Why Lin-Manuel Miranda is my latest crush

The Pulitzer Prize-winning and Tony Award-winning Lin-Manuel Miranda makes me smile whenever I see anything he says or Tweets. That he is wicked talented goes without saying. What I absolutely adore in him is his epic joie de vivre and love for all of humanity. If you doubt what I'm saying, check out the wedding surprise he concocted for his wife. It's apparent that his talent for performance was a gift handed down from father to son.

His treatise on the stories we tell versus the stories we leave out at the University of Pennsylvania was one of the best of all commencement speeches in 2016. 

But it was this that I read in the New York Times By the Book feature back in May that really cemented him in my esteem. 

"I am most in awe of novelists, who move lights, scenery, and act out all of the parts in your mind for you. My kind of writing requires collaboration with others to truly ignite. But I think of Dickens, or Cervantes, or Marquez, or Morrison, and I can describe to you the worlds they paint and inhabit. To engender empathy and create a world using only words is the closest thing we have to magic."

Inspiration from poet Mark Nepo

Breaking Surface

Let no one keep you from your journey,
no rabbi or priest, no mother
who wants you to dig for treasures
she misplaced, no father
who won't let one life be enough,
no lover who measures their worth
by what you might give up,
no voice that tells you in the night
it can't be done.
Let nothing dissuade you
from seeing what you see
or feeling the winds that make you
want to dance alone
or go where no one
has yet to go.
You are the only explorer.
Your heart, the unreadable compass.
Your soul, the shore of a promise
too great to be ignored.

Seeing things differently

Reading "The Artist's Way Every Day: A Year of Creative Living," by Julia Cameron and found resonance in a portion of the entry for August 28th. Been meaning to share because I think it so aptly applies to writing.

"The creative journey is characterized not by a muzzy and hazy retreat from reality but by the continual sorting and reordering and structuring of reality into new forms and new relationships. As artists, we 'see things differently.' In part, this is because we are looking."

So many conferences, so little time and money

Spring 2008 is ripe with some great writing conferences. I have planned all along to attend the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) conference in NYC in April, especially since I'll be able to take advantage of the member-only opportunities for the first time.

But there's also the Nieman Narrative Conference at Harvard, which takes place in Boston in March. This event used to take place in the fall, but with a change of directors it was pushed off until spring.

NYC or Boston? Hmmmm. Tough decisions. I've been to NYC three times in the past three years, but never to Boston. Though honestly, can you ever get enough of New York?

Given the expense of the cities involved, attending both is out of the question.

So do I go for the business of freelancing or the soul of writing?

My head tells me to go for the business, my heart wants the soulful stuff.

Do I want to network with people doing the kind of writing I most enjoy (narrative) or the people engaged in the kind of business model I most enjoy (freelance)?

I've been to ASJA before so I know generally what to expect from that experience. The work I got as a result of contacts made there in 2005 carries on today. I've heard mixed reviews about Nieman in the recent years, but it's also under new management this year.

I've also applied for a fellowship with the Peter Jennings Project for Journalists and the Constitution, run by the National Constitution Center. Given that I'm a freelancer without a beat I doubt I'll get the fellowship, but if I do that involves a trip to Philly in early March.

What to do, what to do...

Why certain stories can't be told in newspapers

Great article in this month's Columbia Journalism Review. Unfortunately it's not yet available online, so I'll pull extensive excerpts here because I believe it's very illustrative of why reporters leave newsrooms to write.

"Unshackled: Why one reporter left a newspaper to write books," is written by Linda Perlstein, whom I've mentioned here a few times in recent weeks as the author of, "Tested: One American School Struggles to Make the Grade."

My initial interest in her work related to my own work in reporting and writing about small school transformation for KnowledgeWorks Foundation. The new "Legacy" books detailing the work done in the 2006-07 school year will be out on Sept. 26, so I'll be sure to link to them here. I have two stories about Cleveland Heights High School: "Building Trust in the Power to Change: One leader of a small school hopes to build momentum by inspiring those around him" and "A Tale of Two Students: One reluctant, one enthusiastic and both testing the limits of Heights Schools."

