*Disclaimer*: I’ve written several articles for The Writer and other how-to-write magazines, so I should be biased “toward” the magazine, right? Well, I will get no more money than I’ve already earned from The Writer for work I’ve published there so far, so maybe I can give an unbiased review with a little bit of an edge here.
About The Magazine
The Writer bills itself as the “oldest magazine for literary workers in the country.” The claim is probably true. Since 1887, The Writer has been publishing a pulp-paged informational magazine to help writers hone their crafts. I think the staff looks at The Writer as a trade magazine for folks who already publish their work regularly.
It’s masthead and Editorial Board contains a list of well-known and prolific writers of our day--including Mary Higgins Clark, John Jakes, Robert B. Parker and Sidney Sheldon. How could a magazine with that kind of backing not teach you how to write?
Nowhere does it actually claim to be a “how-to-write” publication, yet, the fact is, most aspiring writers pick it up just for that reason: to try to glean the inside secrets that we all know professional writers must have that allow them to get published everyday. (More on that later, but first, my review of the magazine.)
Inside
Every issue contains about a half dozen full-length articles on the craft of writing and selling one’s work. About as evenly divided as actual markets for fiction and non-fiction, the pieces each focus on one small aspect of writing (for example, How To Break Into Newspaper Writing by Shelby Hearon--September, 1999). Since there are many more non- iction markets out there than fiction, The Writer includes more non-fiction-focused articles than fiction-focused ones.
The magazine has been around a long time. They understand how to put together a useful publication.
Columns and Departments
Most issues of The Writer also contain a short article called The Rostrum, which is usually a first-person-type essay written by a working writer on one aspect of putting together a compelling piece of writing. The magazine also includes a Letters To The Editors section, as well as a marketing section called, simply, Where To Sell Manuscripts. It publishes a Roving Editor piece and an Off The Cuff editorial.
All mostly standard fare for a how-to-write magazine.
But, wait a minute. That all assumes that a magazine can teach you how to write. So, can The Writer do that?
Well, let me tell you, it just ain’t so. No magazine can teach you how to write. No book can, either.
Sure, one can guide you along...can show you how to submit and where to submit. It can tell you to delete every single adverb in your piece and instruct you to write in the active voice. It can give the standard advice given to every newbie writer : WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW.
But can it teach you to write? No.
The only way you can learn to write for publication is to sit in your chair and write. Everyday. Practice, delete, and practice some more. Then send your polished articles and stories to editors. And be ready for them to come back with rejections slips stapled to them--or worse, to get no response at all. At that point, you have to buck up and get them back into the mail (snail or e) with hopes of selling to the next editor on your list.
That’s the way you learn to write for publication. Really, it’s the only way.
So, is The Writer a useful tool for aspiring and published writers? Sure, it is. For all the above reasons, and for one more. The Writer, like any other writers’ magazine, doles out inspiration in mega-doses. It gives you the desire to write and submit and to write some more.
But, Will It All Change Now?
The Writer has been around for a long time. Readers could always trust the two-color covers to remain a steady reminder of what the publication has always been. So far, anyway.
Unfortunately, The Writer’s longtime editor, Sylvia Burack, recently sold the publication to Kalmbach Publishing, who takes over editorial this fall sometime. So, it remains to be seen what changes may be in store for this familiar old friend.
”I yam what I yam”
No matter what changes are made, though, The Writer will most likely remain the source of inspiration it’s always been. Because, while no magazine can teach you how to write, this one can sit on your desk near your computer and urge you on like it’s done for writers for more than 100 years.
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