Author: Scott Berkun

The Importance of What You Say

Posted on in Public Speakingby Scott Berkun

People laugh when I tell them I’m a professional speaker. They assume at first that I’m some kind of self-help guru or infomercial star. But when I explain that the average American says 15,000 words a day, mostly at work, and frequently to convince others of their ideas, they stop laughing. I explain I’m primarily a writer, but that to make a living as a writer I must often speak about my work.

Just about anyone in the professional world is, in effect, a professional speaker. Every single idea in the history of the business world had to be explained to at least one other person before it got approved, funded or purchased by anyone else. Call it what you like–sales, marketing, pitching or presenting–but I know the history. Despite dreams of a world in which the best ideas win simply because they should, we live in a world where the fate of ideas hinges on how well you talk about what you’ve made, or what you want to make.

People are surprised to learn that for centuries many of the great writers in history, from Emerson to Mark Twain to Peter Drucker, made much of their incomes not from their ideas alone, but from the interest people had in hearing them talk about those ideas in person. A different level of understanding comes from seeing someone explain her ideas to you, before your own eyes, in real time. You can’t shake hands or share some beers with an idea, but you can with its creator.

From my studies of innovation history (see The Myths of Innovation), I know that the difference between relatively uncommon names like Tesla, Grey and Englebart, and household ones like Edison, Bell and Jobs, has more to do with their ability to persuade, convince and inspire than their ability to invent, create or innovate. One potent thread in the fabric of reasons why some ideas take off and others don’t is the ability entrepreneurs have to explain to others why they should care. The bigger the idea, the more explaining the world demands. Yet these skills are constantly trivialized in many organizations, leading to dozens of great ideas being rejected, and their creators wondering why lesser rivals with weaker concepts are able to capture people’s imaginations and pocketbooks.

Dale Carnegie is often quoted as saying, “Tell the audience what you’re going to say, tell them, then tell them what you told them.” His intentions were less cynical than people take this quote to mean. The goal isn’t to treat people as if they were stupid. Instead it’s to get them to pay close attention to what you’re saying. Speaking is not trivial. The attention of people who have what you need is precious and special. It must be treated with the deepest respect. To learn how to tell a good story, one that connects your ideas to their needs, or your products to their dreams, without succumbing to the hawkish tricks of the latest gadget infomercial, requires effort and careful thought. How do you choose what to say? What angle to take? There are an infinite number of ways to introduce an idea. How can you be confident you’re choosing wisely? The only way to know is to pay attention to the craft of words, and the performance of presenting them. I see too many inventors and executives who see speaking about their work as the least important thing they do. And it shows. To the detriment of the quality of their ideas, their presentations are the spotty lens through which those ideas will be seen. Without dedicated effort, those lenses distort and betray what it is they truly have to offer.

The simplest step in the world is curiously the one few use. Anything you expect to do well must be practiced. Any kind of pitching or presenting is a skill, and no amount of thinking about doing it can compare with what’s learned from the experience of doing it. It’s taken me 15 years of pitching, presenting and teaching, giving hundreds of lectures around the world, to accumulate the knowledge represented in my book, Confessions of a Public Speaker. I explain for posterity the many mistakes I’ve made over those years, and the important lessons that could only come from those mistakes. It’s those mistakes, born from the effort of trying to convince others of the value of my ideas, that have led to whatever talents I now possess. And while books like mine can, through fun stories and insights, show a way, at the end of the day the choice is always up to you. How important to you is what you say?

[This post originally published at Forbes.com]
[1. University of Texas Study]

List of Famous People Estranged From Their Parents

Posted on in Ghostby Scott Berkun

Along the way to writing The Ghost of My Father, I came across many stories of famous people who had difficult relationships with one or more of their parents. The samples are too random to assign any particular significance, as I learned in my own research, family estrangements are common. Are they more common among famous families or with children who become stars? Hard to say.

Here’s the rundown:

I’m certainly not famous, but if you want to read a great book about understanding family and learning from the past, check out The Ghost of My Father. Read the free chapter here.

Life as Reinvention

Posted on in ask berkun, Philosophyby Scott Berkun

[Of the 247 kickstarter backers of The Ghost of My Father, there was one gold sponsor, contributing $1000 in return for a blog post on the topic of their choice. This fine gentleman is named Keith Klain, who is the CEO for Doran Jones. One of the projects he works on is the UDC, which teaches underemployed adults in the South Bronx how to become software testers (see story in WIRED). Keith asked me to write about reinvention and I was thrilled to oblige as it’s a theme close to my heart]

There is a list of sayings on a whiteboard near my desk that I can’t help but notice several times a day. It contains ideas I try to remember, things I forget are true and important about the life I want to have. Near the top of the list is this one: you could be dead. It makes me laugh every time I see it, for reasons I can’t entirely explain.

The part I know will make the most sense to you is this: when we’ve been alive for decades, we forget what being alive means. We slide into a paper cage of our own habits and forget that with a little effort we can slide our way into new habits too. I can stand up whenever I want. Or sit down. Or put on some music, or close my eyes and lose myself in silence. I could dance, scream, stand on my desk, or anything I choose to do. Anyone can do an infinite number of different things, small and large, in this or in any moment as long as they are still alive. But I forget. We all forget. We live many of our waking moments asleep in a lazy dream of our own invention, a dream of boredom and regret that we don’t even enjoy. We become familiar with our favorite memories and allow ourselves to believe the feeling of familiarity is an acceptable replacement for investing in the life we have today.

There are hundreds of cliches about how to live life and it’s easy to dismay cliches. Sayings like “Carpe Diem”, “Memento mori“, or even “Sing like no one is listening” are reminders we often see, inspiring us to nod our heads affirmatively, “Yes! I should be more in the moment!” but then our attention moves on and we return to our waking slumber. We fool ourselves into the confusion that thinking about doing something, thinking about writing a book, thinking about changing a career, is practice for actually doing it.

But merely thinking about playing guitar does not make you a better guitar player. How many people do we know who continually talk about the movie they want to make, the company they want to start, or the trip they want to take, yet never take even the smallest act towards that goal? Complacency is a disease of affluence: if our lives were worse perhaps we’d be desperate enough to take chances, since we’d be less afraid of what we have to lose.