Perlstein mentioned the upcoming CJR article to me when I spoke with her two weeks ago. Her article does a fine job of addressing the importance of in-depth and contextual reporting for such complex issues. While she is not dissing newspapers, she is cognizant, as a former Washington Post education reporter, of the limitations that prohibit such work from appearing in newspapers.

"...principals and elementary school teachers, not a rebellious bunch by nature—middle managers and line workers of a big bureaucracy, after all—can't afford to be that forthcoming with reporters they barely know. That's especially true with prominent newspaper like The Washington Post, where a glowing mention can buoy a school community for months.

And so in articles in the Post as well as in the Baltimore Sun and the Annapolis Capital, Tyler Heights Elementary is portrayed simply as a model of school reform done right, headed by a cheerleading, effortlessly optimistic principal. The stories don't delve into the heavy costs of the success; they rely heavily on interviews with the principal, and why would she have wanted to discuss the messy stuff?"

But in a book, such as Perlstein's, the messy stuff appears organically as part of the natural observation and the twin luxuries of space and time.

"Freed from the strictures of space, I was able to focus on issues I felt were crucial to understanding the inner workings of a school, which are the types of topics a newspaper editor is likely to consider inside baseball and the first things that get cut from an overlong newspaper article. Too often, education is covered as a consumer issue, with stories geared only to what editors think readers want to know about how their own children spend their time."

[Snip]

"A 'news you can use' approach to stories is fine in many cases, but not when it crowds out the comprehension that can come from seemingly wonky stuff."

That "wonky stuff" is the what drives much of education and certainly many educators. So to brush it off and to focus instead on loss of sports or recess or music or art is to miss that what also gets lost in the test-prep mania is explorations of science and social studies. But you only know that, only get to see those things when you are there—often.

"...For what I wanted to accomplish, I needed to paint pictures that could only be created through the kind of direct, rote observation that allowed every tiny piece to be put into perspective, and I needed to see enough to be convinced of my own judgments."

[Snip]

"I had to watch kindergartners take a certain literacy test thirty times before I felt comfortable drawing conclusions about the assessment and before picking one scene that both represented the students' experiences and illustrated my concerns."

While there is a certain detachment that comes from observing, the power in book writing is that you can express your opinion. Our mantra during our KnowledgeWorks writing workshops throughout the year is to show not tell. While we are not writing in first person, some of us struggle to put scenes into larger context. It's challenging trying to resist the temptation to tell when you've spent enough time to "just know" that certain things are. Perlstein believes that it is better to show than to tell, "but sometimes the strongest thing you can do is both."

Even with our challenges and struggles in storytelling and constant need to select, focus and reduce, what I enjoy most about my reporting on small schools is that it frees me somewhat from newspaper strictures that can get in the way of telling the story.

"You are allowed to say, 'It's hard to get parents to school in a poor community,' rather than, 'Experts say it's hard to get parents to school in a poor community.' "

To average readers that may sound like splitting hairs, but attribution is a block in the foundation of a newspaper's credibility.

"Nearly every scene I paint in the book I witnessed myself ... But in general, I get to be my own arbiter about whom to trust, about distinguishing gossip from reality. This is a weighty burden, but it becomes manageable when you get to know people well over a year."

Other freedoms found in reporting in book form including not needing the "journalistic shortcuts" often found in articles. For example, she didn't say "test scores rose" when the truth is the percentage of children who passed the test rose. A book doesn't require to provide equal time to opposing arguments considered baseless. Sarcasm can be used to illustrate a point without the fear of offending readers. And you have the freedom to change names to protect people's identity. This is not used in reporting, though anonymous sources are. What gives any unnamed or changed name sources credibility, whether in a book or newspaper, is that it's used with such specificity that it narrows the potential pool of people providing the sourcing.

Finally, you can tell the story without the risk of offending people.

"When I reported long ago for the Post about the growing behavior problems of elementary schoolchildren, everyone I interviewed, from the teachers to the administrators to the social scientists, implicated parents in some way, a point of view I passed along in the story. My editors let me know that I was being 'too hard on parents,' and that part of the story was excised considerably."

