Writers and Editors

Here are two stories that came from Washington Biography Group discussions early this year of how people chose the topic for their first biographies.

 
Ken Ackerman's story

 

Ken grew up in Albany, NY, politically a machine-run town. One mayor held office for 41 years, from fixing votes. Ken learned at some point that his father, a lawyer in the 1930s, tried to run for the NY state legislature, which was run at the time by the Tammany Hall machine.  Ken took a job in DC, and worked for a government official accused of taking sports tickets (which had only recently been barred under federal rules), then pilloried by a special prosecutor, only to be acquitted on all charges. With all that in mind, Ken came across Boss Tweed, all that corruption resonated, and that's who he wrote about.

 

Read Growing Up in the Last Century—My First Taste of Politics: Getting Kicked Out of the Polls by the Albany Machine, June 1972, an interesting story, illustrated, on Ken's Viral History blog (visually delightful in its new incarnation). Fittingly, there is a Museum of Political Corruption in Albany.

Sally's story

In retrospect, Sally Berk realizes that she chose to write her thesis about Harry Wardman, and to continue researching him in the hope of writing a book, because in general she wanted to explain the built environment into which she was born. Were she to write more books, they would all be about the architects and developers of the first half of the twentieth-century. Wardman has been a mythical figure since Sally's childhood. Her mother loved to tell the story of having, as a teenager, danced at Walter Reed Army Hospital and at the Wardman Park Hotel to entertain World War I veterans. But it was the Wardman Park that made a lasting impression. Later, Sally learned that Wardman, who constructed more than three thousand buildings, was—more than any other developer—responsible for the tree-lined streets of row houses that, as a child, she found so enticing.

 

While Wardman was wildly ambitious and extraordinarily energetic, his success was also the consequence of the state of Washington DC’s built environment when he arrived in 1893. The city was experiencing an extreme housing shortage as a result of the huge growth in population during and immediately following the Civil War. Large tracts of farmland north of the L’Enfant-planned city were being sold to developers and streetcar lines were being extended to access the new developments. Wardman had little trouble obtaining financing to benefit from these construction projects.

 

Wardman’s career was further enhanced by a second influx of population during and immediately following World War I. But the rules of development changed in the early years of the 1920s, when zoning was introduced in Washington. This change did not, however, impede Wardman’s rapid pace of development. It was the Stock Market Crash of 1929 that dramatically impacted his career. Over-extended, he was forced to declare bankruptcy. He might have eventually recovered from that dramatic setback had he not contracted colon cancer and died shortly thereafter, in 1938.

 

Does Sally Berk’s About the Author page make you curious about her subject and book? Another page on her website, Wardman's Washington, features some of the best-known buildings Wardman built.

 

Why did you choose the subject of your first biography?

What happens when a novelist writes a novel based on a real life story but changes the main character and the arc of her life?

 

• Artist-Author Mary Hallock Foote and her Angle of Repose (Casey Bush, Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission, 2003). "The same year that Angle of Repose won the Pulitzer Prize, Foote's autobiography, A Victorian Gentlewoman in the Far West was published by the Huntington Library at the urging of Foote's descendents who objected to the great liberties that Stegner took in telling her story. Straddling fact and fiction, Angle of Repose was also met with charges of plagiarism in academic circles."
• A Victorian Gentlewoman in the Far West: The Reminiscences of Mary Hallock Foote (by Mary Hallock Foote, edited by Rodman W. Paul)

• Angle of Repose, the novel by Wallace Stegner
• ‘The Ways of Fiction Are Devious Indeed’ (Sands Hall, Alta Online, 4-4-22) Finding current relevancy—and outrage—in the accusations of plagiarism that have long haunted a classic of the West: Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose. "Yet in the end, it wasn't that Stegner copied so much, verbatim, that incensed me. Nor that, in creating the Wards, he followed so precisely—for 523 of the novel's 569 pages—the trajectory of the Footes' lives. It was that, in the process, he altered Mary's character. Susan emerges as a griping, entitled, discontented 1950s housewife, nothing like the adventurous, deeply intelligent, resilient woman on whom she was modeled....Stegner didn't physically assault Mary Foote, but he abused her—her life, her writing, and, as it turned out, her reputation. And he got away with it because he was a man." Having started with material from Mary Foote's life, Stegner the novelist adds "adultery, infanticide, a destroyed marriage" and "dramatically alters the climax of that life, and, in the process, her entire character."

