Customer Reviews

The Art of Column Writing: Insider Secrets from Art Buchwald, Dave Barry, Arianna Huffington, Pete Hamill and Other Great Columnists

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This book is a minor miracle - and the miracle is that Suzette Martinez Standring has compressed so much valuable information into a book that is not only useful, informative, and funny, but also at times deeply moving. How can anyone do that in a How-To format? Partly it's because she makes her points by quoting from some of the world's best columnists, showing us what they do and how they do it. When she shows us what to look for we can read from material by Dave Barry, Arianna Huffington, Art Buchwald, and others, and get a real sense of what makes a column work. These truly are `insider secrets' as she claims, and every one is to be prized beyond rubies.

Better yet is that Standring has interviewed all types of columnists and relays to us their wisdom about what it takes to write 500 words of thought-provoking writing several times a week. There's far more expertise in these pages than the slim look of this volume would at first suggest. I'd prize that beyond pearls, too.

Best of all is that Standring is not afraid to ask the difficult questions about what makes a person want to become a columnist in the first place, and what that might mean in terms of commitment if one chooses that path. It's that sort of question that most writers tend to skim over, since it's always easier to tell a reader how to do something (as in `How to Write a Detective Novel') than to engage with the deeper questions of why it might be an important life decision to take on that specific kind of writing. To do all this, and do it with humor? I'd prize that above everything.

Whether you want to discover how to write columns, to teach a class on how to write them, or just want to learn how to appreciate fully what columnists can tell us each day we read their words, this will be far and away the best book you could get hold of.

Dr Allan Hunter
Author of: Stories We Need to Know: Reading Your Life Path in Literature
www.allanhunter.net

I am an author and syndicated columnist and thought I knew the business. Now that I have read The Art of Column Writing, I realize how little I did know.

I met Suzette when she served as President of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and that position gave her the chance to interact with everyone in the field. She puts in it a concise and easy to read format.

If you are a veteran journalist or just getting started, you can learn from this book. I wish it had been published before I started writing and glad that it is on the market now.

Don McNay
www.donmcnay.com

As a columnist, it's embarrassing to tell you that I didn't know too much of what Suzette Standring reveals in this light volume. It has so much heavy information tamped down on each page, it's amazing her book doesn't plunge right through the table.

An easy, smiling read the first time; second time, get out your yellow highlighter.

That so many popular writers willingly contributed their secrets is a tribute to Ms. Standring's ability to ask the right questions. Her own secrets of successful column writing are simple: Velcro your butt to the chair; A fresh angle is a sharp foot in the door; and Assigned to cover county news was like being plunked into a pilot's seat and told "Land this thing!"

Many different writing styles are given, some by writers who use words that sashay across a page, some use words that slither or stride. Sandring's strut.

A must read for journalism students and homemakers who want to communicate on a larger scale than husband and kids. After all, Erma Bombeck had to start somewhere. Standring tells you how.

I am a novice at column writing, and this book inspires me and provides me with so much good advice and information. I had the distinct pleasure of meeting the author, Suzette Standring, and she not only is an amazingly great writer, but ditto as a person. She is my inspiration, and her book is well deserving of major kudos. Her columns are also well worth reading. She's a wonderful addition to the world of writing.

A Gift For Any Writer January 26, 2008


A fellow writer highly recommended THE ART OF COLUMN WRITING. I put in on my Christmas wish list and what a gift it's been!
Filled with straightforward information on the structure and requirements of a column, Ms. Martinez-Standring also shares her wisdom and humor in dealing with all kinds of people. She offers advice from finding one's own voice to dealing with writer's block to working with an editior and everything in between. Although she had made a rapid ascent from novice writer to syndicated columnist in just the past decade, Ms. Martinez-Standring shares her insecurities and stumblings along the way. Her interviews with many highly respected columnists are both enlightening and informative.
The book reads quickly, flows smoothly and is just the shot in the arm an aspiring writer or uninspired veteran needs. It has already attained "top shelf" status in my bookcase and I'll be sure to pass it on to my peers.

Elle King (Edgartown, MA)

I had this book on pre-order and boy, was it worth the wait! Not only is it relentlessly instructive and comprehensive, it reads like fiction. Great information from amazing people -- I had it finished within 24 hours of receipt.

If you have an interest in writing of any sort, but most particularly columns, do yourself a favor and add this one to your bookshelf. No one is going to lend it to you because it is sure to become an dog-eared reference for anyone with an interest in the art!

Spark the wordsmith within and read this book!

And this should be required reading. An aspiring writer/columnist will find the material useful, inspiring in very practical terms. For the same reasons a seasoned writer/columnist will regain the motivation that led her/him to start writing in the first place. Thank you Suzette!

I could not have learned as much as I did from this terrific book in a college journalism class. While sophisticated, entertaining and anecdotal, it's also amazingly funny.

Its scope is impressive, not to mention being well-indexed. It's a complete compendium, I believe, for the existing or aspiring columnist.

The reviewing trade has a law that a critic doesn't write up works created by friends. Also, a critic cannot fairly consider a book in which he's quoted or has contributed to, even a tiny bit. Excellent rules, designed to provide objectivity to a deliberately subjective practice. An exception, to both counts, follows.

This is not the usual writing-instruction book, and few have been published on columns. Standring's focus is on teaching, not being The Authority: She knows that lots of examples and guests in the class are effective. Standring covers the main categories of columns, their construction and idea generation, as well as blogs and ethics 101. She reprints a number of columns, by others and herself -- even one to show where she messed up -- as well as quoting at length the best columnists explaining themselves. By her own experiences and learning from others, she has figured out not only how to create and market good work but to explain it to people already in newspapers and aspiring columnists.

Her from-scratch views on principles, research and structure refresh longtime journalists. The Art of Column Writing is valuable to budding columnists. Reader reviews in Amazon already demonstrate this. What journalists do, what the branch called columnists do, is by design transparent, but that can be confusing. Columns with facts have to be absolutely certain. Commentary must be bolstered by reporting and ethical uses of rhetoric. Humor must be grounded. It's tempting to drop a star in this review because this is a tough endeavor and Standring is so upbeat -- but when thumbing back through it, this book does not shirk from the realities of writing columns in the 21st century. At just 200 pages, it's a how-to that explains how-to.

Suzette Martinez Standring tells you everything you ever wanted to know about being a newspaper columnist but were afraid to ask. To do so, she asked some famous columnists (Pete Hamill, Dave Barry, the late, great Art Buchwald, among others) and some not-so-famous ones (yours truly and a few who aren't household names except, of course, in their own households) for their tips on the art of column writing. Standring, herself a talented columnist, adds her own insights to make this a wonderfully instructive -- and delightfully readable -- book.

If you wanted to perform brain surgery at your local hospital, the powers-that-be wouldn't let you. Fortunately, column writing isn't brain surgery, which is why almost anyone could do it. But not everyone could do it well. In fact, writing a newspaper column is often punishingly difficult. That is why the advice in this book is so good. It is given, freely and invaluably, by people who have done it -- and done it well -- for many years.

The revered columnist A.J. Liebling was once assigned to review some how-to books on writing. Liebling immediately sent the books back to his editor with a note saying, "The only way to write is well, and how you do it is your own damn business."

That's true. But it helps to have a little guidance. "The Art of Column Writing" will give you plenty of it.

(In the interest of full disclosure, and as mentioned above, I am in this book. My advice: Buy it anyway.)