Children are masters of reinvention. Every day for them is another dream, another game, another world of kings and queens, or dragons and unicorns. Why as adults does it become so scary to try something new? We know our proudest memories involve moments of fear, risk, and doubt that we overcame. All adults remember dozens of firsts, their first time riding a bicycle, their first good grade, their first kiss or midnight tryst, yet along the way into middle age we forget the fear we felt before we did those things. It doesn’t make sense: why do we become more afraid of fear as we age, when we should have more experience with it and how to use it to our advantage? A masterful life would have an increasing number of risks and chances, perhaps carefully considered but risks no less, taken in it, not fewer. Why not try a new philosophy? A new kind of music? A new relationship? The older we are the less there is to lose.

Every winter the trees shed their leaves. They bravely drop their finely crafted foliage into the dirt, literally leaving parts of themselves and their past behind, to make room for what’s going to come next.  Life itself is a cycle of ending things to start new ones. It’s only the dead rocks and cold stones that move only when pushed. The very cells in your body don’t live forever, they fade away every few weeks to be regenerated and renewed. On each day you are lucky enough to wake up, your body has changed, reinventing itself as a natural course of your biology. It’s stasis that’s unnatural. Staying in the same place, with the same thoughts, the same sadness, takes more energy than moving on.

Half or more of my life is behind me. As the darker cliches go I should be stuck in the loops of my memories, telling the same old safe stories of past adventures, pretending it feels as good and as real as doing something interesting or new today. But I’m not. I’m on my second career now, not out of any particular courage but simply because I decided I wanted to live in the present, and not let myself hide in my memories or be a slave to my doubts. Even if I fail to live up to my ambitions, I wake up each day giving myself a chance to discover a new dream, a new possibility, a new chance that, however small, I’d never find if I believed all of my imagined limitations. I’m here! I’m alive! I’m doing this right now! These are things I can say to myself during my days, even if they are the only reward for my efforts. I’m not dead yet and I will treat every day as the precious mystery that it is. Life is to be lived. To try, to reach, to stretch, to dance, and sure, yes, to cry and fail at times, but the avoidance of uncertainty is a denial of life itself.

The Apprentices of The Future

Posted on in Seattleby Scott Berkun

Last month I was invited by Dana Nunnelly to speak to some of her students in this year’s Microsoft Apprentice Program (in partnership with YouthForce). Every year they select a group of promising teens in tough situations (financial or otherwise) who pair up with project teams at Microsoft for internships while they’re still in high school.  After talking with these young adults for an hour, and experiencing their intelligence and passion, I’m more hopeful about our collective future than ever. Can these kids take over the world soon please?

Dana explained they all have a major presentation as an upcoming assignment, so to help them out I sent them a box of my bestseller Confessions of A Public Speaker. And they were excited enough about it to take a photo and send it my way as thanks. Good luck!

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My Next Book? The Atheist of Jerusalem

Posted on in Books, Philosophy, projects in progressby Scott Berkun

In 2012 I visited Jerusalem for the first time and had an amazing experience. I’ve long been a student of religious history, as it’s a subject that combines so many fascinating threads about human nature (psychology, culture, philosophy and more). During my visit I was struck by how little information the important sites in Christianity (as well as Judaism and Islam) provided to visitors about what they were seeing, and an idea for a book was born.

The premise: There’s so much arguing between religions, and perhaps even more within them. Wouldn’t it be great if there was some kind of religious referee, a person without any particular faith but knowledge of them, who could help sort things out? Or make interesting observations as an informed, and mostly respectful, outsider? That will be me (or that’s who I will be attempting to be). The book will combine my first person experiences visiting these amazing places, with insights from history, theology and comparative religion. It will be primarily a travel book about these important places, but focused on exploring deep questions about history, humanity, belief, and the past and the future.

The details: I’ll be in Israel in December spending a week in Jerusalem, observing and studying some of the most famous religious sites in the world. Chapters of the book will be subjects such as “Walking The Via Dolorosa“, “Watching at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre” and “Meditating at the Temple of The Mount“.  This will be preliminary research and I’m not certain the book will come together, or if this rough outline will hold, but there’s only one way to find out!

Photographer: I’ve hired photographer Itay Cohen to work with me on the project, and we’ll be visiting the sites together. You can see more of his amazing work in his portfolio.

Photo by Itay Cohen

Researchers: The historic and theologic depths involved are enormous and to help me prepare for my visit, and develop the book, I’ve hired Nina Skafte (M.A. Religious History, Oxford) and Margaret Harris (working on PhD in Cultural History). More research volunteers are welcome, and if you have expertise and interest let me know.

Publication: I have no specific plans for how or when the book will be published. I may discover the concept of the book doesn’t hold together at all, who knows? I’ll make decisions about this after the research trip.

If you’re interested in this project, please leave a comment or contact me. It’s another big risk for me as an author and I hope you’ll at least support my willingness to take risks. I may set up a separate blog for the project and leaving a comment is the best way to get invited to follow along.

I’ve written many posts about religion in the past, and you can read some of the best ones here:

Notes from visiting the WWII museum on Veterans Day

Posted on in historyby Scott Berkun

On the end of a long road trip through the southeast, I spent yesterday at the WWII museum in New Orleans. I didn’t even know we had a museum for this war, and was surprised to discover it’s not in Washington D.C.  The museum is located in New Orleans in part because the Higgins boat was invented there: it’s the amphibious vehicle used for the D-Day invasion at Normandy.

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Higgins boat in use at Okinawa, April 1945

The museum itself, I’m sad to say, is one of the more confusing museums I’ve ever been to, with exhibits divided over several buildings, and not ordered in any obvious fashion (like say, chronological). There is an amazing and powerful story told here, but the overall experience is disorienting and it’s easy to get lost or go the wrong way through some exhibits. The Final Mission: USS Tang experience exhibit is the worst of the bunch, an under designed and barely interactive experience “simulating” the last mission of the U.S. submarine Tang, the most honored and successful submarine of the war.

I’m glad they chose to tell this story, as it’s a heroic and tragic tale, but it’s poorly told and a film would have been far more engaging than the underwhelming simulation they provided (I had to read about the last mission online to understand what the simulation was trying to explain. The Tang sank after being hit by it’s own stray torpedo).

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The offering with top billing is the 4D experience Beyond All Boundaries, narrated by Tom Hanks with many famous actors in voice only roles, a 20 minute summation of the entire war. It’s well done and comprehensive, establishing how the fate of the world was at stake in this war, something that has not been true for any war since (despite the endless fearmongering of every war the U.S. has entered or caused since).  The story told has an  unsurprising focus on American’s role in the war, which is certainly important and worth in many ways, but there’s very little mention of the Soviet Union’s major, and possibly larger, contribution to victory. The U.S. lost 600,000 people in WWII, the Soviet Union lost nearly 20 million. I visited the WWII museum in Kiev, Ukraine in 2009 and was fascinated by the comparisons and contrasts to U.S. tellings of the same war it provoked.

