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Feb28
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Yesterday, Steve Huff explored how a recent murder evoked painful memories about his own family. In a few paragraphs, this crime writer delivered more insight into the murders than an army of salacious tabloid reporters. By questioning his own relationship to these grim morality tales, Steve Huff brings an emotional truth to his subject matter that you won't find anywhere else:
"I know there have been other bloggers who focus on crime who don’t mind criticizing victims as well. Saying 'well, if you live that kind of life…' I don’t intend to be one of those bloggers. If you are coming here looking to bitch about something inappropriate or strange in a victims’ life, from here on out, I can tell you, you can go someplace else. The family members and loved ones of those people are surfing the web. I know it, even if you don’t. For some of them, it is bad enough that anyone writes about the crime at all..."
Countless amateur detectives visit Huff's popular crime site every day. Huff is a featured contributor at Court TV's Crimelibrary.com, and a guest expert on many televised crime shows. For all these reasons, I picked Huff to participate in my deceptively simple feature: Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web publishing.
Disclaimer: While I can't imagine why children would read The Publishing Spot, this edition is not for children, as many of these links reference grim material...
Jason Boog:
On average, how many readers contribute to the research on a single case? What kind of a role do your readers play in your writing and analysis on your blog?
Steve Huff:
Readers contributing to a case is somewhat new for me. I was doing this solo for a long time, and that's something I take some pride in. At first contributions would come in private e-mails, and I'd develop a relationship with that person...
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Feb27
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These days, we leave digital traces as thoughtlessly as fingerprint smudges. We log on to chat rooms, write blog posts, and create stacks of Internet profiles every year. As teenagers weaned on social networking sites like MySpace grow up, these...
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Feb24
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As we trundle off into the weekend, I want to add two new blogs to the imaginary blogroll here at ThePublishingSpot. First is The End of Cyberspace, a blog published by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, the author who started a cyberspace...
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Feb23
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Feeling a bit sick with the flu and feeling a bit sad that some readers haven't read all of the "Five Easy Questions" series, I've decided to publish a monthly digest that collects the "Five Easy Questions" from the past...
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Feb22
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One of my favorite blogs on my hardboiled fiction blogroll is run by Tribe, a mystery writer living in Ohio. Over the last week, he wrote about a Mississippi Review call for submissions in the vein of "postmodern pulp." Tribe...
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Feb21
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The Financial Times just ran a story where Trevor Butterworth is poopoo-ing the blogosphere. The article throws a couple well-aimed punches at blogs and tosses off some unexpected George Orwell gems too. It ends with this blazing paragraph that was...
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Ben Vershbow, one of the analytic superheroes over at the Institute for the Future of the Book has a smart, yet breezy exploration of a crazy late-night Infomercial about a Bible DVD:"What the makers of this DVD seem to have...
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Feb17
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Today, after a week of grappling with story ideas, drafts, and blog posts about the art of getting published, I realized I was missing the point--it was time to write. So I wrote. Last night, tonight, and the whole rest...
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Feb16
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I just spent a half hour reading through Mindy McAdams' sprawling collection of web storytelling resources over at the MaclooMedia blog. McAdams literally co-wrote the boook on web journalism. Besides producing a mountain of websites, she now works as a...
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Feb15
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Thanks to the ever-so-useful portal at Interactive Narratives, I found this amazing series of podcast/videocast/reported pieces being run at the San Jose Mercury News. Executive Editor Susan Goldberg explained the project in this letter to her readers:"Today and for the...
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Feb14
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Yesterday, Rex Hammock blogged his opinion about star-studded bloggers that chase popularity like high school cheerleaders: "I suggest a re-reading of the book The Millionaire Next Door, that reveals that most 'wealthy' people in America don't fit into the cliché...
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Feb13
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Over the weekend, writer and publisher Rex Hammock blogged this punchy bit of business writing know-how: "I must respectfully disagree with the notion that 'small is the new big.' What's new about it? Small has always been big. When has...
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Feb10
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My friend Stephen Bryant just published an article about citizen journalism at the Online Journalism Review. He opens with this disenchanting lead:"Last October I traveled to the Argent Hotel in San Francisco to cover the Web 2.0 conference. As I...
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Feb 9
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I took a slight editorial detour with my Second Life story yesterday for one really good reason: web-based writers need to pay attention to online worlds, from Halo to Second Life to World of Warcraft. In January, Second Life reached...
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Feb 8
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My character chats with Tom Lowenhaupt's character inside Second LifeMy super screwed up last month, leaving my building without heat for 5 days; without hot water for 7 days; without a stove for two weeks. Gas companies were called and...
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Feb 6
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Over 12 years ago, Jeff VanderMeer started a sprawling book that explored the mythical city of Ambergris, blending illustrations, complicated font-shifts, and coded passages into the mosaic text. Ten years later, after spending thousands of dollars and hours on this...
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Feb 5
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I discovered Jeff VanderMeer while Google-ing madly for new books. Oddly enough, I found VanderWorld before I ever read a single line that Jeff wrote--but reading his opinions about books and music on his blog, I knew I’d found a...
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Feb 3
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It's a gloomy day in Manhattan today, and I'm running behind on ThePublishingSpot reading. In honor of the weekend laziness, I'm Letting My Friends Do All the Work--pointing you to the best of the web publishing news. First off, my...
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Feb 2
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The Australian business blog superhero, Darren Rowse, just spent some quality time surfing through my parent network, Know More Media (KMM). Rowse turned his blog LivingRoom into a bustling network, a model example for any writer looking to make a...
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Feb 1
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While perusing the Online Journalism Blog (a helpful resource run by four web journalists with abbreviated bylines) I discovered a site with lots of potential for us online writers. Interactive Narratives is a collection of image and audio-rich blogs written...
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