Chip's Writing Lessons #101

Newsletter

In this issue:

Interview | Four Questions with Tom Romano

Heads-up | The International Dublin Writers Festival and the Power of Storytelling in Norway

Four Questions with Tom Romano

Tom Romano is teacher first, writer second. Both identities have sustained him over a career of more than five decades. In high schools, universities and summer literacy programs, Tom has taught teenagers and adults to write a little better than they already do. His most recent accomplishment in teaching has been with a college senior in a required advanced writing course. “I don’t like to write,” she wrote, “but I credit this class with lighting a fire under my ass.”

Tom’s books about teaching writing include Clearing the Way: Working with Teenage Writers (1987) and Fearless Writing: Multigenre to Motivate and Inspire (2013). In 2015, he published Write What Matters: For Yourself, For Others, a book he wrote to give a lift to those who want to write but often lose heart. His most recent book is a memoir, A Boyhood at Red’s: Growing up in my Dad’s Neighborhood Bar (2023).

What is the most important lesson you've learned as a writer?

To befriend revision, as one of my college students put it. I discovered revision on my own as a teenager. When I had essays to write — always narrowly focused ones about a novel — I wrote them two or three days before they were due. My favorite words were moreover, demise and in the final analysis. I thought I was Edgar Allan Poe. The day before the assignment was due, I reread my essay, not to find errors, but because I was cocksure and smug. As I read, I thought of more to say, other ways of writing something that were clearer, more precise. I wasn’t disappointed by how I had fallen short. I was fulfilled by the creativity of the word work. That’s my writing process to this day: get a draft written the best I can, double-space it, print it and let it sit for two or three days before I come back to it with my Tri-Conderoga magic pencils and befriend revision.

What has been the biggest surprise of your writing life?

There’s always more to write. The late Don Murray was my teacher in graduate school at the University of New Hampshire. I told him once that I felt empty after finishing a big writing project, fearful I had nothing more to write. Don said not to worry, that it was natural for a field to lie fallow before planting again. 

My wife put it more bluntly, less poetically. When I finished my third book, I told her that it was my last one. She said, “I’ve heard that before.”

If you had to use a metaphor to describe yourself as a writer, what would it be?

I’m a gardener. In March, I sow seeds in my little greenhouse. When the seedlings shoulder through the soil — like first words — I nurture them with water, light and a little fertilizer. In May I transplant the sturdy seedlings into a 16- by 32-foot garden that had been an in-ground swimming pool. I tend to the plants, more watering, feeding, and also weeding, getting rid of clutter. I don’t rush. I work steadily every day, doing what needs to be done. That’s the way I write too.

What is the single best piece of writing advice anyone ever gave you?

Three pieces of critical advice at various stages in my life:

When I was an undergraduate at Miami University, I tried to sound educated by using big words and writing complicated sentences. My fiction writing teacher, Milton White, said, “Say it simply, Romano.” That doesn’t mean short sentences. It means clarity.

Number two is “Trust the gush.” That’s from Walt Whitman, who wrote, 

And the secret of it all is to write in a gush, the throb, the flood, of the moment — to put things down without deliberation — without worrying about style — without waiting for a fit time and place . . . . You want to catch the first spirit — to tally its truth. By writing at the instant the very heartbeat of life its caught.”

“Trust the gush” becomes a mantra in my writing class. I also tell students to write with faith and fearlessness, faith that there is language in them and fearlessness heading down the page with it.

The third piece of advice came from Don Murray again. I was hedging on beginning to write my dissertation, claiming I needed to read more, learn more. “You can read for the next 10 years,” Don told me. “There’s always more to read. Start writing.”

Heads-up | The International Dublin Writers’ Festival;and the Power of Storytelling conference in Bergen, Norway, in September

Two years ago, I had the honor of traveling to Europe to speak at two writers conferences. First stop: Ireland, for the International Dublin Writers’ Festival led by novelist Laurence O’Bryan. For anyone living in that part of the world or traveling there Sept. 20-22, you can soak in the wisdom of experienced novelists, screenwriters and editors. You’ll enjoy one of the most literary of cities while you’re there.

In Bergen, Norway (“Gateway to the Fjords”), you’ll spend three days with hundreds of journalists at the Power of Storytelling, which features high-powered journalists from Scandinavia and the United States. This year's conference, directed by narrative nonfiction writer Bjørn Asle Nord, is Sept. 18-20.