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My favorite exhibit, perhaps because I learned the most new insights from it, was Manufacturing Victory. The central argument it makes is the primary reason we won, and were even able to put up a fight, in WWII was the transformation from the U.S, with only the 18th largest army in the world in 1937, into a major military production power. Without guns, tanks, boats and planes to fight, the war would have been over before it began. One of the displays in the museum showed the relative size of the armed forces of Japan, Germany and the U.S. (shown below) early in the war. We were an isolationist and peaceful country with few ambitions for world power.

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General George Marshall is the hero of the exhibit. He pushed his way into a conversation with FDR, convincing him the U.S. was woefully underprepared and needed to make radical changes to protect itself, much less win the war. His persistence led to the plans that made co-operation between government and business possible. Ford converted car plants to make warplanes, Motorola made the walkie-talkies used in WWII and dozens of other companies shifted their production from consumer goods to war goods. The exhibit details just how many people and organizations contributed. There are so many untold stories in just this one aspect of what was involved in winning the war.

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It was also made clear how every American was asked to help with the war effort. It wasn’t just the existence of the draft which gave most Americans a personal connection to the war (something we’ve lost in our wars since abolishing the draft). There was a kind of civic pride and patriotism that’s rare today about making sacrifices for the nation. Shortages of rubber and copper meant citizens were asked to donate the supplies they had, and many items, like food cans, were recycled for the war effort. Unlike being told our duty is to consume, it was made clear that every American should take pride in sacrifice for the greater good and helping with the national effort.

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In a way the massive armada at D-Day, one of the largest every assembled in history, was the output of the collective effort of an entire nation. Britain and Canada made similar sacrifices and contributions (and of course it was England that had the strength to remain the last free country in Europe, fighting for years before America entered the war). Even during the revolutionary war American citizens were largely divided and there’s an argument to be made that WWII had more support from its citizens than any war fought before or since.

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The D-Day armada

The carnage at D-Day, and during the war, is explained in graphic detailed at the museum. The prolonged end of the war was horrible on so many levels, and even more futile and pointless, than the heart of the war itself. It’s hard not to feel something deep and sad about how many people lost their lives during the war and how much pain and suffering the entire endeavor caused for everyone involved.

Over 60 million people died during WWII, nearly 2.5% of the entire population of the planet at the time. The entire idea of war seems so foolish and futile, yet we continually find ourselves stumbling backwards into more of them.

For Veterans day my thoughts are with everyone who has volunteered their time and service for a greater good. I just wish those sacrifices could be made in ways that weren’t in opposition to other nations. I hope for a day when the lessons form the past are so broadly and deeply understood, that few people ever have to die or suffer again for so little gain. I feel tremendous respect towards everyone who serves their communities, and only wish more of our sense of service was directed at civic, peaceful endeavors, a thought that weighed heavily on my mind as I left the museum.

Help wanted: researcher & photographer for next book

Posted on in Philosophyby Scott Berkun

[THIS POSITION WAS FILLED. THANKS FOR YOUR INTEREST]

My latest book, The Ghost of My Father, is barely two weeks old but I’m starting research on another book. This time the topic is religion, architecture and place. The tentative title is The Atheist of Jerusalem. It’s a project I’ve thought about since my first visit to Israel in 2012, and I have a window of opportunity to work on it now.

The pitch: Jerusalem has important sites for three major world religions, and each religion has different claims about which buildings and locations represent  the presence of the divine. Who would be best to arbitrate their claims? It would be an atheist, someone with no stake in any particular religion who could visit these places, make observations and ask questions the faithful wouldn’t think to ask. The ambition is to write a book that asks and answers important questions for both the faithful and the faithless.

The book: I will visit the major religious sites in Jerusalem, and write about the experience. What do I see? What questions do I have? What are the answers? What does it feel like to be a curious, well-read and mostly respectful atheist to visit some of the most religiously significant places in the world?

Chapters might include:

  • Walking the Via Dolorosa
  • “Praying” at The Western Wall  (I’m of Jewish heritage, thus the quotes)
  • Watching at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
  • Thinking at the Temple of The Mount

The book’s primary goal will not be a manifesto on religion or to debate theology, but instead to use the physical experience of visiting these places, and both their history and the experience of visiting them today, to explore the questions and answers they raise.

Help Wanted: Researcher(s)

I need one or two people who are experts at doing research to help me study the history of each site I’m planning to visit. Before I go (Dec 1st) I need to know how each site has changed over time, how the meaning has changed within the particular religion, and be prepared with specific questions and ideas before I arrive. The research goal is to provide me with a dossier for each location.

Ideally you’d have a background in religious history, religious studies, architecture or live near Jerusalem. The position would be paid with a stipend for the project and a major acknowledgement in the book.

Time commitment: a few hours a week through November and early December.

Help Wanted: Photographer

I need to partner with a local (e.g. Jerusalem) photographer who can come with me as we visit each site. The photographs would be central to the book, documenting what I saw, what the experience was like, how I tried to answer the questions I had, etc. As a local you’d possibly help co-ordinate the project logistics and intangibles I’m overlooking.

The position would be paid with a stipend for the project, I’d cover at least some of your meals, and you’d get a major acknowledgment in the book.

Time commitment:  you’d need to spend a few hours a day with me while I’m visiting Jerusalem (first week in December).

How To Apply

To apply for either position, do the following:

  1. Take a deep breath, they’re good for you. Follow this list carefully.
  2. If you’re interested in research, explain how the Via Dolorosa’s location has changed (or has it?), with references. One page is sufficient.
  3. If you’re a photographer, send me to your portfolio and list any relevant professional/documentary shooting experience. (Note: ideally you live in Israel. If you don’t live in Israel you’d have to be willing to go there first week in December.)
  4. Tell me either the superpower you’d like to have, or your favorite meal (and why you love it).
  5. Contact me with the above here

Is it common to be estranged from family? Research results

Posted on in Ghostby Scott Berkun

In my research for my book The Ghost of My Father, I was surprised at how little data there was about estrangement. I wanted stories and research from people in situations like mine, but I didn’t find much. One U.S. study I found reported that 7% are estranged (or detached) from their mother and 27% from their father.

To fill the gap I did an informal survey last week of 91 adults, primarily through twitter, to get some baseline data. Here are the results.

