Devoted to publishing, publishers and to those who craft the written word

Welcome to the penultimate installment of my interview with Pushcart-nominated author, Susan Henderson. Over at her website LitPark, she wrote explained the secret of her success: "LitPark is only as good as the people who play here."
 

Today, her father-in-law comes out to play, talking about growing up in Pearl Harbor during World War Two--a bit of video storytelling from a versitile web writer.

 
This is my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a serialized set of weekly interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web publishing...

 
Jason Boog: 
You've written for some of the biggest writing outfits on the Internet. How did you end up doing web writing? How can writers look for more work on the web and build relationships with web editors?

Susan Henderson: 
Pretty much anything I've ever done or published has been solicited. If I look scattered about, it's more a reflection of how seldom I say no. I like the random factor in letting life mold me rather than trying to mold my life to some rigid plan I might think up.
 

The trick to building relationships is really easy. Listen to people when they speak. Remember the details they shared with you.  If you stop looking at people as stepping stones and just commit to genuinely caring about them, then you have something important and immeasurable at the end of the day. 

 
So that would be my advice. Try to listen more than you speak. And if you read a story in a magazine that makes you gasp or tear up, instead of saying, "Oh, I should submit a story there," stop and appreciate the one you just read. And then write to that author or editor and tell them what you liked about it.

 
As soon as you stop making the world all about you and your career, you realize it's a rich and mesmerizing place.