Johnny Barfield and Maggie Bush Author Interview

Maggie: This is Katy Hanson. She is an old reporter for…

Katy: For various newspapers. Do you want to know the names of all of them?

Maggie: No, that’s fine. Who or what inspires you as an author?

Katy: Well, I guess there are different authors. In terms of novelists, my favorite is Ernest Hemingway. He inspires because of the way he writes; he writes in very short, terse prose, but his writing is very powerful without it being long and drawn out. For Journalists, I like a lot of female journalists because, well, I’m a woman.

Maggie: And a journalist.

Katy: Yes (laughs) I guess you could talk about people like Nelly Blide; she kinda broke the mold for female journalists. She went undercover into an insane asylum and she exposed the conditions in insane asylums and stuff like that, which was really for that day and age.

Maggie: The next question is very similar, who or what motivates you as an author?

Katy: What motivates me is the idea that people need to know what’s going on in the world, and that we have a duty to expose injustices and we have a duty to also let people know about good things going on in the world. What drew me to journalism in the first place was that I thought it was the perfect crosshair between current events and writing, which I have always loved and history also. I’ve always felt this deep sense of responsibility towards the public when I’ve written. I needed to do justice to my readership and the people I’m writing towards that I had to be as honest as possible and do as much research as I could and get every side of the story because the public needs to know. When I’m writing about current events, about politics, about education, that’s the point of journalism to expose injustices.

Maggie: Okay, we already answered this one, but what books and authors influenced you the most as an author? But Ernest Hemingway…

Katy: Ernest Hemingway. I guess current journalists that I really like…

Maggie: Brian Williams (laughs)

Katy: No (laughs) he is not one. I really like, in terms of reading journalists, David Brooks from the New York Times. He’s really good. He’s outspoken about his political beliefs, but he’s not radical, which I think is really important. Also, Hemingway was a wartime reporter, and that really influenced the rest of his life. I mean that’s the main reason he was extremely depressed; he had seen a lot of things that just completely colored all of his writing.

Maggie: Okay, so most often, how, when, and where do you write?

Katy: Interesting question.  I write for a job, so I write anywhere that my assignment takes me. How I write I guess is I interview first, so I would record an interview. Usually, it’s recording in tandem with writing notes in shorthand. I usually have a photographer with me, and I record so I can get details down but my notes usually are getting my favorite quotes. These are the things that I find the most interesting, and that I think readers would find the most interesting, things that are maybe unexpected or that I think would make a great introduction, things that are colorful or that really hook a reader in. I always try to have a conversation with someone. My favorite writing is features writing, so that makes it easy to have a conversation with somebody. Then when I’m driving back to the office to write I try to think of an introduction first because without a lead its hard to write the rest of the story. Once you have the lead, everything else follows suit. Does that answer enough of that?

Maggie: Yeah! So this is a good question for you as a journalist, how is technology changing print culture, specifically authors and readers?

Katy: Well, that’s really why I’m not in journalism anymore. To me, it’s a vicious cycle, as cliché as that sounds. There’s an expectation from readers now that… there’s a culture nowadays that has started because of the internet and it’s a culture of people wanting everything quickly and wanting it now. That’s true of information as well. Even with newspapers, most newspapers nowadays want to be pertinent. They have an online edition or they have a website and so instead of  making that their secondary source, they have put a lot of precedence on their online edition or their website and its constant deadlines because readers are comparing that to a television news source which will always be updating immediately because that’s  the way they were built, but traditionally newspapers have always given more detail. They don’t give sound bytes. They do a lot more research. So there’s a dichotomy there, and a lot of pressure for newspaper reporters because you’re expected on one hand to be giving more detail by editors and  readers, but at the same time you are expected to be giving it at the same pace that a tv station would be giving it.

Maggie: Which is less checked.

