Category Archives: Writing

Interview on Talbot Spy: “Wilson Wyatt, Man of Words, Part 1”

28 Friday Jun 2013

Posted by in Inspiration, Maryland, The Delmarva Review, Uncategorized, Writing, Writing and publishing today

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Wilson Wyatt, "Man of Words"

Wilson Wyatt, “Man of Words”

The strength of a writers’ community is the support it provides writers, chiefly from other writers, editors, and educators…in the forms of learning, improving, and sharing our experienced information.  We give to enrich each other.  Our rewards are immeasurable.  An example of a thriving writer’s community is on the Delmarva Peninsula, home of the Eastern Shore Writers Association, The Delmarva Review (a literary journal), the Bay to Ocean Writers Conference, critique groups, and many other organized opportunities for writers…all provided by volunteers.  This is one of the messages in Part 1 of a video interview by Talbot Spy and Spy Publications publisher, James Dissette.

You can find the interview on Talbot Spy.com, at the following link (or you can paste in your browser).

http://talbotspy.com/wilson-wyatt-promoting-eastern-shore-writers-part-1/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wilson-wyatt-promoting-eastern-shore-writers-part-1&utm_source=Talbot+Spy+Subscription&utm_campaign=53578889ad-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1a41d88584-53578889ad-290397505

Or…link to YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3Y0SfcNIJc

The value of a “writing community”…transcending borders

07 Friday Jun 2013

Posted by in Inspiration, The Delmarva Review, Uncategorized, Writing

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Hal Wilson, of the Eastern Shore Writers Association, interviews Ron Capps in Public Radio Delmarva’s studio (WSDL, Salisbury). - Photographed by Wilson Wyatt

Hal Wilson, left, of the Eastern Shore Writers Association, interviews Ron Capps in Public Radio Delmarva’s studio (WSDL-FM, Salisbury). – Photographed by Wilson Wyatt

Several friends are currently publishing their literary work. With each, a writing community contributes to the achievement.

I think of this from time to time. Why do I volunteer to help other writers? Does a writers’ community really benefit writers?

The answers are powerful affirmations.

A writer once told me of a desire to publish more work in local publications, but opportunities were diminishing. Does that sound familiar?  I asked why he was thinking locally when he could consider a much larger universe…beyond local borders.  A little nudging, and assurances from a larger community of writers, expanded his vision and potential. His determination was fueled for the hard work to complete and publish books capable of reaching a vastly greater audience…now a major accomplishment for the author.

Another example is about a combat veteran of five wars, Ron Capps.  Parts of his story have been told in the national media and are still being unveiled.

As a very capable writer, Ron decided to use writing to apply his experiences to three new and meaningful purposes.  First, writing enabled him to face and manage the horrors of combat that were relived in his mind daily.  It was a means of confronting and healing.  Appreciating this strength, he initiated a major project to teach other combat veterans, and their families, writing techniques for their healing and expression.

He recognized the value to show the rest of the world, through veterans’ writing, that there were other costs of war we don’t think about, that aren’t reported by the daily media. Only one percent of Americans are engaged in military duty today. Combat veterans, through writing, can “bear witness” for us to comprehend the personal impact of combat and war. As a society, we can become better informed before making decisions about going to war.

This week, two of us from the Eastern Shore Writers Association, hosted  Ron at the Public Radio Delmarva station (WSDL-FM) in Salisbury, Maryland, to record a special radio segment, “The Writer’s Edition,” about his experiences and inspiration to create the Veteran’s Writing Project, veteranswriting.org.  It will air on June 28, contributing his message to a new audience.

Ron Capps also wrote a powerful personal essay that will be published in The Delmarva Review’s sixth edition, in October, expanding the reach of his story among literary readers (www.delmarvareview.com).

These stories “bear witness” to a writing community helping writers in their work while contributing something meaningful to a far greater audience.  The value of a writing community transcends us…it transcends borders.

