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Episode 13: Heather Boerner
We had a fascinating conversation with journalist and self-published author of a “long piece” on heterosexual, mixed HIV status couples who get pregnant through sex, Positively Negative. Our conversation ranged from the difference between daily newspaper journalism and narrative, the nut graph, writing every day to what she would do differently if she had her self-published long piece to do over and the unexpected ways it changed the lives of her subjects as well as her career and gave her a “beat.”
We delved into the history of “The New Journalism,” the way journalism has changed and is changing and the return of longform journalism and the way that surprised expectations after the advent of the Internet.
A rousing and inspirational discussion of the business side of writing included loving your work as a way to approach pitching and marketing. Heather offered great advice as a former business coach for writers. She didn’t skirt the challenges of selling stories that have women at the center, and the delicate work of understanding the differences between the maximal story, the minimal story, and the story that's really there. So many tips, from using spreadsheets for timelines to making unlikable characters likable, and much more.
Links and books discussed
@HeatherBoerner for Twitter
www.HIVlovewins.com
Positively Negative on Facebook
Sweet Valley High
John McPhee
Tom Wolfe
Jacqui Banaszynski’s Aids in the Heartland
The Daily Beast
Gilmore Girls
Andrew Solomon Far From The Tree
Shop Indie Bookstores
Joan Didion Slouching Towards Bethlehem: “Dreamers of the Golden Dream” (first essay in the collection)
Shop Indie Bookstores
Truman Capote in cold blood
Shop Indie Bookstores
The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
Shop Indie Bookstores
Gone Girl
Shop Indie Bookstores
Heather Boerner
San Francisco-based journalist Heather Boerner is the author of Positively Negative: Love, Pregnancy and Science’s Surprising Victory Over HIV. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, The San Francisco Chronicle and elsewhere.
Story Makers is a podcast that features in-depth conversations with accomplished writers, filmmakers and industry experts about story craft, technique, habit and survival--everything you need to know to stay inspired, connect to your creativity, find others’ wonderful stories and your own success.
The hosts:
Elizabeth Stark is a published, agented novelist and distributed filmmaker who teaches and mentors writers at BookWritingWorld.com.
Angie Powers is a distributed filmmaker and published short story writer with an MFA in creative writing and a certificate in screenwriting from UCLA who teaches story structure at BookWritingWorld.com.
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By Book Writing World
4.3
4848 ratings
We had a fascinating conversation with journalist and self-published author of a “long piece” on heterosexual, mixed HIV status couples who get pregnant through sex, Positively Negative. Our conversation ranged from the difference between daily newspaper journalism and narrative, the nut graph, writing every day to what she would do differently if she had her self-published long piece to do over and the unexpected ways it changed the lives of her subjects as well as her career and gave her a “beat.”
We delved into the history of “The New Journalism,” the way journalism has changed and is changing and the return of longform journalism and the way that surprised expectations after the advent of the Internet.
A rousing and inspirational discussion of the business side of writing included loving your work as a way to approach pitching and marketing. Heather offered great advice as a former business coach for writers. She didn’t skirt the challenges of selling stories that have women at the center, and the delicate work of understanding the differences between the maximal story, the minimal story, and the story that's really there. So many tips, from using spreadsheets for timelines to making unlikable characters likable, and much more.
Links and books discussed
@HeatherBoerner for Twitter
www.HIVlovewins.com
Positively Negative on Facebook
Sweet Valley High
John McPhee
Tom Wolfe
Jacqui Banaszynski’s Aids in the Heartland
The Daily Beast
Gilmore Girls
Andrew Solomon Far From The Tree
Shop Indie Bookstores
Joan Didion Slouching Towards Bethlehem: “Dreamers of the Golden Dream” (first essay in the collection)
Shop Indie Bookstores
Truman Capote in cold blood
Shop Indie Bookstores
The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
Shop Indie Bookstores
Gone Girl
Shop Indie Bookstores
Heather Boerner
San Francisco-based journalist Heather Boerner is the author of Positively Negative: Love, Pregnancy and Science’s Surprising Victory Over HIV. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, The San Francisco Chronicle and elsewhere.
Story Makers is a podcast that features in-depth conversations with accomplished writers, filmmakers and industry experts about story craft, technique, habit and survival--everything you need to know to stay inspired, connect to your creativity, find others’ wonderful stories and your own success.
The hosts:
Elizabeth Stark is a published, agented novelist and distributed filmmaker who teaches and mentors writers at BookWritingWorld.com.
Angie Powers is a distributed filmmaker and published short story writer with an MFA in creative writing and a certificate in screenwriting from UCLA who teaches story structure at BookWritingWorld.com.