Disclaimer: since I recently published a memoir about my family and survey participants self-selected, it’s almost certainly biased towards higher reports of estrangement than average. This research is intended only to be a first step towards collecting more balanced data.

1. How old are you?  Gender?

Nothing interesting here. Twitter and my following on it are unsurprisingly male and around middle age. 66% identified as men, 33% as women and 1% as other. 73% of respondents were from North America (U.S. & Canada) with 16 countries with at least one respondent.

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2. Are you currently estranged from an immediate family member?

Nearly 50% of respondents are currently not speaking or relating to someone formerly close to them.

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3. What is your relationship to them? And how did the estrangement start?

I wanted to know if particular kinds of familial estrangement happened more often. Fathers were most common, at 26. Mothers next at 18 and siblings third at 17.  The second part of this question was unintentionally biased, as one of the respondents pointed out, in that there is no option for mutual initiation. Slightly more respondents initiated the estrangement (37) than did not (35).

Of course every family is complex and each relationship can influence the others. I did not ask for example if respondents were estranged from their entire family, parts of it, or just one person (they could choose more than one). Adoptions, divorces and other specific situations were not identified.

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4. How long have you been estranged?

The majority of estrangements (45%) have lasted more than 5 years, 1 to 5 years were 34% and less than one year was 20%. This is likely indexed to age, as older people have been alive longer and the possibility for longer estrangements increases.

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5. Have you tried to reconcile?

73% of respondents who are or were estranged from a family member have tried to reconcile. Less than half of them were successful.

Reconciliation can mean many different things and I left it to respondents to define the term. Specific situations liked adoption were not isolated from more common situations.

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6. Comments

These situations are unsurprisingly tough and complex and many respondents left a comment with more of their story or details they though were relevant. Here are a few edited comments:

“It’s weird – I don’t know why it happened. There was no event. We both gave up on the relationship without communicating anything.”

“never estranged. Physically and financially family has always been together. But emotionally, in terms of open conversation, not so much.”

“I had enough of an unhealthy relationship with my mother after many years of trying, so I ended it. There have been life moments (sickness and deaths), with some contact, but that’s it. She hasn’t known my children for the past decade.”

“My father remarried and we haven’t talked much, if at all, since.”

“My family sucks”

“I’m sure my brother thinks it was me!”

7. What’s Next?

I’m trying to find psychologists doing research in this area who might be interested in doing more. If you know of anyone studying these questions professionally please send them my way or point them to this summary.

Update 12/23/17: NYTimes article Debunking Myths about Family Estrangement

On Sale NOW – The Ghost of My Father – Launch Day

Posted on in Ghostby Scott Berkun

2014-BERKUN-GHOST-OF-MY-FATHER-300pxI’m pleased to announce the launch of book #6, The Ghost of My Father. It’s on sale now on kindle and in paperback.

Please buy the book today, as buying on launch day helps greatly in raising its rank and visibility on amazon in one big wave. 31 reviews so far (4.7 out of 5 average), dozens of mentions on twitter and Facebook. Its been a good day so far.

If you’re not sure if you like memoirs, or would like mine, give the free chapter excerpt a try.

If you can help for one minute to spread word today I’d be grateful. Details here or for quick reference:

 

FAQ about The Ghost of My Father

Posted on in Ghostby Scott Berkun

My 6th book, The Ghost of My Father is, as the title suggests, a departure from my other books. Many have asked why I wrote it and this page is the answer. The story itself addresses many questions people have, so I recommend reading the free chapter excerpt here (PDF).

The book has the highest avg. reviews of all of my books (4.7/5 avg, 70 reviews) and Kirkus Reviews called it “A sobering, lucid memoir about the uncanny, precarious nature of family, masculinity and childhood.”

If you want my advice on how to write a memoir, read this guide.

Q: What’s the book about?

There are questions inside every family that everyone thinks about but never asks. I asked my questions and wrote about the answers with the hope it can help other people. My unresolved questions had always been about my mysterious, distant father, whose absence played more of a role in my life than his presence.

 Q: How hard was it to write this book?

It was the hardest book to write because the stakes were high. These are my most personal feelings about the most important people in my life. The craft of writing about emotions is hard to learn. It’s very easy to seem self-involved or trite, and miss the nuances that make a feeling relatable or even sensible to someone who wasn’t there.

Reading many memoirs (I read more than 15 of them) helped me sort out what I wanted to do with the book, and how to deal with some of the challenges memoirs have. The Art of Time In Memoir by Sven Birkerts was by far the most useful book about memoir writing I found and he calls out many of the traps, citing many good examples writers should read.

Q. Why did you decide to write a memoir?

How do we know what a good family is? Are there relationships that are beyond repair or is there always hope? We usually only have family one in our lives, perhaps two if we marry into another one, which is not much information to work with for the most important relationships we have. I wrote the book for anyone with questions about how their family works, or doesn’t work, and wants to read a well told story, from the inside, of a family that fell apart and what I did about it.

Q. A memoir? But you’re not famous.

We confuse autobiography with memoir. A good memoir is not comprehensive. Instead it takes one thread of a life and carefully explores it. Someone with a drinking problem, an interesting job or a specific question they’ve explored, can write a fantastic memoir even if the totality of their lives isn’t historic.

People assume only famous people have earned the right to write a memoir. I don’t think this is true. Most of us lead ordinary lives and well written books by ordinary people can be far more compelling and inspiring that books by people lost in their own fame.

In my case I’m a writer. My life presented me with a difficult story about my family and I felt someone needed to tell it. There are many people who have serious relationship issues with their fathers or mothers. I’ve wanted to write different kinds of books and this seemed an obvious time to take that risk. The primary goal in my life is to fill a shelf with books I’ve written and that demands I push hard to discover exactly how far my writing talents go.

Q. Do you think many families have stories like yours?

Many of us have unresolved issues with at least one parents. Most of us ignore those feelings, hoping to keep the past in the past. Yet we feel the pressure at every family visit, a bottled up tension fueled by something powerful we don’t know how to release. While I know not every family has the drama mine has, the goal was to use my story to ask universal questions about being an adult, and what to do about the monsters we’ve made for ourselves in our past. I want my story to help other people figure out theirs, which is why 50% of the profits of the first edition will be donated to Big Brothers Big Sisters.

Q. Did you family know you were writing about them?

Early on in I told my brother and mother I was thinking about writing a book about our family, and they agreed it was a good idea. I don’t know that they fully understood what this would mean (or that I did) but it was something we discussed. I interviewed my brother and mother many times, and my father once (which is captured in the book itself).