Katy: Yeah, which is difficult to do that, because tv reporters often just get a sound byte or some B-role footage and that’s all that people expect. They get something that’s fast and sensational, but they don’t check their facts or they don’t do a lot of background information and people don’t need that necessarily. So there’s that aspect, as well as the fact that people just don’t want to hold the newspaper in their hands anymore. They just want to read it on the Internet, but the adds on the internet does not pay for half as much as ads in the actual paper. You can’t get nearly as much information on the internet; you have to click through four pages just to get as much detail. So it’s a really interesting dichotomy, and it’s a lot of pressure. With constant deadlines and the expectation that an editor can call you at anytime of night to put up a story on the internet to keep up with the tv, you are rundown constantly but you aren’t paid accordingly because newspapers are struggling because they are no longer printing papers as much and internet ads don’t cost as much, It’s a vicious circle.

Maggie: That’s really depressing.

Katy: It is very depressing, but most people who do it are super passionate about it so they do it anyways and that’s the hardest thing: you do it because you love it, but it eats up your life .

Maggie: So when you write, who is your intended audience?

Katy: Most of the time, I wrote to a smaller audience. I wrote in a small market, and so the first professional job that I had I wrote around 90,000 people. I wrote to a county. We went to a couple of different counties. Our paper served a couple of different counties. The second one I wrote to again a small audience, but about 150,000. It was a marine corps base.

Maggie: That doesn’t seem small.

Katy: Well, for a paper that is. That was a daily newspaper, and the first was a biweekly. They were both older audiences, mainly baby boomers who don’t usually go on the internet to get their news.

Maggie: Yeah, Millenials usually don’t usually get newspapers to get their news.

Katy: Yeah, the only time they read our stuff is when there is something specific that they are seeking out or when there’s breaking news, they Google it, and then they find us. That was a lot when I was doing cops reporting, they would find my stuff a lot. Or, they had a child in the newspaper, so they would seek my stuff out. Mainly, though, the older people just used the regular newspaper.

Maggie: How is the current technological revolution changing your audience?

Katy: It’s not changing my audience. I mean, for the most part, people who read newspapers are not going to stop reading newspapers. They are not going to get digital editions. People who read on the Internet will visit the page very once in awhile, but they’re not going to be regular visitors. That’s the problem with newspapers and why they’re struggling so much. You have big papers like the New York Times that are always going to sell papers, but smaller papers are not going to have that. There’s this idea that small town papers serve communities in a way that national papers cannot do because they bring small town news, but there are small town tv stations that do that just as well.

Maggie: So people would rather watch something than read it.

Katy: Yeah. So it’s really just the baby boomer generation and they’re not going to stop reading the newspaper and they’re not going to read it in a different format because they’re not part of the technology generation, That’s the constant struggle.

Maggie: So what do you think reading and authorship will look like fifty years from now?

Katy: Unless there’s some sort of major revolution in the way newspapers are consumed, then I think it could be completely dead. I have no idea what that will look like.

Maggie: How long did it take you to get a job in the publishing industry?

Katy: Well, I had one right outside of school, but it was unpaid. I was the editor and chief for the national senior games. It was like the senior Olympics. They needed an editor for their newspaper for their summer Olympics. They were too poor to pay me, so I did it for free. It was a great experience, and while I was doing that I got my first job. While I was in college, I was the editor of the school paper. When I got married and moved to North Carolina, I didn’t have a job for four or five months, but then I made contact with them up there and got a cops job. The turnover rate is so high in newspapers because you get so burnt out so fast that newspapers are constantly looking for new people to abuse. So it’s not hard to find a job.

Maggie: So how much did your manuscript or beginning articles change by the time they were published.

Katy: When I first started out, a fair amount. It’s learning the AP style, but for newspapers its all the same style. Each paper has its own quirks or house style that you have to learn, but all newspapers in the US subscribe to the AP style. Once you learn that, which I learned in college, it’s not that hard. And I was an editir. I used to do too many quotations, like a quote then a statement then a quote, and my first paper was like, “you’re doing too many quotes. Just state what happened.” I had to learn that.

Maggie: So do you have an outline in your head or does it change each time?