A Choice…entertainment tonight, or poetry to inspire me for the rest of my life – Richard Blanco’s “One Today”

18 Saturday May 2013

Posted by in Aging and Freedom, Inspiration, Poetry, The Future, Uncategorized, Writing

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I had that choice this week…one of those times to pick between the ordinary and the extraordinary.  I could have seen a good movie or a play or a show on TV.  Nothing wrong with that.  Today, entertainment is only a “click” away.

But, instead, we drove two hours to a special reading of a poem.  To hear Richard Blanco, the fifth Inaugural Poet in history, read from his personal poetry and “One Today,” the poem he wrote for the nation…at the 2013 Presidential Inauguration.  I knew this would be unique, rarely to be repeated in a small gathering, as the poet told his story.  Another emigrant making an indelible contribution to the United States.

My wife and I attended…no, we listened…at a special gathering orchestrated by The Writer’s Center, in Bethesda.  The poet, one of the Center’s former teachers, told his remarkable story.  These were the words behind the words…some of the raw history behind the music of his poetry.

Richard Blanco has been acclaimed in poetry circles, winning praise and awards, but now he is known as one of the few poets to be celebrated on the world stage.  This would be a distinctive experience, one of those times I could place delicately in my memory, offering inspiration on demand…a gift that keeps on giving.

From the ending of his poem, “One Today”

We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight

of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always, always

Home, always under one sky, our sky. And always

One moon like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop

And every window, one country—all of us—

Facing the stars. Hope—a new constellation waiting

For us to map it, waiting for us to name it—together.

# # #

A special “thank you” to my friends at The Writer’s Center, “one home,” a writer’s home, for creating this personal opportunity.

Self-publishing today…dependable truths

11 Thursday Apr 2013

Posted by in The Future, Uncategorized, Writing, Writing and publishing today

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Writer's Digest Conference East, New York

Writer’s Digest Conference East 2013 – New York, NY

Finding dependable “truths” from the turbulent publishing world is like trying to catch a bird from a roller coaster.  By the time you reach up, publishing has flown by, in new directions.  The best advice may be to climb aboard, enjoy the ride, and focus on the track ahead.

I just returned from the annual Writer’s Digest Conference (WD), in NYC, which included an entire day devoted to self-publishing, during the three-day event.  It’s surprising how the publishing world has changed in one year.  From the growth of  “metadata” techniques to the successes of a new category of “hybrid writers” (those who combine self-publishing with traditional publishing) to an evolving role for “nimble” agents, a vanguard few who are transforming from traditional agent to “change agent”…so much valuable information for writers.

It was interesting, as well, to see that in the midst of all this dazzling change, some basic things remain the same. I’ll elaborate below.

Here are a few highlights gleaned from the presentations. I think they are accurate or representative of the publishing marketplace, at the moment.

