Week 7

Hi all,

for Week 7's nature writing, the extra stuff beyond the reader is basically just to read the four pages from the Weldon essay, which recently won a national nature writing prize. there are two extracts from the 11 pages, so don't worry that it isn't consecutive. you can hear an interview with Weldon here.

if you can either bring in the in-class writing you did (Tuesday) or the ten minutes' worth of homework on either a place you've been completely alone or in a crowd, that would be good for discussion.

for the pitches - I hope we'll get through everyone but depending on time we may split it between weeks 7 and 8. You do NOT need a piece of writing. the pitch is the very short description of your piece you give to an editor to see if they are willing to take it for their publication. you need to cover:

- a one sentence description ("adventure piece about a disastrous climb of Mt Everest")

- the target audience ("will appeal to people who've dreamed of climbing Everest", or more prosaically, a piece on national dishes of India might appeal to middle aged cook-at-home types)

- two publications you think might take it (say a specialist climbing magazine and a more general magazine like the Weekend Australian - the Indian piece might for instance go into Gourmet Traveller and/or Epicure/a newspaper travel section)

- the themes (not the topic) - in the case of Into Thin Air, personal responsibility, the question of whether commercial climbing has gone too far. this can cover the tone of the piece too: investigative, humorous, personal, interview-based.

- length (number of words)

- supplementary elements (images, graphics, breakout boxes (say a list of deaths on Everest in the past ten year, or prices and services offered by climbing companies)

and an "it's like" pitch; what articles in that publication it resembles, writers whose style you are trying to emulate, a wider debate you feel the piece buys into.

these are all things you need to have in a successful magazine pitch, in one form or another: they make it easier for the editor to picture the resulting piece, and to figure out how it will fit into the template of that particular publication. they also reassure the editor that you know their publication and will write to their style and audience.

if you end up not writing the piece you pitch, that's OK.

After the break we only have four more weeks; anyone who is ready to workshop a longer folio piece will be welcome to volunteer to distribute it in Week 8.

Jenny