WHAT I DO AND WHY
When I was helping Michael Betzold research and write Queen of Diamonds: The Tiger Stadium Story – a book of which I remain extremely proud – under deadline pressure in Detroit during the summer of 1991, Mike told me: “I know you think you’re a literary genius and all, but I think you have the makings of a journalist.” I fell into journalism – as another mentor and role model, the great British foreign correspondent and travel writer Gavin Young, put it about himself – “the way a drunken man falls into a pond.”
My work in Detroit and then in Southeast and South Asia helped me eventually understand that honest narration and documentation are among the highest and most useful accomplishments to which a writer can aspire, as well as the most difficult. Thus when I told a literary agent in New York that I had published a book on Pakistan and he asked, “What’s your argument?” the only response I could think to offer was: I’m not making an argument, I’m telling a story. If I have an argument, it’s implicit. In other words, the world is of a piece, all prose is occasional prose – written for and/or prompted by an occasion or event – and a writer’s job is to notice what’s going on around him and to articulate it accurately and with sympathy, using his resources of experience, curiosity, literacy and intelligence.
Having published Alive and Well in Pakistan, and knowing that a sequel or update to that book was called for, I was determined not only to publish such a book promptly, but to do so on terms that would allow me to sustain my career and to continue doing the work I feel compelled to do. The result was Overtaken By Events: A Pakistan Road Trip, which I published independently in spring 2010. The funds needed for the editing, cover design, printing and other publishing costs came from public speaking events, where I invited attendees to support and participate in independent reporting and publishing by pre-purchasing Overtaken By Events singly or in tandem with Alive and Well in Pakistan.
In many ways, this is a throwback to an older style of writing and publishing. As Professor Jay Rosen of New York University put it in his foreword to the collection of writings about the World Trade Center attack that he and I co-edited, “The most basic act of journalism, by no means limited to journalists, is when someone says to us, ‘I was there, you weren’t, let me tell you about it.’” Thus I see my books, my occasional writing, my Facebook and Twitter updates, and my slide shows and other public speaking simply as the same work in various formats: different ways of being what I am, a reporter.
The January 12, 2010 earthquake in Haiti compels me to write and publish a book about my long relationship with that country dating back to 1982, when I first went there with my father at age sixteen. I’ve been writing drafts and versions of that book since at least 1994, and the earthquake both allows and compels me finally to bring it to fruition. Having successfully covered the costs of publishing Overtaken By Events with pre-sales, I plan to do the same with Bearing the Bruise: A Lifetime in Haiti and then to bring that book to the public through ongoing public speaking and the Internet.
It behooves any working artist to be cognizant of and, to the extent possible, in control of the business aspects of his or her work. My vehicle for doing this is Blue Ear Books, which currently exists as a rubric for publishing Overtaken By Events and Bearing the Bruise. I have one other similar book in mind that I would like to write. Beyond that, the development of Blue Ear Books might allow me to consider publishing and helping market a very small and select number of books by other authors. Mostly, though, publishing and selling my own books allows me to continue doing what I do.
Seattle
July 12, 2010