  • 70% of traditionally published authors who have also self-published, prefer to self-publish their books. The author is empowered. (WD survey of 5,000 authors)
  • Ironically, 68% of self-published authors still want to be traditionally published, a lingering “prestige” factor. (WD survey)
  • A new category of “hybrid authors” is emerging, those who combine self-publishing and traditional publishing for the same book project.
  • “Hybrid authors” sell more books, on average, and receive 38% more book revenue than either traditional or self-published authors, and they are more aggressive in marketing.
  • Marketing is up to the author, regardless of traditional or self-publishing.  While not new, many writers still think publishers do the marketing.  That’s not the case.
  • The one key advantage of traditional publishers is they assign an experienced project editor to the author, guiding the book from beginning to completion (content, line, and proofreading editing).  Self-published authors must do the same, on their own.   However, a traditional publisher controls the content, design, and keeps the book rights, paying the author only 15% of sales.  Advances have almost disappeared, except for major authors.
  • The democratization of marketing online is what is new and essential, not the author’s platform.  “Authors have a load of work to do,” said Joe Fine, of Amazon.com.
  • Word-of-mouth is still the best way to reach readers, based on a recent survey.
  • Distribution is king. When selecting your publishing imprint, think how it can be distributed as far as possible. Some self-publishing houses are proprietary, limiting distribution.
  • Know your audience, first.  Define the audience in detail. Then plan marketing accordingly, including who is on your launch team.
  • The “author’s page,” as an online site, is the critical place to sell your book.
  • While self-publishing is no longer a stigma, some traditional writers and agents still hold onto remnants of the past.  Why? Unfortunately, many self-published books are not written well or carefully edited.
  •  “If you write a good book and it develops a following, believe me, the agents will find you.” – Keith Ogorek, of Author Solutions, Inc.
  • New agent’s role can be additive to sales, bringing the knowledge of many publishing options to the author.  The “new agent” (only a few, so far) can help link the author to markets and accelerate sales.  This is a growing field: “change agents.”
  • Understand the “metadata” and check it frequently as your book travels through the distribution pipeline.  This is more important as we move toward an open source Web, worldwide (Web 3.0).  If data can’t speak to each other, a book’s availability becomes limited in a worldwide marketplace.  Good data results in more sales.  This is a growing topic.
  • Book design is more important than ever, for e-books and print.  In short, consider paying for a professional book designer who knows the current marketplace, including the technology necessary for your audience to find your book.  The cover art and layout is critical.  Don’t rely on your best friend’s artwork…if you want readership.
  • While authors are more empowered by self-publishing, readers are also more empowered…by online distribution.  They have far more choices for books to read.

What remains the same:

  • Marketing is still marketing.  The basics are not new.  Only the delivery systems have changed.  Social media is only a means, among many.  It’s good to keep up with social media and online techniques, but it’s far better to spend most of your time writing a good book and knowing your audience.
  • Good writing!  Nothing is more important than a well-written book.  It trumps clever marketing ideas and establishes your reputation among readers.
  • Editing.  Nothing turns off a discerning reader faster than poor editing.
  • Readership determines sales.

These are only a few highlights from a huge array of detailed information.  If you want to know more, let me know.  I’ll probably post again on this subject in the days ahead.

If you are genuinely interested in self-publishing, you can attend the “Publish Now” seminar for writers, all day on Saturday, October 26, 2013 at The Writer’s Center, in Bethesda, Maryland. This is an annual “how-to-do-it” event that will speed your way to publishing your work. You’ll learn what to do and avoid many of the common errors, all from a dependable, independent source. Check their website for details: http://www.writer.org or call: (301) 654-8664.

In the meantime, we can all enjoy writing, writing, and rewriting…as well as reading a great book.  It’s a good ride.

When photography translates a feeling from one human to another, its craft turns into art.

14 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by in Chesapeake Bay, Photography, Uncategorized, Writing

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Tonging for Oysters II - click on image for larger view

Tonging for Oysters II – click on image for larger view

I believe the same is true for all the arts.  There is craftsmanship, and there is art.  We struggle to master our craft, hoping to create something worthy of becoming art.  We don’t have to do that.  There is pleasure in craftsmanship.  But when artistry happens, we know something special has occurred. The creation is exhilarating, for both the artist and the audience.

Inspiration is both soothing and awakening

10 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by in Inspiration, Photography, Writing

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Inspiration - click on image for a larger view

Morning Silence – click on image for a larger view

It has been a good week. A lot of volunteer tasks are getting done… various things for the Eastern Shore Writers Association, some photos for a book on the War of 1812, preparing a photography course, finished a writer’s blog interview, and contributing to a workshop project for The Writer’s Center…but one I overlooked was my own inspiration and creativity. That happens to us, doesn’t it? Time is a fickle mistress, sometimes revealing, but often steeped in denial.