Q. How did you prepare?

I’ve always kept a journal and once this all happened and I thought about writing a book about it, I kept a separate journal of thoughts and correspondence related to my family. When I sat down to start writing the book in earnest I had a stockpile of archival material that helped me get started.

Q. Was writing the book cathartic?

Yes. I was surprised how in each draft parts of the story hit me hard, or didn’t make sense, even though I’ve known these stories all of my life. Life presents us with situations that don’t make sense, or are unfair, but happen anyway. We have to fight to live in the present and find ways to escape the past without pretending it never happened. Writing about yourself is difficult but I highly recommend it. It preserves your feelings and thoughts in a way memory never can.

(These next few questions are from an interview with Debbie Weil at VoxieMedia)

DW: How long did the writing take? How many drafts did you do? What was your process? Did you use readers or editors for feedback as you went along??

 I’ve always kept a journal and around 2012 kept a separate one for this project. I wrote, I believe, seven drafts. However, the last three drafts were primarily for copyediting and proofreading with few structural changes if any. I always have early readers. In this case four people read early drafts (they’re enthusiastically thanked in the Acknowledgements).

I hired two copyeditors to review the last drafts, a proofreader, and had many volunteer proofreaders too. Most of my books demanded fewer drafts, but otherwise this arrangement of editors/readers is standard for my book projects.

DW: What are your tips and lessons for writing about a painful topic, one that you are exploring as you write?

The best advice is to read many books in the form you want to write in. When you read as a writer you read differently. You’ll discover how many different ways there are to handle the core challenges (is the narrator reliable? believable? whiny? charming? annoying? How did the writer achieve or fail at this?) and inform yourself about what they are.

You’ll also discover many different styles of narrative and structure, which will also help you make those choices. Joan Didion is a very different kind of memoir writer than Mary Morris or Maya Angelou, and each of their books expresses painful stories in different ways.

It is useful to invite people who were there into the project early on. David Carr, in his memoir, The Night of The Gun, used his family to help him remember events, and even had them read drafts. For me, I interviewed both my parents, and my brother read nearly all of the drafts and gave feedback on them.

The challenge for memoir is that it is highly subjective and personal, even more so than novels. The reasons why someone likes a memoir – or not – are very personal. Only in reading many of them can you recognize there is no right answer, and that no matter what you do not everyone will be interested in your story, or like the way you tell it.

Have a question about the book? Leave a comment and I’ll add the answer here.

Help me launch the new book Today

Posted on in Ghostby Scott Berkun

2014-BERKUN-GHOST-OF-MY-FATHER-300pxIf any of my work has helped you in the past, here’s an easy way to return the favor. My 6th book, The Ghost of My Father, launches on Wednesday. Every single mention or purchase of the book on the day helps tremendously in helping this new book find its way in the world.

50% of profits of this first edition are going to Big Brothers Big Sisters, so you’ll be helping a great charity too.

How to help TODAY:

Set a schedule reminder for one or more of the following (iCal appt):

  1. Buy the book on launch day :) For now only on Kindle and paperback
  2. Post on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn with the link
  3. Email your friends and family about the book
  4. Post an Amazon.com review when you finish reading (and Facebook / Tweet about it)
  5. Spread word of the sample chapter
  6. Multiple mentions throughout the day can help

Sample Facebook / Twitter text you can use:

The hashtag is #ghostmf. Feel free to reuse, borrow, snip and edit these:

Twitter: “New book by @berkun, The Ghost of My Father, fantastic story of understanding the past, on sale today: http://bit.ly/ghostofmyfather #ghostmf”

Twitter: “New book by @berkun, The Ghost of My Father, read the powerful chapter excerpt and buy today:  http://bit.ly/ghost-excerpt #ghostmf”

Facebook: “One of my favorite authors has a new book out today. If you have issues with your parents you’re still trying to work through, get this book. His story will help you understand yours: http://bit.ly/ghostofmyfather – 50% of profits donated to Big Brothers Big Sisters”

Early Reviews:

“Not only captivating, but also insightful… digs deep into many themes; family dynamics, forgiveness, grace, legacy, hope…” – Jen Moff

“Thought-provoking read, and highly recommended…” – Thomas Duff

“When I finished it, I felt more human and less alone.” – Heather Bussing

Want a Reminder?

If you’re following me in any medium you’ll be reminded on Wednesday :) There’s a special Facebook Event page, but my twitter, Facebook fan page and mailing list will all be updated in the morning, and likely throughout the day with news.

If you leave a comment on this post I’ll make sure you get an email too.

The best memoirs I’ve read: a list

Posted on in Ghostby Scott Berkun

When writing a new book I often start by making a reading list. It’s by reading books in the genre you’re writing in that you is the only way to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the form, and how to solve certain challenges.

With the release of The Ghost of My Father (read the free excerpt here – PDF), it was useful to review the best, or most important, memoirs I’ve read.

