The Journey from Page to Print
By Reine Hauser
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Robert Hirsch.
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Robert Hirsch—demystifying photography
It takes some people a while to figure out their true path in life. Robert Hirsch, for example, began and, in fact, continues as a photographer. But a detour in the mid 1980s led him on an extraordinary journey to becoming the author of several of the most important books in the field. The books originally stemmed from his frustration when teaching a course in color photography. He found there was no good text for his students to use, so he set out to write his own. The result was Exploring Color Photography, originally published by William C. Brown in Madison, WI. This popular volume has now been through three editions, and Hirsch is working on the fourth, to be published by McGraw Hill.
Hirsch grew up in Long Island, and went to the Rochester Institute of Technology to study photography. At the time, it was one of the few places in the country to study photography as an undergraduate. He went on to get his Master’s from Arizona State University. Hirsch came to Buffalo as a visiting artist at the University at Buffalo in 1991, just after he had published a guide to photography techniques, Photographic Possibilities (first published in 1990 by Focal Press, Boston, MA with a second edition appearing in 2000, in collaboration with photographer John Valentino.) His work on what would become a major book in the field, Seizing the Light: A History of Photography was one of things that drew him to Buffalo. The year-long academic appointment gave him time to conduct research at the George Eastman House in Rochester.
From UB, Hirsch went on to become the Executive Director of CEPA Gallery, the organization in the Market Arcade complex in downtown Buffalo that specializes in all permutations of the photographic arts, a position he held from 1993-1999. During this time, he continued his photographic work, exhibiting nationally. And all the while, writing was a parallel career for this energetic man.
It took almost ten years from the time the idea was hatched to the actual birth of Seizing the Light. Hirsch says, “I had no idea how much I didn’t know until I attempted to write about the history of my own field. Then it became overwhelmingly scary - how much there is to consider and how do you tell the story, because it really is more about what you leave out. The first draft of the manuscript was 150,000 words. By the time it was published by McGraw Hill, it was reduced by two-thirds, with over 500 pictures. [As it is] it’s over 500 pages long. I didn’t want it to be any longer...it becomes unmanageable for most people.”
Hirsch points out that “writing starts off as a totally solitary activity. You have to be able to enjoy and appreciate that aspect of it. While you are writing you are in control. You can put down any words you want, any way you want. But once it goes to the editor, everything changes. It becomes a group activity. It becomes like making a movie. Everyone has a brilliant idea of how to improve what you’ve done. Part of the process is sorting through all these brilliant ideas, and [still maintaining] the integrity of what you originally intended. This may be why there are so many boring books...[they read as though they’re] written by a committee. All the individuality gets sucked out.”
If you’re a writer, his advice is to be prepared for a lot of rejection. Hirsch says that it’s even harder to get published now than it was when he began, because of the numerous mergers of commercial presses into huge publishing conglomerates. He notes that there are many more smaller presses now because digitization has made some aspects of publishing less expensive.
But, he adds, “the down side of small presses is that many people who publish with a small press, also end up with a garage full of books. Even if they’re fantastic books. The problem is how the book industry distributes its product...If you publish with a small press, you’ll have a heck of a hard time getting a book distributed nationally—through the chain stores etc. Say a major commercial publisher publishes one hundred titles a year; even then the publisher will actively promote only ten percent of them. You have to fight if [you want your book] to be distributed nationally or internationally.”
Three nationally published and distributed books, in several editions—not bad for a guy who considers himself to be primarily a photographer!
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Carl Dennis.
Photo by Nancy J. Parisi. |
Last spring, Carl Dennis won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his new book, Practical Gods. This is just the latest in a long series of honors, including a Ruth Lilly Prize in 2000 (which carried with it an award of $100,0000) and the numerous grants he’s received over the years from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. Dennis has certainly earned these rewards, after publishing eight extremely highly regarded books of poetry.
A native of St. Louis, Carl Dennis began writing poetry in high school, and pursued writing and English literature though studies at Oberlin College in Ohio, the University of Chicago, the University of Minnesota (where he received his B.A.), and the University of California at Berkeley, where he received his Ph.D. in 1966. He was immediately hired by the University at Buffalo’s English department.
Ever since, he’s lived in Buffalo and taught at UB. After thirty-six years of dedication to his students and the community, a year ago he taught his last class, capping his academic career with an appointment as Artist in Residence. Dennis can now, finally, devote himself more or less full time to writing poetry.
Dennis published his first book A House of My Own in 1974, when he was in his mid thirties. The noted poet and translator Richard Howard had begun to edit a new poetry series in 1971 for George Braziller, Inc. Dennis says that “Richard Howard told me The Braziller Series of Poetry was booked solid for two and a half years”—essentially saying that Dennis should look elsewhere for a publisher in the meantime. “But,” Dennis explains with a touch of irony “I finally wore him down.” Howard also published Dennis’ next book, Climbing Down, in l976.