That came to an end yesterday.  I was blessed to be with other writers listening to a poet and friend, Anne Colwell, speak on “poetic thought.”  Her remarks struck a chord with me.  Whether writing prose or poetry, much of an author’s voice comes from the sound and flow of language.  It is that wonderful music that creates lasting images in our memories.  One can extend that to photographic art.  Even in silence, the image creates its own cadence within us.  It is the magic of the artist’s voice.

I hope to carry this inspiration with me into the week ahead…soothed and awakened.

The New Year…setting course and bearings, “Red, Right, Returning”

01 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by in Happy New Year, Inspiration, Photography, The Future, Writing

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"Buoy Reflections" by Wilson Wyatt Jr.

“Buoy Reflections” by Wilson Wyatt Jr. – Click on image for full view.

These mariner buoys remind me of an old navigational (not political) adage, “Red, Right, Returning.”  Keep the red buoy on starboard to return safely to home port from sea. Conversely, a sailor keeps the green buoy to the right when heading out to sea.

Thinking of the year ahead is like setting a navigational marker on a journey of unknown length, along an unknown course, filled with faces new and old and events unimagined. We always have hope, the least expensive of all emotions.  We always set expectations, those curious self-imposed creations, sometimes leading us as useful guides…though often to destinations unfulfilled.

My simple wish for the new year is to be thoughtful of my bearings, where I came from, my surroundings…the people, places and events along the way…and where I am headed.  My hope, in time…a gentle landing.

Inspiration . . .the muse is always present

24 Saturday Nov 2012

Posted by in Inspiration, Photography, Sunrise, Writing

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Inspiration – Click on the image for a larger view.

Often we hear, “I need inspiration,” or, “I’m waiting for the muse.”  It’s as if we wait long enough it will come to us. Creativity is not a passive endeavor.  Just around us, perhaps only a few steps away, there is always something that can inspire us.  If we look, it will be there, waiting for us, like it always has.  We need to take that first step.

I find inspiration in a beautiful photograph or painting, in the lines of a poem, or the words of a great story.  I find it by walking outdoors to capture the sunrise or sunset or a flower in bloom, or to hear the rustling of deer in the forest.  It’s also present in the innocent faces of laughing children, or the wisdom imbedded in the wrinkles of an elder.  It is evident in remarkable deeds of kindness by one human being toward another. If we stop just long enough to see it, inspiration will be there, waiting…patiently…for our embrace.

The Value of a Literary Review…along the road to good writing

07 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by in The Delmarva Review, Writing

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The Delmarva Review, vol.5 – 27 authors, nine states, D.C., and three other countries

The Delmarva Review published its fifth annual edition of prose and poetry this week, rising competently at the far end of the writing spectrum, known to discerning readers as literary writing.  I say the “far end” of the spectrum, because it is the place reserved for literature as an art.  This is the place where art and craft combine in the writer’s quest for excellence…aspired to by many, but attained by few.

That sounds intimidating, and perhaps it is to some writers.  But to others it is a rewarding journey.  A literary journal like The Delmarva Review attracts hundreds and hundreds of submissions for the few that are finally published.  Of course, there are space limitations.  For the aspiring and persevering writer, publication in the review is a well-deserved achievement.  Even the best writers receive rejections, but selection for publication is always an occasion to be celebrated.

The Delmarva Review is one of some 3,300 literary reviews around the world.  That sounds like a lot.  But, when you consider there are over 200,000 commercial magazines in production, literary reviews are, indeed, at the small end of the spectrum. It’s interesting that they are growing in numbers, not diminishing.

For those who would like to know more about literary reviews, their purpose and history, I recommend an excellent article by an experienced editor-writer, Paul Soderberg, “The Secret World of Literary Journals,” available to read online at: http://thefeatheredflounder.com/2012/05/the-secret-world-of-literary-journals/

Today, as I and my talented editorial associates stuff envelopes with copies of  The Delmarva Review, to be on their way to readers, this concludes a year of difficult work. “Difficult” because it has been a year of choosing the final stories, essays, and poetry to publish in our fifth edition.  However, like for the authors, it is an occasion to celebrate.  The reward is treating our writers with the respect they deserve and producing a literary journal of quality for readers with high expectations.