  • Down and Out In London and Paris, George Orwell. Technically this is a work of fiction, but it was clearly based on Orwell’s real experiences. His style was very influential for future journalists who chose to write in a first person style. Orwell’s ability to describe situations and environments is first rate, and he excels at concision. One of my favorite books, NewJack: Guarding Sing Sing By Conover, is in the same lineage (though more journalistic than strictly memoir form). These books heavily influenced The Year Without Pants and the new book too.
  • The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion. For my purposes I needed to study the telling of tragic personal stories and this book has become the canonical reference. Didion’s husband and best friend died suddenly and the book documents the year that follows. Didion is cerebral, the camera angle of her narrative is strictly in her head, or over her shoulders, providing a more intellectual narrative than many memoirs do. It is a solid book, but I was underwhelmed by it for reasons I can’t explain. It felt repetitive to me, which to be fair is perhaps an accurate reflection of what she experienced (that’s the challenge with memoir – the most honest telling of real life stories often don’t fit into convenient narrative arcs or patterns).
  • Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard. If you’re not captivated in the first few pages, give up, not just on this book but on reading in general. I’ve read this book several times and each time I’m surprised by how truly breathtaking her prose is, and I’m not a prose junky. I will never be the kind of writer she is is. She’s like Updike at his best, able to wind paragraphs of description and perspective around a single moment or image and leave you wanting more and more. The book demonstrates how a memoir can take one simple trip, act, decision, or idea, and develop it into an entire world.
  • Get In The Van, Henry Rollins. The raw, honest stories of life in a rising, but fledgling punk band in the 1980s is something to behold. There is no pretense here, in the writing or in the life he led. The simplicity of his approach, both in the structure of the book (it’s a journal) and the entries (a record of places they performed, and encounters on the road) reveals how little artifice a memoir needs to function. Many of Rollin’s books are disappointing, especially his poetry, but this book shines and stands up as a testament to how simple a good book can be.
  • Nothing to Declare, Mary Morris. I read this book 15 years ago ago, long before I decided to be a writer. I’d never read a book that was simply a person telling a story about what was happening to them, and for that to be interesting. I’ve read several of her books and enjoyed them all. This in part gave me the confidence to become a writer. The idea that a good book wasn’t about extreme situations or great drama. It was about being honest, being thoughtful, and applying the craft of storytelling. Bukowski and Henry Miller were also huge influences for me in the idea that simply being brave enough to be honest is exceedingly rare and can make for powerful writing all on its own.
  • This Boy’s Life, Tobias Wolfe. I read many of the classics memoirs and this was one of the few I enjoyed reading. It tells the story of Wolfe’s difficult childhood. The themes echoed the stories I wanted to tell in The Ghost of My Father, and Wolfe tells his story with a lack of pretense and judgement. I knew I wanted to be closer to Didion in perspective, with commentary on what happened in my life, both what I thought about it then and what I think about it now. But Wolfe avoids this. He writes as if it were a screenplay, making few overt judgements about anything, leaving it to the reader to decide for themselves what was good, bad, right or wrong.
  • Born Standing Up, Steve Martin. Famous people writing about their lives is often dreadfully predictable, but Martin is a fantastic writer. This book focuses on his early years performing for empty theaters, and how he found his way, through work and experimentation, to excellence. Its charm is how foolish he reveals himself to be, a naive kid working oh so hard to figure out show business. “Precision creates movement” is one of my favorite quotes.
  • Chronicles, Bob Dylan. This is an odd choice in a way, as he gets away with things here purely because of his fame. He jumps through time, abandons stories, repeats stories and generally seems to be teasing and playing with us readers. But there is a charm here. An unwillingness to follow convention and to play with the lines of storytelling and narrative. If you know his career it’s no surprise his book takes this approach, but it’s a worthy counterpoint to more literal memoirs that follow strict boundaries of form.
  • Broken Music, Sting. Like me Sting had a difficult relationship with his father, and the album The Soul Cages, is essentially dedicated to him (most notably, the wonderful sad Why Should I Cry For You). I put it on my list for that reason and wasn’t disappointed. Sting is smart and well read (he was an English teacher while playing in bands at night), and the book is empty of most the arrogance he’s earned a reputation for. It focuses on the early years of his professional career, before the Police, and the many mistakes and chance occurrences that led to his rise to fame.
  • The Night Country, Loren Eisley. Like Nothing to Declare, I read this long before I became a writer. Eisley has always been a big influence, particularly his ability to blend personal stories with professional observations, a theme that runs through all of my books. The Night Country in particular expresses a love of the mystery of life and how important mystery, and the curiosity to explore it in all it’s forms, is at the heart of an interesting life. If you have any interest in science and literature Eisley is a rewarding read.
  • Diary of A Young Girl, Anne Frank. I’ve read this book several times. There’s something so simple and clear about her writing, and the fact that you know the end all along changes the way you read it. Credit should go to her father as well for editing together her journal into such a simple, short, powerful book.
  • A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers. I think of this book often for both it’s strengths and weaknesses. It’s a fantastic and tough story, told well and honestly. Where the book struggles is Egger’s insistence on being extra clever. There are footnotes, and footnotes, and self-references, and it’s just too much at times – a brilliant writer who is too self-conscious to just tell the story without commenting on how he’s telling the story. I haven’t read this book in years and I’d like to read it again to see how my opinion has changed.
  • Night of The Gun, David Carr. This book turns the form of memoir on it’s ear, as NYT reporter Carr uses his journalism skills to tell the story of his drug addiction and the impact it had on him and his family. I don’t know of any other memoir that was so dedicated to finding ‘the truth’ and telling it (Full review).

Famous memoirs I didn’t enjoy:

  •  Stop Time, by Frank Conroy, which I abandoned after 20 pages for sheer lack of interest – it didn’t cohere for me at all. Memoirs are a most tricky form to write in. It could be everything that didn’t work for me here, worked for many of the people who loved the book.
  • Maus: A survivors tale, Art Spiegelman – perhaps my expectations were too high, but I struggled to stay interested. Mind you I’m of Jewish heritage, have a strong interest in WWII and like graphic novels. There was something about the plotting and the characterizations I struggled to get into. Perhaps I need to give it another try.
  • Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris. I’ve tried many times and I’m just not a Sedaris fan. I like the idea of him. I do respect the way he writes and constructs stories. But I don’t like this writing much. There’s something mildly cloying that turns me off in most of the stories I’ve tried to read, including Me Talk Pretty.
  • I also summarized my lessons learned on writing a memoir here.

The 5 Worst Fathers Of All Time

Posted on in Ghostby Scott Berkun

In working on my book, The Ghost of My Father I’ve read many books about fathers, both good and bad and some names come up often in the bad category. These stories rarely explain what life was like with them on a daily basis, but for the actions they’re known for alone they stand out in history.  Here are the 5 worst I found:

  1. Emperor Constantine.  Reigned over the Roman empire around 300 A.D. He led the way for the endorsement of Christianity, as a supporter of the Edict of Milan. Where he got into trouble, as many Roman emperors did, was how he handled his family. He had his son, and likely heir, Crispus murdered. And of course, he also had Crispus’ mother Fausta murdered just two years later. The history of Rome and many empires is filled with fratricide, filicide (killing your child), patricide and more.
  2. Peter The Great. Curiously similar to Constantine, Peter had his son Alexei executed. To be fair Alexei grew up with an allegiance to his mother, who despised Peter. Alexei put himself into exile, which generally pissed Peter off and he returned only with assurances that he wouldn’t be tortured or killed. Those assurances were ignored and Alexei was tortured to death.
  3. Bible grab bag: Lot, Jephthah, Noah. There is plenty of bad fathering described in the bible (including perhaps by God himself), and although I believe the bible is best understood as fiction the importance of the book earns these fathers an entry. Between Lot’s incest with his daughters (and allowance of their raping), Jephthah killing his daughter, Caleb trading his daughter to whoever could conquer a city (it turned out to be Caleb’s brother), Noah cursing his grandson Canaan to a lifetime of slavery for his father seeing Noah naked, and on it goes.
  4. Ivan the Terrible. He makes Constantine and Peter look meek, as rather than have officials take care of the deed, he committed filicide by hand, brutally striking his son’s head with a staff. The reason for this fight? Ivan physically attacked his daughter-in-law for wearing immodest clothing, and Ivan’s son tried to protect her. This scene is captured in a famous painting.
  5. Marvin Gay Sr.  Marvin Gay Jr. always had a difficult relationship with his father, and he was thrown out of the house on several occasions. Alberta Gay, Marvin Jr’s mother, said, “My husband never wanted Marvin, and he never liked him. He used to say that he didn’t think he was really his child. I told him that was nonsense. He knew Marvin was his. But for some reason he didn’t love Marvin and, what worse, he didn’t want me to love Marvin either. Marvin wasn’t very old before he understood that.” As he rose in fame and wealth Marvin Jr. added an ‘e’ to his last name to distance himself from his father. They were estranged for many years, but eventually Gaye tried to reconcile with his father, presenting gifts. In one last argument things got out of hand and Marvin Sr. shot Marvin Jr. twice, killing him.

