Video: How Journalism Can Help You With Your Creative Writing

[image description: A black and white photo of a metal newspaper stand with copies of The Wall Street Journal and a sign with the price.]

One of my favorite things about being a writer is the community of writers you find yourself in. I’ve met some of the best people in my life through the ties we’ve made thanks to writing.

That’s how I met Carla Jean Whitley. She’s an author, freelance journalist, book reviewer, and journalism professor at the University of Alabama. I met her years ago when she was an editor at Birmingham magazine. Within minutes of meeting her for coffee I thought to myself, I want to be her one day.

Even though she’s now one of my closest friends, she’s the kind of person you can’t help but perpetually be a little starstruck by. So I was honored when she said she wanted to teach some of my essays in the features writing portion of her grad-level journalism class.

To supplement the readings (my essays “Grape Leaves” and “Worshipping at Jerry Springer’s Daytime Altar,” published in The Rumpus and Electric Literature, respectively), she also interviewed me on how having a background in journalism has helped me with writing creative nonfiction.

Want to know how doing freelance journalism when I first started out boosted my creative writing career? Watch the interview!