Perlstein concludes that newspapers' commitment to balance, objectivity, attribution, etc., while an impediment to telling compelling stories, necessarily keeps the focus tight. But that the best non-fiction books combine that journalistic discipline with looser narrative storytelling.

Defining success leads to new focus

A recent post on a freelance forum I belong to posed the question, "How do you define success?" The answers are as illuminating and varied as you'd expect. But if there's a common thread it's that success is not typically defined monetarily for writers and that what constitutes success evolves over time.

Making money has never been a motivating factor for me. Neither has the pursuit of fame. I view being a journalist altruistically. That moment hit home for me as I sat in an interview recently talking with three people involved with helping undocumented Hispanic immigrants assimilate to American culture.

With little to no resources, these three individuals are trying to change people's minds—both Americans and Latinos—about each other. It's a monumental undertaking and yet they are convinced that this is what is needed to solve the immigration crisis in our country—for groups of people to get to know one another.

It's so simple and yet so complex because you are dealing with so many obstacles—namely fear and prejudice—on the part of both groups. But I realized sitting there, understanding far more Spanish then I thought I would, that this is the kind of work that is meaningful to me—writing about people who are quietly going about changing our country.

My great-grandparents came to America from the Ukraine. (As the family archivist, I have their papers and photos.) I tried to imagine what they fled and what they confronted once here. What courage it takes to leave all you know behind and come to another country. And yet the dream of America and the reality are often so far apart today.

Likewise, I don't think there's any place more misunderstood among Americans than public schools. Even as parents, I don't think we really know what happens there during the day. Of course it's a mixed bag of successes and challenges. But how teachers, students and administrators deal with so many changes is fascinating.

As I begin my third year inside Cleveland Heights High School, covering the reform movement there, I've decided to expand my knowledge on education reform. I'd also like to explore how curriculum materials are chosen, how teachers conform or don't conform to teaching mandates, how scripted or unscripted the day is, how NCLB affects everything from what gets taught when and how to the breadth of educational experiences available. Of course I'll also be closely watching the debate over reauthorization of NCLB in Congress.

How faith plays out in our lives, work, art, music and literature continues to interest me greatly. Regardless of our spiritual background, I believe that faith of some kind, whether it's belief in a higher power or in some organized religion, inspires us daily. We may be aware of that inspiration or we may have never considered its quiet impact on our lives until someone asked.

Books continue to be a huge part of my life. I've done a good deal of reviewing for publication, but that's also something that doesn't pay much. Instead of spending time pitching reviews for publication and since so many newspapers have scaled back on book sections, I've decided to keep writing my reviews here. I'm going to write about what I'm reading here anyway, so this way I can indulge my inner book critic without having to chase down assignments for so little money.

Great stories to me will always feature ordinary people doing extraordinary things. I'm very fond of interviewing people and writing profiles. It's not often that I'll take credit for any journalistic skills, but I do think my ability to get beyond the surface of a profile is one of my strengths. So I'll continue to seek out and write those stories.

Multimedia storytelling is an exciting development in journalism. I'd like to experiment with audio in storytelling and, eventually, video. There are so many ways to tell a story and multimedia so enriches the experience. Hopefully, you'll bear with me here as I used this site as my testing ground for those experiments.

Greater Cleveland needs a good media criticism/commentary site. I'm willing to convene a group of talented people who would be interested in discussing how a site devoted to independent reporting and informed commentary could be built. My model for such a site here would be LA Observed: An Online Journal of Los Angeles Media, News and Sense of Place.

The Cleveland site will feature all the things I'd love to see in a good print magazine such as politics, business, economic development, education, culture, books, sports, history, profiles, travel, architecture, style, urban culture, media, the environment.... This site would be a mix of independent, in-depth reporting and intelligent, informed commentary. And it would be a mix of professional journalists and the best citizen journalists.

Does that sound interesting? Doable? Something you'd like to contribute to? Something you'd like to fund? If so, let me know (wendyhoke(at)gmail(dot)com).