Katy: No, I guess it’s easy to fall into a rut, but when you’re doing cops reporting there is a formula for doing that. You’re not going to get crazy with that. You’re not going to get poetic on a story about a guy getting arrested for assault. When you do features reporting, you want to get creative and that’s what I loved about it. It was my favorite, and I was our features editor in North Carolina and that was really my bread and butter. I got to think out of the box.

Maggie: So do you have a specific writing process or do you just write?

Katy: No, like I said I just try to tailor the story to…. It depends on what I’m writing about. If I’m doing a cops piece then there’s a formula, but if I’m doing features then what I try to do is try to get to know the situation or the people I’m writing about. I used to write about couples, like we had an anniversary section and I would sit down for two hours with a couple and try to get to know them as a couple so in the story I tried to really reflect them in the story in my writing. So my writing style would change depending on who I thought they were as a couple. So I never really had a process, just getting to know them and reflecting on them in the story.

Maggie: So do you have any writing habits or rituals that you follow? Like lighting a candle?

Katy: No, there were times when I was super in the grove and didn’t matter what was going on around me like a shooting or yelling, I was just in the zone. Other times, I had to put on music. As long as I’m sitting at my desk… Sometimes I would have to write a whole story and print it off and look at it and hand edit it. That is one thing I would do if it just wasn’t gelling.

Maggie: So you have written in multiple genres?

Katy: Yeah, I have done education, cops beat, sports, features, and then regular beat stuff.

Maggie: So if you had to go back and read your first publication…

Katy: No (laughs) I wouldn’t enjoy it. Very embarrassing.

Maggie: So any other jobs in the field of writing other than journalism? Short stories?

Katy: No, but I’ve thought about it. As a kid, I always wanted to write books, and I still think about it. I want to do that, but that’s a lot of time, Very scary. Very different. It’s different writing something that long. Writing fiction vs. nonfiction, writing under a deadline, just everything is different about it.

Reflections

            After the end of last semester, I was undecided in both my major and what I wanted to do for my career in the future. I have always had a love for reading, so I considered being an English major and ultimately going on to perhaps becoming a professor or maybe even an editor. I decided to email Dr. Williams, who I had class with both last semester and this semester. I told him about what I was thinking about doing and wanted his advice. In response, I received an email that was as encouraging as it was helpful. I decided to give being an English major a try and set my sites on a career that would use what I learned. A few weeks after this semester started, Dr. Williams emailed me again asking me to be his honors faculty assistant. Of course, I accepted. It gave me an opportunity to work with my favorite professor and catch a glimpse of what the industry I was interested would be like. Now that the semester is reaching its conclusion, I’ve decided to reflect on how this semester has impacted my decisions for the future.

             In Books and Print Culture, we learned about the business of print, a career field that I’ve thought about entering into. Unfortunately, the industry of print is one in turmoil. Sites like Amazon and others have taken the lion’s share of sales, putting brick and mortar stores like Barnes & Noble on alert. Newspapers, meanwhile, are watching their subscriptions plummet. In addition, physical books are on their way to becoming just another decoration within the home, as digital books as well as a decline in reading are making them a less viable option appealing only to bibliophiles. This course, in a way, serves as something of a warning to those interested in pursuing a career in a field on the decline.

            My job as an honors faculty assistant and at the press served as another eye opener into what I would be getting myself into should I continue on my present course. The experience was an amazing one that actually made going to work fun. I loved getting to do the different projects I was assigned to, which makes me hopeful that print will continue despite the challenges it currently faces. I learned a great deal about the publishing work that the press did and saw the intricacies behind the business. Unlike the course, it actually made the future of print seem much less worrisome. To say the least, it gave me hope.

            A lot has changed over the course of this semester. I have learned more than I can say, especially about the future and myself. Despite the dreary tone of the class, working at the press gave me such an eagerness to work in the industry of print. Something I love about being an English major is that cultivates both important skills like writing and my ability to imagine and create. That’s why I so look forward to continuing my journey in this field. I also look forward to taking more courses with a professor who has taught me so much, not only about academics but also about life.

