Writing résumé

Back in July, I had the opportunity to meet my literary agent, Bob Hostetler, in person. (It was for this reason, and no other, that Older Daughter and I braved the insanity of Las Vegas.) We had only communicated by email before that, and it was delightful to meet him and his wife.

During our two-hour chat, Bob mentioned some additional fiction projects he thought might interest me; but he also mentioned in passing some possible rural-themed nonfiction projects.

It was these nonfiction projects that kept nagging at me. What kind of projects did he have in mind? Finally I requested a phone consultation to discuss the issue at greater length. I put Bob on speaker phone so Don could listen in as well, since we often collaborate on nonfiction projects.

To my surprise, during this phone call it became clear Bob had no idea of the extent of my nonfiction writing. Since he’s always focused on my fiction work, I guess he thought I merely dabbled in nonfiction, rather than having the extensive résumé that I do. On my end, it never occurred to me to inform him otherwise, since I didn’t need an agent for any nonfiction stuff. He requested I send him a few magazine clips as well as a copy of “The Simplicity Primer.”

So I did. I gathered a few clips, tucked a copy of the book into an envelope, and mailed it off. But I also did something I never thought to do before: I compiled a brief list of my magazine articles and other nonfiction writing. And holy cow, that résumé was a lot more hefty than I imagined.

Here’s what I came up with:

• Backwoods Home Magazine/Self-Reliance Magazine
107 articles

• Backyard Beekeeping
36 articles

• Backyard Poultry
5 articles

• Countryside
53 articles

• Goat Journal
30 articles

• Lehman’s (corporate blog)
53 articles

• Mother Earth News
7 articles

• Grit Magazine
2 articles

• Crafts Report Magazine (now called Handmade Business)
80 articles

• Molly Green Magazine
13 articles

• E-books: 51 self-published e-books

• “Bear Poop and Applesauce: An Urban Migration to the Country”
(e-published, no ISBN)

For magazine articles alone, that’s 386 articles, and I’m certain I’ve undercounted and missed a few. And of course, I have 4000+ posts on this blog.

In short, I’ve written more than I realized in the last 15+ years.

On a separate-but-related note, I’ve been organizing the loft in the barn above Don’s shop. In this loft are three and a half totes absolutely stuffed with magazines (Backwoods Home, Self-Reliance, Countryside, etc), many of which have our (Don’s and my) articles in them.

We actually winnowed out a lot of magazines and stored only the ones pertinent to our writing career. It’s a lot of magazines to store, but every time I think it’s time to get rid of them, something crops up that makes me glad I kept them. Needing clips for editors is one of those reasons.