Writing and Editing

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Wayne talks about the lies in our culture, but the truth among pornographers and standup comedians.

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This episode of Editing Writing consists of an interview and chat I had with Robert Rosen on April 10. He was in New York City and I was, as usual, in Ottawa, Canada. Robert is a writer and editor who has produced several books and whose work has appeared in many magazines and periodicals.

I was particularly interested though in his book about when he worked in the porn industry as an editor and writer in the 80s and 90s. It’s called Beaver Street, and when it came out in 2010 it was well reviewed in both popular magazines and academic journals.

It was a really fun (and funny) and informative talk—and stay tuned till the end, when he reveals how he came up with the title.

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Wayne discusses some of the new words and uses of words that have come into English in the last couple of years since COVID began, and also how they illustrate some typical ways in which the language works.

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This episode consists of an interview I did via Zoom with Lauca (she is in Germany and I am in Canada). I had come across her website and I was interested in several aspects of her work, including the different genres she writes in, reactions to her decision to write from the point of view of a man, and her experience with self-publishing. You can check out some of her work on her website, lauca.eu.

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Wayne talks about the importance of tone, and consistency of tone, in writing. He defines the term, provides some examples to illustrate the meaning, and also some cases from his editing work where issues of tone need to be addressed.

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Wayne talks about dictionaries and words, specifically the Oxford English Dictionary, and the five possible things that happen to any word that ever enters the English language.

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Wayne makes some comments about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock during the Academy Awards ceremony, and extrapolates to talk about art in general and how it is separate from real life.

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In this episode, Wayne interviews young fantasy writer Sarah Humpherys, who had her first novel published when she was just 16 years old. You can check out her website here, and purchase her novel on amazon, where (as of March 26, 2022) she has an impressive 4.5 rating based on 70 reviews. Sarah lives in Utah.

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Wayne talks about the use of euphemism not only in our everyday personal lives, but also in society in general as well as in contexts such as war or where the stakes are high for an organization that cannot really come out and say in plain language the truth about what it is up to.

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Wayne discusses in general how it's inappropriate to make comparisons between versions of the same work done in two different art forms, and then talks about some of his favourites: American Psycho; Hamlet; Glengarry Glen Ross; A Clockwork Orange; and The Exorcist.