These are extreme cases and it’s a relief in some ways to realize that as bad as your parents might have been, they weren’t anywhere near as bad as these ones were to their children, as you’re still alive to read this (and I’m still alive to write it).

References:

I started with other people’s lists but did my own research to confirm/deny facts and pick the 5 worst examples.

Exclusive: Read the first chapter of my next book

Posted on in Generalby Scott Berkun

For the last 18 months I’ve been working on a very different kind of book, a memoir about a personal crisis in my family. The book is called The Ghost of My Father and I’m proud to tell you the book is finished and will launch to the world on Wed Oct 22nd, 2014 – if you’re on Facebook, please follow the launch here.

As primarily a business author I’ve spent much of my career advising other people to take creative risks, but rarely did myself. How creative is a writer who only writes in the same genre? If nothing else, I hope you’ll be interested in my book as an expression of me practicing what I preach and taking a big risk myself.

50% of all profits from this first edition of the new book will be donated, divided between Big Brothers Big Sisters and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Puget Sound – reading this excerpt, and the book, will explain why I’ve chosen to help this particular charity.

Pre-order:  pre-order the kindle edition of the book here.

 Excerpt: click on the cover to download this exclusive book excerpt (or go to: http://bit.ly/ghost-excerpt).

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I’m on tour in the Southeast this month

Posted on in Generalby Scott Berkun

I’ve been to 43 of the 50 states in the U.S. This month I’m hoping to get that number up to 46 with a road trip through the southeast.

I’m speaking at An Event Apart Orlando on Wed October 29th and then spending 8 days driving through Alabama, Tennessee, and Louisiana (tentative route here or look below).

On Nov 4th I’ll be in Collierville, TN to speak at FedEx, but the rest of my dates are TBD.

If you live somewhere on my route and can help organize a place for me to give a lecture or a happy hour when I’m in your neighborhood, get in touch.

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Finalist in the Amtrak Writers in Residency Program

Posted on in Generalby Scott Berkun

I learned today I’m a finalist in Amtrak’s Writer’s in Residency program. Of over 16,000 applicants 124 semi-finalists were selected and the 24 finalists were announced this morning.

The Amtrak website is getting hammered so I reposted the list of finalists here. Congratulations to everyone.

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MEET THE 24 WRITERS SELECTED FOR THE AMTRAK RESIDENCY PROGRAM

Amtrak is excited to announce the selection of 24 members of the literary community as the first group of writers to participate in the #AmtrakResidency program. Over the next year, they will work on writing projects of their choice in the unique workspace of a long-distance train. The 24 residents offer a diverse representation of the writing community and hail from across the country. Meet our residents below:

Ksenia Anske

Ksenia Anske is a Seattle based fantasy writer, entrepreneur and social media marketer. She was born in Russia and came to the U.S. in 1998, never imagining a career in writing. In 2009, she was named one of the 100 Top Women in Seattle Tech and has published several short stories and novels, including Rosehead and the Siren Suicides Trilogy.

Scott Berkun

Scott Berkun is an author and speaker whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and The Economist, among others. He has taught at the University of Washington and was a co-host of CNBC’s The Business of Innovation show. His latest book, The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com & The Future of Work released in Sept 2013 and was named an Amazon.com best book of the year. He writes regularly on his popular blog and tweets at @berkun.

Jennifer Boylan

Jennifer Boylan is an author and the inaugural Anna Quindlen Writer in Residence at Barnard College of Columbia University. She also serves as the national co-chair of the Board of Directors of GLAAD, the media advocacy group for LGBT people worldwide. She is a Contributing Opinion Writer for The New York Times, and also serves on the Board of Trustees of the Kinsey Institute for Research on Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. Her 2003 memoir, She’s Not There: a Life in Two Genders was the first bestselling work by a transgender American.

Craig Calcaterra

Craig Calcaterra writes for the HardballTalk baseball blog at NBC Sports.com. From March 2007 until December 2009, he wrote ShysterBall, a baseball blog. Craig also spent eleven years as a business litigation and constitutional law attorney.

Jen CarlsonJen Carlson is the Deputy Editor of Gothamist, a website she has been a part of since 2004. Her writing has also appeared on Jezebel, Deadspin, and back when she attended way too many concerts, she had her own music column in The Villager. She can also make anything out of one head of cauliflower… including pizza.

Farai Chideya

Farai Chideya is an award-winning author, journalist, and Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University’s journalism institute. She has written four nonfictions books: Innovating Women: The Changing Face of Technology; Trust: Reaching the 100 Million Missing Voters; The Color of Our Future; and Don’t Believe the Hype: Fighting Cultural Misinformation About African Americans, plus a novel, Kiss the Sky. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Harvard College and currently resides in New York City.

Anna Davies

Anna Davies is a writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, New York, Glamour, Cosmo, Women’s Health, Men’s Health, salon.com, refinery29.com and others. She’s ghostwritten ten bestselling young adult novels for Alloy Entertainment and has written three young adult novels under her own name—Wrecked (Simon & Schuster), Identity Theft, and Followers. (Scholastic) Anna has spent the last year backpacking around the world, and is thrilled to be settling back in Brooklyn in October—and can’t wait for her #amtrakresidency adventure.

