F255. The Reporter and the Story: How Journalism Can Inform, and Fund a Literary Career

Room 102A, Washington Convention Center, Level One
Friday, February 10, 2017
3:00 pm to 4:15 pm

 

Hemingway, Orwell, Dickens—all worked as journalists before becoming celebrated novelists. In addition to building your platform and paying the bills, working as a reporter can make you a better poet, novelist, or memoirist. Five journalists talk about how reporting on others drives them to create better fictional characters, how radio reporting has helped them develop their authorial voice, and how daily deadline gigs can lead to a career as a narrative nonfiction author.


Participants

Moderator:

Jessica Langlois is a journalist and essayist covering the arts, feminism, and grassroots organizing. She has written for LA Weekly, L.A. Times, Oakland Tribune, and others. She teaches journalism and creative writing at CalState Northridge and Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

Jeneé Darden is an award-winning journalist who has reported for NPR, Time, Ebony, The LA Times, and more. Jeneé covers women, race, sexuality, and wellness on CocoaFly. She is a former National Book Foundation Summer fellow. Jeneé graduated from the University of Southern California and UC San Diego.

A novelist, poet, game writer, and journalist, Lisa Brunette is the award-winning author of the Dreamslippers mystery series. She's interviewed a sex expert, the designer of the Batmobile, and a sheep farmer, among others, and she has credits in hundreds of best-selling games.

Elizabeth Flock is a journalist based in Washington, DC, who reports on social issues in the US and abroad, particularly in southeast Asia. Her upcoming book, a work of narrative nonfiction, is: The Heart is a Shifting Sea: Love, Loss and Longing in Mumbai.

Jenny J. Chen is a freelance writer based in Washington, DC, with bylines in the Atlantic, NPR, Washington Post, Marie Claire, and more. She writes mostly on race, health, and the environment.

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February 7–10, 2024
Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City Convention Center