Physical vs Digital Books

            For those of you who don’t know, a bibliophile is defined as someone with a great love for books. I am a bibliophile. Throughout the semester, one of the lingering discussions we’ve had in class is whether or not digital books will replace physical books or and which is the better medium. Each medium offers its own advantages and disadvantages over its competitor, making it a difficult choice. As the semester comes to a close, I feel as though I have finally made a decision as to where I stand in this debate. After having been presented with multiple perspectives on the topic coupled with personal experiences, I have decided that physical books are my preferred way of reading.

             While digital books offer a great deal that physical books cannot, they just are not for me. Perhaps the greatest upside to digital books is the convenience they offer; being able to carry your entire library on a small tablet means you can take your collection of books almost anywhere you go. It also allows you to access your books from multiple devices, should you accidentally leave one at home. In addition, one can access online sources with the swipe of a finger if they need to better understand the text. For me, this is where the benefits end. My idea of reading is getting away from everything and reading in silence for as long as I want anywhere that I want. I do not want this time to be limited to my device’s battery life, or have the constant temptation to jump on social media or be bothered by incoming text messages. It is personal preference more than anything, but to me it is a big enough issue to turn me away from digital books.

            As someone who has always read physical books from a young age, they hold a special place in my heart. You can take them anywhere you want, without the fear of a fading battery or losing Internet connection. It provides complete escape from a world overrun with technology and noise. It’s also more of a social device if one prefers, as others can look at your book and immediately know what you’re reading, perhaps leading to conversation. It’s also more personalized, as there are typically multiple editions to most books. Lastly, an author can actually sign your physical book. Recently, one of my favorite authors handed me a signed copy of his book with a personal message inside. This gave me a real appreciation for physical books and how they can be uniquely tailored to the individual.

            The argument ultimately comes down to personal preference, especially whether one prefers convenience or a more personalized experience. I prefer feeling like my experience is a unique one that I can take anywhere I want. Whether that uniqueness comes from a personalized message within the book or rare cover art, it all serves to personalize the experience. Ultimately, though, this issue of which medium to choose is largely exclusive to bibliophiles like myself. As we learned in our class textbooks, the importance of a book comes from the message within instead of the medium it is presented through.

Reading, Writing, and Coffee Shops

          In addition to being a college student and an honors faculty assistant, I’m also a barista at a Starbucks near my off campus home. Often times, people think of coffee shops as a place to read and study, and they’re not wrong. After serving someone their beverage, it’s not uncommon for them to just sit down on one of our couches and read for hours on end. I’ve seen book clubs arrive early in the day and not leave until closing time. Interestingly, these customers always read physical, bound books; I have never seen a Nook or Kindle in my Starbucks. As an English major, it’s always fun to strike up a conversation with one of these folks about what they’re reading. Whether it’s the Bible, a textbook, or the latest teen romance novel, they always have something interesting to say. Several people have even exchanged phone numbers with me in hopes of continuing our conversation. When I’m not working, I too frequent coffee shops to read my favorite books and study for exams.

            In an interview with a friend of mine who is both a regular customer and amateur writer, she considered Starbucks to be the best place to do her writing. She described the atmosphere as “relaxing,” and that it gave her an escape from the stresses of daily life. It allowed her to focus on doing research for her next writing projects free of distractions. It also allowed her to interact with other readers/writers who she could discuss different ideas with all while drinking her favorite beverage. Interestingly, she indicated that she thought of Starbucks more as a place to write and study, and not necessarily read. A statement I thought to be odd.

            In an age where brick and mortar bookstores are struggling to survive, I feel that it makes sense to combine bookstores with other services like a coffee shop. One classmate informed the class about a coffee shop that also allowed customers to rent books while they ate. If the customers ordered a beverage or a pastry, then it lowered the cost of their book rental. What a genius idea! The coffee shops I visit the most are usually the ones located inside bookstores like Barnes & Noble or an independent, so I think doing more to integrate the two like the aforementioned coffee shop would further propagate both services.