     Hall continues: "In choosing to climax the story of the Wards in a romantic tryst gone terribly wrong, Stegner not only "warped" the Footes' story; he missed the opportunity to unfold the remarkable final act of their lives." And Hall writes of the real happy ending to the family's story, concluding: "We have a word for the theft of writing; we do not have one for a stolen life."
• A classic, or a fraud? (Philip L. Fradkin, LA Times, 2-3-08) Plagiarism allegations aimed at Wallace Stegner's 'Angle of Repose' won't be put to rest. "Stegner used the private letters of Mary Hallock Foote and additional portions of her unpublished memoir intact, edited or combined with invented material for the basic structure of his narrative. He included page-long passages and entire paragraphs unaltered, slightly changed or invented, and borrowed specific details of her life for his most memorable character, Susan Burling Ward...

      "Stegner had permission to use the material and ... he acknowledged its use, [although he] altered Foote's life to fit his needs for a multidimensional novel of the American West." He told the family he would alter the story, mixing fiction with fact, but the novel implies a romantic liaison that didn't happen in real life, which the family found objectionable. In the introduction to a paperback edition of the novel issued in 2001, Jackson J. Benson, a Stegner biographer, writes about this controversy. This article is worth reading if you're planning to base a novel on a true story.
• List of fake memoirs and journals (Wikipedia) Another angle on the same theme.

BEST BOOKS
• What’s the Best Book of the Past 125 Years? We Asked Readers to Decide. (New York Times, 12-28-21)

1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. (Do read why they won.)

2. The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

3. 1984 by George Orwell

4. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

5. Beloved by Toni Morrison

Nominees in

Science Fiction: Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

Horror: Dracula by Bram Stoker

Nonfiction: The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

Children’s Book: Watership Down by Richard Adams

Cookbook: The Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer

Self Help: The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck

      Three writers — John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner — received nominations for seven of their books.

     Other popular authors included James Baldwin, Margaret Atwood and Virginia Woolf, who each had five books nominated.

     And readers nominated four of Joan Didion’s books: “The Year of Magical Thinking,” “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” “The White Album” and “Play It as It Lays.”

Runners Up

The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

 

• The most popular US library books of 2021 (Clarisa Diaz, Quartz)
• The 100 Must-Read Books of 2021 (Annabel Gutterman, Cady Lang, Arianna Rebolini, and Lucas Wittmann, Time)
• Best Books of 2021 (New York Public Library)
• 74 mini-reviews to help you find a great book to read next (David Bauer, Medium, 1-5-21) Book recommendations, from climate change to robotics, from food to superforecasting, from leadership to writing, and more.
• The best books for white people to learn (just a little) about Black people (Lawrence Goldstone, Shepherd for Authors)
• How will sharing book recommendations help me sell books?
•
THE BEST MOVIES:
• Best movies of 2021 (Ann Hornaday, Washington Post) Almodóvar just gets better, family films make a comeback
• The movies that wowed Post critics in 2021 (Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post)
• 30 Movies That Are Unlike Anything You’ve Seen Before (David Sims, The Atlantic, 5-30-20) These movies "are singular, whether they’re experimental documentaries, visionary works of animation, or labyrinthine epics. Each is unforgettable, and a reminder of cinema’s potential to flout narrative convention, subvert visual traditions, and find new ways to express timeless themes."
• Winter Movies 2021: Here’s What’s Coming Soon to Streaming and Theaters (Ben Kenigsberg, NY Times, 11-16-21) Get ready for originals like “House of Gucci” and “C’mon C’mon” or franchise updates like “The Matrix Resurrections” and “Ghostbusters: Afterlife.”
• 11 Overlooked Classic Films for a Pandemic Winter Old Rex Reed recommendations, posted12-11-21)
• Readers, Streamers, and Watchers (Marcy Davis’s great private Facebook group)

 

GOOD TV AND CABLE:

