Image via Wikipedia
What I enjoy most about True/Slant is having been invited not simply to write, and grow an audience, for a new, lively, smart group of readers. I’ve also met, by phone, email and face to face, great new colleagues, some of whom have become friends — people of all ages whose wit, insights, wisdom and passion can be amazing.
Tomorrow morning I’m on a train up to Boston at the invitation of Jerry Lanson and Jeffrey Seglin, both fellow T/S contributors, who teach journalism at Emerson College. I’ll talk about the ethical issues involved in writing memoir to a class there. I came to True/Slant after a guest lecture last year in April to an NYU class of journalism students that included fellow contributor and Canadian Katie Drummond. Talk about luck.
I’ve emailed T/Sers in China and Canada and have met a few in Manhattan for coffee or lunch. One of them (small world) is the niece of one of my editors from The Globe and Mail, my first journalism job. I hope to get out to Chicago someday to see the cool women who blog from there: Fruszina, Megan, Marjie.
In a time of chaos and upheaval within print journalism, it’s rare and great to find new, collegial peers, even — especially — scattered across a dozen time zones and continents. This visit is a bit of a blind date for all of us, but that’s the T/S spirit. I know it’s going to be fun.
Have fun. Remember to be dour. Can you do dour?
I do a very good dour. But it’s a gorgeous sunny day in Boston and Jerry is good company. I’ll fake it.
Perfect! Dour is the best mood to fake.