User Info |
Welcome Anonymous
|
|
Search This Site |
|
|
|
Main Menu |
 CSME Membership News Resources Editor's Choice Awards |
|
Upcoming Events |
|
|
|
|
News Article
|
|
|
By Amy Pearl
Little Italy’s cozy second-floor space at Bar Italia was an ideal spot for the Canadian Society of Magazine Editors (CSME) fall mixer on November 15. A room packed with editors settled into introductions by Sasha (a.k.a. Alexandra Tigchelaar sex columnist for Eye Weekly), Brian D. Johnson (senior entertainment writer and film critic at Maclean’s), and Mark Schatzker (freelance writer who often does travel stories for magazines such as Explore and Condé Nast Traveller) to address the perks and pitfalls of their trade.
To read the entire story, click on the headline.
Thanks to everyone who came out to the mixer on November 15. Check back here for more events coming up soon. Click here to download the membership registration form for 2008!
Save this page to del.icio.us
By Amy Pearl
Little Italy’s cozy second-floor space at Bar Italia was an ideal spot for the Canadian Society of Magazine Editors (CSME) fall mixer on November 15. A room packed with editors settled into introductions by Sasha (a.k.a. Alexandra Tigchelaar sex columnist for Eye Weekly), Brian D. Johnson (senior entertainment writer and film critic at Maclean’s), and Mark Schatzker (freelance writer who often does travel stories for magazines such as Explore and Condé Nast Traveller) to address the perks and pitfalls of their trade. CSME’s new president, Bob Sexton, took the role of a good captain, steering them back to the focus (especially as it kept turning to Sasha’s topic, sex). But who could blame Johnson for commenting that he too reads Sasha’s “Love Bites†Eye Weekly column “religiously?â€
When you take into consideration that Johnson has, as he says, a “plum job†at Maclean’s as senior entertainment writer, he has won three national film awards, and has penned five non-fiction books, you would assume he had a career plan, but he almost celebrates the fact that he didn’t have one. Neither did Sasha, whose sex column is a nationally syndicated. Driven by curiosity to write for the Montreal Mirror in 1994, she didn’t attend J-school. As for Schatzker, he’s been both an editor and writer, published in everything from McSweeney’s to Toronto Life, as well in as some US books in recent years. His favourite gig in recent memory (aside from sitting in the cockpit of an F-18 jet fighter) was his Condé Nast travel blog on his trip around the world in 80 days. Mark also gave journalism school the slip.
Johnson didn’t do much to debunk the myth that entertainment writing is somewhat fun and glamorous when he likened it to having a passport. “Where do I want to go, what do I want to do, who do I want to talk to – and can I sell the story?†he says, are all he had to consider.
Mark discounted any ideas that his work is all perks by pointing out that he, like most writers, is underpaid. Letting out a sigh he said, “People have the misconception that I go to Italy, have a good epiphany and write about it. The reality is, the minute I get off the plane I’m wracking my brain, anxious to find out what the story is. It reads like a holiday, but it’s not.â€
All ears perked up when Sexton asked what the writers consider good editing. It turns out there’s a different kind of editor for everyone. Johnson had a few different ideas:
Predator style: “Writing is like the body, and then editing is their violation of the body.â€
Conductor style: “A well-tuned ear is important for writing, they should find the spots you’ve glossed over.â€
Reader: “Your editor is your reader incarnate.â€
Therapist: “Editors see the crack in the piece, and then say, I need you to open that up.â€
Sasha claims to have conversations with editor Ed Keenan that “screenwriters get boners over.â€
Mark commented that he wants to know what he’s doing wrong without “making me want to kill myself!†Having held himself back as an editor against impulses to re-write others’ work, he feels disgruntled when editors change words in his piece, particularly when they introduce words he would never use. “I would never use the word ‘natch’,†he said, shaking his head.
Across the panel, all agreed that more positive feedback from editors would be nice. “Bad editing is like bad sex,†according to Mark.
Amy Pearl is a journalism student at York University
|
|
|
|
|
|
18:00 - 20:00 CSME Mixer - How Tweet It Is
