Dianne Jacob, Will Write For Food

Useful Tips, Interviews, and Stories to Inspire Food Writers and Bloggers

Nora Ephron

2 Books for Your Holiday Wish List

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Do you make a list of what to buy friends and family at the holidays? What about your own wish list?

On my desk is a list of names I wrote by hand on a long, yellow lined sheet. I’ve checked off all of them now, which is good because Hanukkah is long gone, and Christmas is a week away.

My personal wish list is new. I started it last year, buying myself one (pricey) book I’ve coveted in December, and vowing to do so every year. In 2012 it was the cookbook Plenty, since I already had Jerusalem, and have been enjoying both ever since.

This month I’ve been lusting for The Most of Nora Ephron, a collection of her work, published posthumously. Ephron was my writing hero: sassy, funny, and so right about women, love, and politics. At $35, it’s a tome, but I bet the pages aren’t as yellowed as her old paperbacks on my shelf. There’s a section on food writing, including [Read more…] about 2 Books for Your Holiday Wish List

Nora Ephron, My Writing Mentor

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When I was in journalism school in the 1970s, we looked to Esquire magazine, not the New Yorker, as the pinnacle of long-form narrative non-fiction. Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer and other Successful White Male Writers were our gods.

The ’60s and ’70s were a time of Ms. magazine, supposed bra burnings, and Gloria Steinem. It was also when Nora Ephron became the first female columnist in Esquire. Ephron, a feminist, burst upon the national scene writing essays like “A Few Words About Breasts” in this magazine for men. She visited a feminine hygiene plant, explaining how testers [Read more…] about Nora Ephron, My Writing Mentor

Now That's How to Write a Review!

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criticsIt seems that when it comes to reviewing, the food blogging community is more interested in promotion rather than in a balanced critique. I can’t tell you how many bloggers have said, in comments on this blog, they only do positive reviews because “the reader’s time is short” or “I’m only going to write about it if I love it.”

Why? Rave reviews are boring. Totally negative reviews are rare and difficult to do well. How about going for middle ground, where the review is mostly positive, but acknowledges the cons?

Finally, I can point to a few examples from people [Read more…] about Now That's How to Write a Review!

Sony promotes food bloggers on J&J site

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imagesTalk about great publicity. Sony Pictures is promoting food bloggers with links to a whole bunch of them  on its official movie website homepage for Julie & Julia.

The navigation isn’t obvious, so let me tell you how it works. Click on the white egg in the right-hand corner, and a long list of food bloggers will go by to the left. Just click on the blog name you’d like to see.

Pretty impressive, except I’m wondering why they threw in a link to Epicurious’s Epi-Log. The earliest post on that blog was a breathy report of the New York premiere focusing on name dropping and what people ate. The Sony site also provides a link to Great Grub, “a forum where you can connect with people who share your passion for food.” If that’s what Sony wanted, why not steer people to with Chow.com or Serious Eats?

Thanks to Sarah at Lettuce Eat Kale for sending the link.