Korey Garibaldi

Korey Garibaldi is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at the University of Chicago. His dissertation research focuses on how racial, gender, and sexual formations were challenged, solidified, and reconfigured by material commodities, especially literary texts, over the course of the 20th century. Korey has lectured in the “America in World Civilization” sequence in the University of Chicago’s Core undergraduate curriculum. Other teaching interests include post-Emancipation African-American history, and the histories of gender and sexuality in America and Europe.

Katie Heaney

Katie Heaney is the published author of Never Have I Ever and the upcoming novel Dear Emma. She is an editor at Buzzfeed and has written for New York Magazine and Pacific Standard, among other places. She is a graduate of Illinois Wesleyan University and the University of Minnesota.

Karen Karbo

Karen Karbo is the author of fourteen award-winning novels, memoirs and works of non-fiction including the best-selling “Kick Ass Women” series. Her 2004 memoir, The Stuff of Life, was a New York Times Notable Book, a Books for a Better Life Award finalist, and winner of the Oregon Book Award for Creative Non-fiction. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction, Karen’s three adults novels have also been named New York Times Notable Books. Her short stories, essays, articles and reviews have appeared in Elle, Vogue, O, Esquire, Outside, The New York Times, salon.com and other magazines.

Marianne Kirby

Marianne Kirby is a writer and maker currently living in Orlando, Florida. She is the coauthor of the body politics book “Lessons From the Fatosphere” and can be regularly found at xoJane.com, the latest project by Jane Pratt.

Erika Krouse

Erika Krouse is a novelist and short story writer based in Boulder, Colorado. She has been published in The New Yorker and The Atlantic, and she is the 2014 recipient of the Lighthouse Writers Workshop Beacon Award for teaching excellence. Her latest novel, Contenders, will be available in 2015.

Lindsay Moran

Lindsay Moran is a former clandestine officer for the Central Intelligence Agency. She is a freelance writer whose articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today. In 2005 she published her memoir Blowing My Cover, My Life As A Spy, in which she wrote about her experiences as a case officer from 1998 to 2003. After graduating from Harvard, she won a Fulbright scholarship and then became an English teacher in Bulgaria.

Lisa Schwarzbaum

Lisa Schwarzbaum is an American film critic. She was a long-time film critic for Entertainment Weekly, appeared as a co-host with Roger Ebert on At the Movies, and writes regularly about movies, culture, books, TV, and theater. She has written for The New York Times Magazine, The New York Daily News, Time, The Boston Globe, More, and Vogue.

Tynan

Tynan is the co-founder of SETT, a blogging platform that launched in 2011. He was named the King of The Tech Geeks by Gawker in September 2013 and one of the Top 25 Best Bloggers by Time Magazine in August of 2013. His book, Superhuman by Habit, was published in September 2014. He prides himself in exploring the world and connecting with awesome people.

Jeffrey Stanley

Jeffrey Stanley’s screenplay Little Rock, a bio-pic about artist Copy Berg, the first officer to sue the US military for anti-gay discrimination, is currently in pre-production with Pink Slip Pictures. He is the author of the stage play Tesla’s Letters and the writer-performer of his recurring supernatural solo show Boneyards. Stanley has written articles for the Washington Post, New York Times, and New York Press. He teaches screenwriting and theater courses at New York University Tisch School of the Arts and at Drexel University Westphal College of Media Arts & Design. He lives in Philadelphia.

Deanne Stillman

Deanne Stillman is the acclaimed author of Desert Reckoning (2013 Spur Award winner, based on a Rolling Stone piece). She also wrote Mustang and Twentynine Palms (both LA Times “best books of the year”). Currently, she is writing Blood Brothers for Simon and Schuster and the “Letter from the West” column for the Los Angeles Review of Books. Her work has appeared in Slate, therumpus, and the NY Times.

Darin StraussDarin Strauss is a writer whose work has earned a number of awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His most recent book, Half a Life, won the 2011 NBCC Award for memoir/autobiography. His ALA Alex Award-winning, best-selling 2000 first novel Chang and Eng was a runner-up for the Barnes & Noble Discover Award, the Literary Lions Award, a Borders Award winner, and a nominee for the PEN Hemingway award. He currently resides in Brooklyn, New York, and is Clinical Professor of fiction at New York University.

Chris TaylorChris Taylor is a journalist originally hailing from the U.K., where he got his start on a variety of national newspapers in London and Glasgow. He has since served as San Francisco Bureau Chief for TIME magazine, West Coast editor for Fortune Small Business, West Coast editor for Fast Company, and is now deputy editor at Mashable. Chris is a graduate of the Columbia University School of Journalism and Merton College, Oxford.

Stephen ToulouseStephen “Stepto” Toulouse hails from the tech industry where he has over 20 years of experience with Microsoft, Xbox, and HBO. Currently he is the Director of Community Engagement for Black Tusk Studios working on the game Gears of War. He is the published author of the book A Microsoft Life as well as being known for his performances as a technology and Geek culture comedian. He’s published several short stories and a spoken word comedy album. He is a pet lover and you can find his writing at Stepto.com.

Glen Weldon

Glen Weldon is a writer, book critic and movie reviewer. He contributes to NPR’s blog, Monkey See and is a regular panelist on NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour. He is the author of Superman: The Unauthorized Biography, a cultural history of the iconic character. His next book, on the intersection of Batman and nerd culture, will be published in 2015.

Marco Werman

Marco Werman is the host of PRI’s The World. He is an Emmy award winner for his short documentary “Libya: Out of the Shadow” on the PBS program Frontline/World. Werman is also the co-creator of the PBS series “Sound Tracks: Music Without Borders.”

Saul Williams

Saul Williams is an award-winning poet, musician, actor, and performer. He recently starred in the Broadway musical, Holler if Ya Hear Me. and is currently working on an untitled book of poetry on America, commissioned by Gallery Books, and his forthcoming album Martyr Loser King. He is a graduate of Morehouse College and New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Bill Willingham

Writer and illustrator Bill Willingham began his career in the early 1980s and is still producing stories for comic and prose readers today. He’s the writer of several comic books, including the long running Fables series, and the author of the novels Peter & Max, Down the Mysterly River and Lady of the Lake (forthcoming).

An offline design magazine: Offscreen

Posted on in Generalby Scott Berkun

The new issue of Offscreen magazine is here. As the name suggests, it’s print only, and it’s one of the best magazines I’ve seen about design and designers in some time. I’m biased as the closing essay in issue #9 is something I wrote about Embracing the Off Switch (aka Why You Are Not Drowning In Data).

If you’re into design and getting away from machines every now and then, pick up the current issue at OffscreenMag.

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