Despite the prestige the Braziller Series acquired under Howard’s guidance, the Series was discontinued. Poetry has rarely if ever been a best seller in the United States, and commercial publishers (who by definition must make a profit) are seldom willing or able to publish it on a continuing basis.
Fortunately, Princeton University Press had begun a new poetry series, and Dennis’s next book, Signs and Wonders ,was published there in l979. Then as Dennis tells it, “I happened to appear in an anthology published by [the publishing house] William Morrow, and they published my next two books [The Near World (1985) and The Outskirts of Troy (l988.)]
By the time the manuscript for his next book was completed, his editor at William Morrow had left the company. With no one at William Morrow rooting for the book, the publisher was no longer interested. Dennis’ friend, the poet Stephen Dobyns suggested sending it to Dobyns’ publisher, Viking Penguin. The result was Meetings with Time, published in l992.
To Dennis, the process of finding a publisher has seemed an arduous one, despite (or perhaps because of) working almost exclusively with major commercial publishers rather than small presses. Unlike many fiction and non-fiction writers, the vast majority of poets (including Carl Dennis) do not have a literary agent to help them along the path. Over the years, with the mergers of publishing houses, and the rapid turn over of editors within those houses, Dennis has had a struggle to see his work in print. And this despite a sterling reputation and positive reviews.
One comfort for writers of poetry, as opposed to fiction or non-fiction prose, is that there is virtually no editorial commentary from the publisher. If a publisher accepts your book of poetry, they don’t make any changes to the text. Dennis has also found that Penguin has allowed him to select typefaces, and art for the cover of the book.
Since winning the Pulitzer Prize, let’s hope publishing will come more easily to Carl Dennis. It seems to have happened already. Poetry as Persuasion, an Essay for Writers, his first book of literary criticism, was published by the University of Georgia Press in 200l, and, in 2004, look for Dennis’ Selected Poems, a selection of poems from each of his eight books.
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For Madeline D. Davis and Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy, writing Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold : The History of a Lesbian Community was a twelve-year-long labor of love. The genesis of the book grew out of conversations between the authors beginning in 1978. A Buffalo native working on her second Master’s degree at UB, Davis had considered writing on women, needlework, and economics after the Civil War.
Because, as she explains, “That’s because I was an embroiderer and a quilter. I was interested in how those things were done by middle class women after the Civil War.”
Kennedy, meanwhile, had grown up in Brooklyn, and moved to Buffalo to teach at UB. They met when Kennedy became Davis’ academic advisor. Kennedy had trained as anthropologist, and both authors were interested in oral history and how that differed from sociological study and biography. They decided to focus on the lesbian community because, as Davis puts it “At the time, the [early] folksingers and needleworkers were all dead. But the lesbians were all alive and we could talk to them directly before they croaked.”
They began their research with the help of a couple of small grants that allowed them to buy “...a tape transcriber, which is a tape recorder with a foot pedal” and “hire a secretary working at UB to transcribe the tapes” as Kennedy and David collected them.
A colleague of Kennedy’s had published a book with Routledge, an academic publisher that specializes in scholarly publications that are of limited interest to a wider audience. As the research progressed over the years, David and Kennedy eventually submitted Boots of Leather to Routledge, who immediately accepted it, in part for the book’s coverage of ground-breaking material, and in part because of its sheer charm.
Then something extraordinary happened. Routledge, after publishing the first printing in a hardcover edition, sensed it was good enough, and the material compelling enough to interest a wider audience.
Davis explains “With our permission, Routledge had meetings with a number of paperback publishers.” Eventually, Penguin made an offer of $70,000 for the rights to publish it in paperback. Up to that time it was the highest they had ever paid for a non-fiction title.
When Penguin published the soft cover edition the following year, the company created displays at bookstores, and took out a few ads in Publishers Weekly and literary journals. They also sent advance copies to The New York Times, the Boston Globe and papers in San Francisco, all of whom reviewed the book in glowing terms. Boots of Leather went on to win the Jesse Barnard Award for the best book on women in the field of Sociology in 1994, the Ruth Benedict Award for the best book on a gay/lesbian theme in Anthropology in 1994, and a Lambda Literary Award in 1993.
Since its publication, Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy left UB after twenty eight years to become a professor and Head of Women’s Studies at the University of Arizona. She has since published Feminist Scholarship: Kindling in the Groves of Academe (University of Illinois Press 1983) (with Ellen DuBois et al.) and is now engaged in writing a biography of Buffalonian Julia Reinstein.
Madeline D. Davis continues to be an asset to Western New York. In November she was honored for her contributions by Gay and Lesbian Youth Services at a “Gayla” dinner at the Harbour Club in HSBC Arena. Her co-authorship of Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold, the first oral history of lesbians and gay men in Buffalo, has grown into the founding of the Buffalo Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Archives, of which she is curator.