"Few shows get better over time and are worth recommending to new viewers after they're done—Schitt's Creek, Better Call Saul, and BoJack Horseman are rare examples." ~ Jordan Calhoun, The Atlantic, 6-22  

 

 

BEST TV SHOWS OF 2021
• The 16 Best TV Shows of 2021 (Sophie Gilbert, Megan Garber, and Shirley Li, The Atlantic, 12-9-21)

“Men in Kilts: A Roadtrip With Sam and Graham" (Starz)

“Mare of Easttown" (HBO)

“Lupin" (Netflix)

“Dickinson" (Apple TV+)

“The Chair" (Netflix)

“Ted Lasso" (Apple TV+)

“Hacks" (HBO Max)

“Insecure" (HBO)

“Girls5eva" (Peacock)

“The White Lotus" (HBO

“The Underground Railroad" (Amazon Prime

“Reservation Dogs" (FX on Hulu)

“WandaVision" (Disney+)

“Only Murders in the Building" (Hulu)

“Squid Game" (Netflix)

“The Other Two" (HBO Max)

• The Best TV Shows of 2021 (Doreen St. Félix, New Yorker, 12-8-21) In no particular order:

"The Underground Railroad” (Amazon Prime)

“South Side” (HBO Max)

“Reservation Dogs” (FX)

“The White Lotus” (HBO)

“We Are Lady Parts” (Peacock)

“Succession” (HBO)

“Philly D.A.” (PBS)

“Hacks” (HBO Max)

“The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” and “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake   City” (Bravo) which is morphing into a true-crime hit

“Love Life” (HBO Max) which gets the award for most improved Bonus Awards for Consistent Excellence: “Evil” (CBS)

“Bob’s Burgers” (FOX)

“What We Do in the Shadows” (FX)

“Work in Progress” (Showtime).

 

A shout-out to the shows that didn’t “make” the list.

The troupe on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” is jelling in a way that is reminiscent of the Gilda Radner golden era.

Martin Short and Steve Martin have invented a vibe that I’ll call “uncle-core,” on the snappy Hulu murder mystery “Only Murders in the Building.”

The kinky historical fictions of “The Great,” also on Hulu, and of Apple TV+’s “Dickinson,” which is in its third and final season—and ending at precisely the right time—are consistently engaging.

HBO’s “100 Foot Wave” is a beautiful colossus; its director, Chris Smith, has merged an intimate look at the surfer Garrett McNamara with stunning footage of the sea in Nazaré, Portugal.

“Heels,” on Starz, a sentimental drama about professional wrestling, intriguingly mirrors the meta-theatricality of “Glow.”

“City of Ghosts” (Netflix),

“The Good Fight” (Paramount+), and

“Call My Agent!” (Netflix) kept me sane.

The noir humor of “Odd Taxi” (Crunchyroll), an anime, made me feel crazy—in a good way.’

• The Best Feel-Good and Feel-Bad TV of 2021 (Naomi Fry, New Yorker, 12-22-21)

 

BEST HACKS – HOW TO LIVE LIFE
• 100 ways to slightly improve your life without really trying (The Guardian Saturday Magazine, 1-1-22) Whether it’s being polite to rude strangers or setting time limits to your apps, tons of ways to make life better, with little effort.
• How to Treat Skin Hyperpigmentation Naturally (Healthline) Apple cider vinegar, aloe vera, red onion, green tea extract, black tea water, licorice extract, milk, buttermilk, tomato paste, orchid extracts, red lentils.

TOP ONLINE CONTENT (a few links to "best" and "top" lists)
• All the top (good, intelligent) radio talk shows and podcasts (McNees links)
• Great podcasts to listen to while your hands and eyes are doing something else (McNees links)
• Podcasts about health, health care, medicine and medical science (McNees links to best podcasts)
• A+ blog and newsletter roll (Writers and Editors)
• 25 Newsletters and Tools to Discover Shareable Content (Kevan Lee @Buffer)
• 31 Bookish, Brainy, Beautiful Blogs for Readers (Tracy O'Neill, NY Public Library)
• 17 Unique Places to Find Great Content to Share (Kevan Lee @Buffer)
• 14 Newsletters You’ll Want in Your Inbox (Anum Hussain @Buffer)
• Great search links (Writers and Editors)

Updated by Pat McNees from an earlier version (12-2-11)

At a narrative medicine workshop at Columbia University, I learned that narrative training with stories of illness "enables practitioners to comprehend patients’ experiences and to understand what they themselves undergo as clinicians."

