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ERMA BOMBECK WRITERS' WORKSHOP NEWSLETTER
University of Dayton
January/February 2009
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Dear writer:
I subscribe to a very simple Google news alert: "Erma Bombeck." Each day, Google sends me an e-mail digest of news articles and blog entries captured in its frighteningly vast network that contain those two words next to each other. You can learn a lot about a topic that way.
I've also come across less flattering references along the lines of, "Would these Erma Bombeck types please stop writing about [fill in a motherhood topic of choice]." There was even a book of essays published in the 1970s called Not Erma Bombeck. "My feelings about motherhood have, over the decades, changed in many ways," its author wrote when she posted it as a PDF download in 2006. Erma was a symbol for her too.
All of which is fine. It's all about Erma as symbol. We read the writing and in our heads we make of it what we will: admiration, relief, solidarity, rejection. Whatever our reaction, we call it by the same name -- "Erma Bombeck" -- and conflate it with the person, though we know intellectually they're really two different things.
As writers, we sometimes see that other person who bears our name reflected back at us. We see him or her in the letters to the editor our columns provoke and in the words we exchange as we're signing our books for friends, family and fans we've never met. If we're lucky (I suppose), we see that person reinterpreted by agents and publicists. And if we're really lucky, we even recognize him or her when we look in the mirror.
As humor writers, we hope they're all laughing with us. But no matter -- we're just delighted they know our name.
Keep writing,
Matthew Dewald
Workshop director
From Erma’s desk...
“[A] woman can walk through the Louvre Museum in Paris and see 5,000 breathtaking paintings on the wall. A man can walk through the Louvre Museum in Paris and see 5,000 nails in the wall. That is the inherent difference. I don't know what there is about a nail in the wall that makes strong, virile men cry.”
Latest news…
NEW MEMBERS WELCOME
National Society of Newspaper Columnists announced it has opened membership beyond its traditional base to include "freelancers, self-syndicated or independent writers, or writers published on the Internet in any medium as online columnists or in blogs". A sign of the times, its annual conference -- June 25-28 in Ventura, Calif., -- will have a stonger workshop component focusing on "how-to" sessions to help writers "thrive and survive" in lean times. Conference details here.
MAKE 'EM LAUGH
PBS's new six-hour documentary, broadcast in three parts, looks at the history of American comedy in the 20th century -- funny people talking about what's funny and why.
HUMOR AND HEARTBREAK
Comedy Central named Robert Schimmel one of its best 100 comics. He needed a sense of humor to stay sane through divorce, cancer and the death of child. He writes about it in his new book, Cancer on $5 a Day: How Humor Got Me Through the Toughest Journey of My Life. Hear the NPR story here.
KUDOS
ERMA'S BIOGRAPHER GOING GREEN
Lynn Colwell, who wrote the authorized biography of Erma Bombeck, has co-written a new book with her daughter, Corey Colwell-Lipson, Celebrate Green!, to help readers make smarter choices so they can make "a better world for their grandchildren, great grandchildren, great-great grandchildren. You get the idea."
BOMBECK RAISES KIDNEY HEALTH AWARENESS
Andy Bombeck, son of Erma, was among the 26 Arizona transplant recipient athletes at the National Kidney Foundation’s 2008 U.S. Transplant Games -- and medaled in tennis. Read more here.
YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO WRITE WELL
THE YEAR THAT WAS
Just before Christmas, JibJab presented its year in review. It's still hilarious.
LATE, BUT STILL TIMELY
Humorist Roy Blunt, Jr., president of the Author's Guild, urged members to go a book-buying splurge for the holidays. They can use the support in January too.
NEXT ERMA BOMBECK WRITING COMPETITION TO BE HELD IN 2010
The Washington-Centerville Public Library will hold its writer’s competition every other year to coincide with UD’s Erma Bombeck Writer’s Workshop. Past winning essays and competition details are available here.
Humor writer of the month
LORRAINE DUFFY MERKL
She's the New York Gal. Lorraine Duffy Merkl's column appears in Manhattan Media's Our Town and West Side Spirit
newspapers. She's also written for The New York Times, the @Work section of New York Post; Adweek, DivineCaroline.com, Big Apple Parent and Elle.
Book giveaway
Each issue we give away a humor book or a book on writing to a few subscribers to our newsletter. If you're subscribed, you're entered to win! This issue's winners are:
* Terrie Carter
* Gary Brady-Herndon
* Susan Hintz
Each has won a copy of Cool Jew by Lisa Alcalay Klug, which, the cover assures us, "is not just for Jews."
Who's publishing what?
WORKSHOP FACULTY
WELL SAID
Carolyn Howard-Johnson was the No. 1 most popular guest on AuthorsAccess.com podcasts for the year 2008, said Authors Access radio co-hosts, Victor R. Volkman and Irene Watson. Her poem "Death by Ferris Wheel" is published in the January 2009 issue of Pear Noir.
PAST WORKSHOP ATTENDEES
HOLIDAY HUMOR
Karen McQuestion hosted the in-laws for Thanksgiving and lived to tell the story in the Chicago Tribune.
A WRITER'S LIFE
Kelly Epperson talked about topping Bill Gates' IQ score and other highlights in the life a columnist in a Q&A with American Chronicle.
TACKLING TECHNOLOGY
Pat Snyder resolved to take the social networking plunge at the start of the new year. Now she's all aTwitter.
OTHER PUBLISHING NEWS
UNTHINKABLE
Norm Cowie has a humor story in Missing, an upcoming anthology of stories about missing people. All of the book's profits go to charity.
Markets, contests and more
VANITY, THY NAME IS FAKERY
The Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest looks for "the best humor poem that has been sent to a 'vanity poetry contest' as a joke." Entries accepted through April 1, 2009. Even if you're not a fake poet, a Web site poking fun at vanity contests is worth a laugh.
'IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT'
The ever-popular Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which praises bad opening lines, is accepting entries for 2009, though the deadline is up in the air: "The official deadline is April 15 (a date that Americans associate with painful submissions and making up bad stories). The actual deadline may be as late as May 30 (the 2009 results will be released by mid-June)."
STORIES FOR 'TOUGH TIMES'
The Chicken Soup folks have a call out for true stories that tell it like it is, sometimes with humor. Deadline is February 28.
AND TIMES WHEN COMFORT IS NEEDED
Cup of Comfort is looking for submissions about grieving hearts and about fathers and sons. Deadlines are February 1 and April 15, respectively.
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NETWORK WITH OTHER HUMOR WRITERS: Network with other humor writers. Join the e-mail discussion group for past attendees of the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop and those who would like to attend in the future. Join now.
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SUGGEST A RESOURCE: If you have a favorite book or Web site, let us know at erma@udayton.edu.
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Copyright 2008, University of Dayton
