Crochet, Charisma & Christian Life, Popular Photography, Sport Fishing, Archaeology, Scrapbooks Etc., Romantic Homes, WIRED.

Feature Articles

 15       .....Interview with Bill Myers, by Jennni Ritschard
            "Writing Is My Job"
            "I can think of one hundred writers who are better than me," Says Bill Myers, whose books and videos have sold more than five million copies and who recently released another book, The Seeing. But, in contrast to Myers, some people just talk about writing; they don't actually write. "You're a writer if you write," he says....

 19       .....Going Green, by Wenona Napolitano
            Writers Can Cash in on Eco-Topics
            In today's tough economy, two of the hottest topics are living on a budget and living green. Green is really a hot trend right now. Everyone's doing it, from A-List celebrities to your next-door neighbor. You can't open a magazine or newspaper or turn on the television without being hit with some shade of green, some topic with an eco-friendly slant.....

 21       .....On Writing Biography, by Susan Stroh
            The Ten Hats You Might Wear
            Ever wonder what it's like to write a biography? I wrote one and loved it and then created a niche for myself. The following questions are frequently asked.... 

 24       .....Picture Perfect, by Wallace Wyss
            Your Photo Counts
           Some authors, despite how many thousands of hours they put into writing their books, pay scant attention to the picture they send in for the flyleaf or back cover. Other authors carefully calculate the look of the picture to achieve a certain image....

 43       .....Writers' Notebook
           Generics May Save Money, But They Aren't Often Funny..., by Anne Louise
            Cartoon..., EJE

 44       .....Four Steps Through the Copyright Minefield, by Travis Heermann
           The Basic Map to Safety
           How often have you been inspired by the lyrics of a song or poem to write a creative piece of your own? Have you ever read a passage from a book that would resonate perfectly with your story, article, or essay? Maybe you need a quotation from another article to make your point....

 47       .....Beating the Literary Lottery, by Tony Burton
           Improve the Odds of Being Published
           It seems as if every time a published author tells a group of people he is a writer, someone in the group will say, "You know, I wrote a book once!"...

Poetry

 50       .....Every Day With Poetry, by Esther M. Leiper-Estabrooks
           The Ode Less Traveled
           Poets have always been praiseful creatures, celebrating life, love, wine, God, patriotism, blades of grass, and so forth. Such a laudatory poem is called an ode, from the Greek, meaning a lyric poem often (though not always) intended to be sung. Today we use the word paean or hymn to indicate a song of praise, but odes have evolved and mutated since Attic days. Today they can be varied, indeed.....

 54       .....Esther Comments On..., by Esther M. Leiper-Estabrooks
           The Winners—December 2007 Poetry Contest
            Our top prize-winning poems for the December 2008, Poetry Contest concern accepting the good in life and working through the hard realities of doubt, loss, and pain. Each piece develops in a different manner: the first-prize winner, by employing rhymed couplets; the second, by choosing long lines of free verse of which each successive line is centered on the one above; and the third, by choosing formal-seeming, but nonetheless free-verse, stanzas....