We will now wait…and wait…for the comments…for our own critical review.  For you see, even the editors can face rejection.

Of interest to writers, the submission period for the sixth issue of the Review is from November 1, 2012 to February 28, 2013. We publish a print edition as well as a downloadable digital edition, available at Amazon.com. You can see the website for copies, guidelines and a submission link: www.delmarvareview.com

As executive editor of The Delmarva Review, I am thankful for the remarkable talent and generous spirit of all the people who worked on this edition.  All contributed as volunteers.  They include fiction editors Margot Miller and Harold Wilson, nonfiction editor George Merrill, poetry editors Amanda Newell and the late John Elsberg, managing editor Mala Burt, designer Laura Ambler,  copyeditor Jeanne Pinault, and our prose readers, who help to discover the best work. Thank you, as well, to our publisher, the Eastern Shore Writers Association, a nonprofit organization that supports and believes in the literary arts.

Back and front cover – The Delmarva Review, vol. 5  (Click on image to enlarge)

Writing and publishing today…what’s honest and true?

01 Wednesday Feb 2012

Posted by in Writing, Writing and publishing today

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"Books" - photo copyright 2010 Wilson Wyatt Jr (click on image for full size)

Hemingway would say we learn “what is honest and true” by the doing of it.  Of course, reading is good…isn’t it, Ernest?

As a writer, I try to immerse myself in what’s new.  Being current is important, but it can be a dizzying pursuit these days.

In January, I attended the annual Writer’s Digest Writers Conference in New York.  Like all large conferences, there’s an art to picking and choosing topics and speakers to discern what’s new.  I wanted to see, on a national or global scale, what is really happening in the “publishing” and “self-publishing” industries, from a writer’s perspective.  I wanted to know “what is honest and true.”

Amid all the various presentations, there were a few important insights…showing  definite changes to the publishing landscape.  You can believe them, or you can fight them…your choice…but they carry a strong measure of truth.  Here are the highlights.

–  Thanks to digital technology, there are more authors than ever…more content…more books being published…good news for authors!

–  90 % of all books (traditional and self-published) sell under 1,000 copies.  The “honest” truth is the number of “sales” is the ultimate measure of success…if we’re writing to reach readers.

–  The big news is self-publishing now stands on its own feet and competes head-to-head with traditional publishing.  This is a sea change from only a year ago.

–   “Supported Self-publishing” has emerged as a new growth industry, assisting the author with all those nitty-gritty things they hate (digital coding, ISBN’s, barcodes, layout, design, printing, E-books, marketing, and distribution), including services once performed only by traditional publishers.

–  The role of the agent is changing…but not disappearing.

–  Authors can control, for the first time, editing, design, printing, marketing and distribution.

–  Legitimacy of “self-publishing” has arrived and is permanent.

–  Self-publishing can be much more lucrative to authors than the 85% taken by traditional publishers.

–  Traditional publishers, once “the gatekeepers” of “good writing,” aren’t keeping pace with technological change.  Good writing is being published everywhere, in new formats, digitally and in print. The “dinosaur theory” is knocking at the door of the big publishers.

–  Is traditional genre fiction dying? The boundaries between genres (mystery, thriller, romance, paranormal, sci-fi, etc.) are rapidly combining or merging into “mainstream.” A new mixture of “high impact fiction” and “literary” writing is enduring on the best seller lists.

–  The value of good writing is more important today than ever, as the marketplace floods with more books.  Readers will search for the best.

And finally…for better or worse…the most profitable market for writers is writers.  These are writers who sell “how-to-do-it” advice to other aspiring writers.  Wading through the quagmire to find the grains of truth can be painful, especially with technological advances and search tools.  Buyer beware.  As with all books, a few are good, and still fewer are great.

Most of us are still searching for “what is honest and true.”