• In The Wounded Storyteller, Arthur Frank writes about restitution narratives (in which the narrator, expecting to get well again, is focused on the technology of cure), chaos narratives (in which the narrator sees illness lasting forever, with no respite), and quest narratives (in which illness is transformative, as the storyteller gains insights and becomes someone new).
• Narrative Medicine: A Way Out (Corinne T. Feldman, Clinical Advisor, 2-25-22) In the practice of street medicine, which is the direct delivery of primary care to people experiencing homelessness living in parks, underpasses, and abandoned buildings, we have the privilege of witnessing those lives lived as society casually passes by, seemingly blinded to the suffering happening at their feet.
• Safeguarding Our Communities: Get to Know Your Lifeguards (Corinne T. Feldman, Clinical Advisor, 2-25-22)
• Narrative Medicine blog (an extension of the work, discourse, teaching and learning that takes place in the Narrative Medicine Program at Columbia University -- "Practicing clinical care with the ability to recognize, absorb, interpret, and be moved by the stories of illness") I took in in 2011 and found in valuable.
• Pulse—voices from the heart of medicine (excellent Web-only journal) and Pulse: Voices From the Heart of Medicine - The First Year, anthology edited by Paul Gross and Diane Guernsey
• Narrative Medicine Rounds, lectures or readings presented by scholars, clinicians, or writers engaged in work at the interface between narrative and health care. Rounds are held on the first Wednesday of each month from 5 to 6:30 pm in the Columbia University Medical Center Faculty Club, followed by a reception. Rounds are free and open to the public. Podcasts MAY be available.
• Stories in Medicine: Doctors-in-Training Record a Different Type of Patient History (Margot Adler, NPR, 10-28-03)
• Family Medicine (official journal of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine; check out its feature “Lessons From Our Learners." Often publishes personal essays, 55-word stories and poems.
• Poetry and Prose Rounds (Washington University, which provided some of the following links)
• Fifty-five Word Stories: “Small Jewels” for Personal Reflection and Teaching by Colleen T. Fogarty (Family Medicine, June 2010), PDF
• Narrative Medicine Heals Bodies and Souls (Lorrie Klosterman's interview with Lewis Mehl-Madrona, Utne Reader, Sept-Oct 2009)
• What to do with stories: The sciences of narrative medicine (Rita Charon, Canadian Family Physician Vol. 53, No. 8, August 2007, pp.1265 - 1267)
• Illness as More Than Metaphor (by David Rieff, Susan Sontag's son, NY Times Magazine, 12-4-05)
• How to Do a Close Reading (Patricia Kain, Harvard University Writing Center)
• Close Reading of a Narrative Passage (K. Wheeler, Carson-Newman College)
• Explorations: An E-Journal of Narrative Practice. See for example: Re-membering Pets: Documenting the meaning of people’s relationships with these family members by narrative therapist Barbara Baumgartner
• Literature, Arts, and Medicine database (NYU hosts)

And here are some books on the subject (there are many more). If you order something after clicking on one of these Amazon links, we get a small commission, which helps support maintaining this website:
• The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing, and the Human Condition by Arthur Kleinman
• Narrative Medicine: Honoring the Stories of Illness by Rita Charon
• Narrative Medicine: The Use of History and Story in the Healing Process by Lewis Mehl-Medrona author of Coyote Wisdom: Healing Power in Native American Stories
• Psychoanalysis and Narrative Medicine, ed. Peter L. Rudnytsky and Rita Charon
• Theft of the Spirit: A Journey to Spiritual Healing by Carl Hammerschlag
• The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics by Arthur Frank.Both the collective portrait of a so-called "remission society" of those who suffer from some type of illness or disability and a cogent analysis of their stories within a larger framework. Frank is also the author of At the Will of the Body: Reflections on Illness