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Mick Cochrane.
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Despite having written two nationally published novels, Mick Cochrane still feels his true métier is the short story. He started writing seriously as an undergraduate at St. Thomas, a Catholic liberal arts college in St. Paul, MN. Cochrane had “always been interesting in writing, language and reading,” and there he studied with Len Otto, a fiction writer who provided encouragement. After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1985, Cochrane was offered a teaching position at Canisius College in Buffalo, where he has been a professor ever since.
Flesh Wounds, Cochrane’s first published novel, grew out of a short story. Originally, Cochrane hadn’t planned to write a novel. Rather, he “set out to write good fiction.” He spent three or four years working on Flesh Wounds, which has been described as “the story of a Midwestern family waking up to the unpleasant truths that it would rather keep hidden.”
Cochrane sent query letters to a handful of literary agents who had represented other books of serious new fiction that he respected, and who Cochrane thought might be sympathetic to his work. One agent was. Cochrane notes that in terms of editing fiction “agents do more and more, and editors [at publishing houses] do less and less.” It was his agent, not a publisher, who asked him to do revisions. Cochrane wrote another draft of the novel, and the agent sent it to ten editors (whose taste and preferences he knew) that might be interested in the book. The happy outcome? Both Scribner’s and Doubleday expressed enthusiasm, and the rights to publish the books were auctioned between the two, with Doubleday obtaining the rights. The paperback rights to the book by the rising young author were sold, after another auction among publishers, to Penguin.
Then Flesh Wounds was selected as a finalist for the Barnes and Noble’s Discover Young Writers’ Series in 1997, in which a jury selects sixteen books by important new authors each year. This increased the visibility and sales of Cochrane’s first book tremendously. Meanwhile, Cochrane had begun work on a follow up novel, Sport, a story told through the voice of a young boy. Unfortunately, by the time Sport was completed, his editor, Jessie Cohen, had left Doubleday. Cochrane’s agent placed the book with Melissa Jacobs at St. Martin’s Press. St. Martin’s, explains Cochrane, “is more commercial and sales driven.”
But then, more bad luck: Jacobs left St. Martin’s before Sport was published in January, 2001. This had a negative impact on the book, which essentially was editorially orphaned.
Cochrane notes that “the odds are totally stacked against someone from upstate New York who is trying to write serious fiction.” Fortunately, he adds “I don’t feel any great urge to be rich and famous. My goal is to write something good rather than something salable.” The author continues his fiction writing, and is currently working on new short stories.
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Derek Smith.
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Southerner Derek Smith moved to Buffalo three years ago. A native of Bishopville, a small town in South Carolina, he attended Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, GA, studying journalism. For eleven years, he was a crime reporter at several newspapers in South Carolina, during which time he began his first book, Glory Yards, which was published in 1993 by Rutledge Hill Press in Nashville. The book describes the legendary annual football rivalry between the University of Florida and the University of Georgia. Smith had no literary agent, so he consulted the how-to-guide for aspiring writers, Writer’s Market, and looked for smaller commercial publishers who might be interested in that kind of material. He sent Frederic C. Biel, Inc. in Savannah a query letter, and as Smith says, he “had pretty good success with that method”—they accepted the book for publication.
Smith next began work on Civil War Savannah. Smith wanted to write a book that would provide information without being an educational text; the result was this popular book that focuses on the lovely Georgia city from approximately 1860 through Reconstruction. Smith says, “As a PR person I was able to help [the publishers] with the marketing,” and he did numerous television and radio interviews to promote the book, as well as speaking engagements to small groups.
Smith then began work on his first novel, The Sentinels in 1994, but “put it on the shelf a couple of times” only to pick it up again and begin work once again. Combining history and mystery, the plot of the novel revolves around unsolved murders in contemporary Charleston, SC and a Confederate submarine that in 1864 became the first underwater vessel ever to blow up an enemy ship. Unfortunately, the book was published in October 2001, shortly after the 9/11 tragedy. No one was paying much attention to first novels then, and things only got worse—he was scheduled to make an appearance at a Barnes and Noble bookstore the very day the U.S. began to bomb Afghanistan.
These circumstances, out of anyone’s control, depressed sales. But perseverance pays off. Derek Smith has two more books under contract: a second novel, Kamallah’s Bracelet, will be published in 2003, also by Frederic Biel Inc. Another history, Lee’s Last Stand will be published by White Mane Publishing within the next few weeks.
Derek Smith is already at work on another work of non-fiction about the Civil War entitled The Gallant Dead, and he just started a new novel. Smith pretty much sums it up for all of these writers when he says “You have to be a persistent individual, work hard, and not let rejection get under your skin or discourage you. Because when you first hold a book with your name on the cover, it’s like no other feeling in the world.”
Reine Hauser is an arts administrator and freelance writer.
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