I have a few stories I'm interested in selling, actually more than a few but those are all in various stages of pitching. One is an interview with syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer, one of the female pioneers in foreign correspondence. I had interviewed her for an article for Quill magazine in mid-summer, but I'm obviously not contributing to that publication in light of my having left SPJ. She was a wonderful interview and filled with amazing stories from a lifetime of writing about world leaders, revolutions, guerrilla warfare and more.

Linda Perlstein wrote the new book, "Tested: One American School Struggles to Make the Grade," about how one Maryland elementary school works to improve test scores. It's an amazing story that I was first interested in because of the way she immersed herself in the school, much as I do for KnowledgeWorks Foundation. My original intent was to see how such reporting translated into book form.

But after interviewing her and learning more about the origins of the education reform movement, I've decided that this is a story worth telling on a bigger scale. The timing is exquisite given that the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind will probably be one of the first items tackled by Congress after Labor Day. Perlstein is incredibly knowledgeable having spent years as an education reporter for The Washington Post.

So I've sharpened my focus to education reform, social justice issues, religion and people. I'm grateful for the gift of time and freedom that the past month has given me.

Heroes and tragedy

"Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy."

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

Roots of writer's block

"Of course, had I been trying for a debilitating case of writers' block, the conditions above Louie the Greek's couldn't have been better—hot, loud, the walls vibrating with every train pulling into and out of the station, the air vibrating with the aroma of pickles, bacon fat, fried potatoes and cheese. But I wouldn't have fared any better at a secluded writer's colony in the woods, because I was the ideal candidate for writer's block. All the classic defects converged in me—inexperience, impatience, perfectionism, confusion, fear. Above all I suffered from a naive view that writing should be easy. I thought words were supposed to come unbidden. The idea that errors were steppingstones to truth never once occurred to me, because I'd absorbed the ethos of the Times, that errors were nasty little things to be avoided, and misapplied that ethos to the novel I was attempting. When I wrote something wrong I always took it to mean that something was wrong with me, and when something was wrong with me I lost my nerve, my focus, and my will."

— from J.R. Moehringer's memoir, "The Tender Bar"

In one word, what's the story about?

Slapped on the wall above my desk and in direct line of sight when I gaze up from my laptop screen is a golden-yellow Post-It note with the words: Select, Focus, Reduce.

Coming off two big writing deadlines in which I've had to compress a year's worth of reporting into a combined 4,500 words of narrative, these three words have been my guide and my editor—a constant check on my writing.

Any writer worth his or her salt will tell you that it's much harder to write short than long. For this project, it almost seemed impossible. But I took a different approach this year. I first relied on my memory. What were the most important themes to emerge this year? Who were the strongest characters? What scenes were foremost in my mind?

While I could fashion a list and an outline with answers to those questions, an overarching theme eluded me on my first story. But as I started to think about the links between the answers I had in front of me, the theme emerged. Everything about this year and this project involves change. So I decided that I would explore:

-- the struggle to change
-- the power to change
-- one individual's ability to effect change
-- the need to change

This is the first time I've approached a writing assignment this way, to whittle an entire narrative down to one word, or, as Chip Scanlan wrote this week one theme. His Chip on Your Your Shoulder column provided a great example of how one photograph of Mississippi lawmen from the Civil Rights era could lead to an entire book about legacies. The author had a wise editor who came up with the one-word theme. The column was perfectly timed to help in my own work. Here's Scanlan with some writerly food for thought this Friday morning:

The best (themes) resonate. They reflect universal qualities and truths about what it means to be human. They connect the domains journalists spend their time in, such as law enforcement, politics, education, with news audiences. Every domain has its own jargon, mores and rules. A theme lays down a bridge between consumers and the news they need to function as citizens in a democracy.

It's a fortunate writer who gets to work with an editor like Jonathan Segal, one who understands that a single word holds the promise of an entire book. But you can give yourself, or another writer, that same a gift: a compass that points to the north star and helps you navigate journeys that lead to places where the best stories are found. Try it.

Working on a story? What's it really about? In one word.