Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 72—Creative Nonfiction's Hattie Fletcher Kickstarts Year 2 of 'True Story'
133 Plays7 years ago
Hattie Fletcher says, "[True Story] is a snack in between the main meal." The main meal being the quarterly magazine "Creative Nonfiction." You could say we have something in common. It’s the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak with the world’s best artists about creating works of nonfiction, leaders in the world of narrative journalism, documentary film, essay, memoir and radio and try to deconstruct how these masters go about the work so that you can improve your own. This week I welcome back Hattie Fletcher, who is the managing editor for Creative Nonfiction magazine. What prompted a second trip? Hattie, along with Lee Gutkind and the team over at Creative Nonfiction, started a $27,000 Kickstarter campaign to support the second year of True Story, their monthly offshoot to the quarterly magazine. True Story is a 5-10,000-word stand-alone piece in chapbook or digital form. It’s pretty rad. In this episode we talk about what makes the green-lit pieces pop and what the rejected pieces have in common, and also some of the goodies you can expect with a pledge. I hope after listening to this you’ll head over to the Kickstarter campaign and pledge some hard-earned dough so they can keep doing the work they’re doing on True Story. Full disclosure, I don’t get any kickbacks of any kind. What a guy. Though, it would be nice if you shared the episode and even left a nice review over on iTunes to help validate the podcast so I can keep doing this thing. I’d hate for the business office to come down and slam the door shut on this enterprise. Keep the reviews coming so I can keep the doors open at CNFHQ. Links and show notes are available at brendanomeara.com.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Focus
00:00:00
Speaker
How's it going CNF-ers? Hope you're having a CNF in good week. It's your pal, at Brendan O'Mara on Twitter. That's what my tombstone will read. Here rests, at Brendan O'Mara on Twitter. If he was granted 280 characters, his epitaph would be longer, in detail his long, influential rise to- Wow, they just cut you off.
00:00:24
Speaker
It's the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak with the world's best artist about creating works of nonfiction, leaders in the world of narrative journalism, documentary, film, essay, memoir, and radio, and try to deconstruct how these masters go about the work so you can improve your own.
Hattie Fletcher and True Story Kickstarter
00:00:44
Speaker
This week I welcome back Hattie Fletcher.
00:00:48
Speaker
She is the managing editor for Creative Nonfiction Magazine. And also she was back on the podcast in episode 46. Check that out too. What prompted a second trip?
00:00:58
Speaker
Hattie, along with Lee Guttkind, and the team over at Creative Nonfiction started a $27,000 Kickstarter campaign to support the second year of True Story, their monthly offshoot to the quarterly magazine. True Story is a five to 10,000 word standalone piece in chapbook or digital form. It's pretty rad. In this episode, we talk about what makes the green lit pieces pop.
00:01:26
Speaker
and what the rejected pieces have in common, and also some of the goodies you can expect with a pledge over on their campaign. So I hope after listening to this you'll head over to the Kickstarter campaign and pledge some hard earned dough so they can keep doing the work they're doing on True Story. Full disclosure, I don't get any kickbacks of any kind. What a guy.
00:01:49
Speaker
Though, it would be nice if you shared the episode and even left a nice review over on iTunes to help validate the podcast so I can keep doing this thing. I'd hate for the business office, what with their tassel loafers and such, to come down here and slam the door shut on this enterprise, keep the reviews coming, so I can keep the doors open at CNF HQ. Links and show notes are available at BrendanOmera.com. Without further ado, here is Hattie Fletcher.
Why True Story Exists
00:02:18
Speaker
about the origin of True Story and why you guys decided to make that an offshoot of the main quarterly magazine. Sure. There are a couple of different reasons we started doing True Story. It was something we had kind of talked about for a few years. I think one thing we wanted to do was to have a place to sort of give writers room to stretch out and do some of those long reform pieces.
00:02:46
Speaker
to kind of explore, you know, longer, meatier narratives. That was definitely one thing. Another thing was that as Creative Nonfiction Magazine moved to more of a theme issue sort of thing, we had this problem in the submission stream, which is that people would send great work and we'd have sort of, I had this pile of essays always that was like really great essays, but it wasn't kind of clear
00:03:15
Speaker
where they would belong or how they would fit together.
Format and Audience of True Story
00:03:18
Speaker
You know, it's really hard to sort of, I know some magazines do it, just sort of read things and accept and then kind of fit them together, but it's really hard to do that, you know, to accept something even if that's really brilliant and then try to figure out how to make it part of a mix that'll make sense as an issue of a magazine. And so we had this thought that, you know, if we had a magazine that was just one essay,
00:03:43
Speaker
you wouldn't have to they wouldn't have to kind of lean on each other as much in that way. And we'd be able to read and read something and and say that's really amazing and just sort of take it and publish it, which has been really fun. That part's been great. And I think the other thing is just
00:03:59
Speaker
You know, it's it's nice that it's one of the things we hear from creative nonfiction readers about the magazine is that they're sometimes a little bit overwhelmed by the general size and heft of it. You know, there's a lot going on in it. It's sort of most issues are this it's like an 80 page thing. The bulk of its text, you know, it's it's for readers. And so True Story is a little bit a little bit more casual
00:04:29
Speaker
in the sense that it's smaller, it's a little more portable, it's kind of like, we talk about it as sort of like a snack in between the main meal, you know, that comes out quarterly. So, and fortunately, the National Endowment for the Arts liked all these arguments and gave us a little bit of money to start it. So, that all worked out really nicely. What was the expectation of it when you first took it up about a year ago?
00:04:53
Speaker
in what sense are just like what it was what were you hoping to get out of the the true story monthly format like when you launched it a year ago like maybe how did those expectations sort of play out over the over the year did exceed your expectations are right it right on par with what you guys expected of it
00:05:14
Speaker
Yeah, I think more or less it was sort of what we expected. We kind of hoped it would appeal a little more to younger readers, and I think that's been the case. The last time I looked, about half the subscribers were also Creative Nonfiction subscribers, but that means half the subscribers aren't Creative Nonfiction subscribers, so that's terrific.
Story Selection and Submission Process
00:05:34
Speaker
if it turns out to be sort of a, to appeal to a slightly different audience who might eventually be interested in the other magazine and vice versa. So that's been good. We have right now, it's been, we actually were working on issue 13. So we have a full year of issues. And I think one of the nice things is that,
00:05:58
Speaker
There's been a lot of variety in kind of the response to the individual stories. So it's a little bit higher stakes in the sense that each issue is just one story. And so that story has to be really great. But of course, people still have their subjective tastes in reading. And so I think one of the things we've worked on really hard is trying to get a mix of things so that even if one story
00:06:23
Speaker
that we publish isn't necessarily to someone's taste, another one will be. And anecdotally, when we've heard from readers, I think that's really been the case. You know, sort of people have their definite favorites, but every story we've published has been someone's favorite. And so I think that's kind of a sign that that's gone really well. And what has been the submission volume for True Story? It's been a little bit slower than we would have thought.
00:06:53
Speaker
But I think that's because, you know, there's such long stories. So we're really looking at pieces that are between five and 10,000 words. Um, and there isn't, one of the things we wanted to do was provide a market for those stories. But I think in part, because there isn't such a market for those stories, they're a little bit harder to come by. Um, so, you know, if you're looking for like 2000 word stories, a lot of people have those, but sort of these longer pieces are, are take a little bit harder.
00:07:23
Speaker
Yeah, I think they're a bit harder to approach as a writer as well because to write and research and report on something that long, it's a lot of work to do for something that's uncertain.
00:07:38
Speaker
So I think maybe like yes the 2000 words like oh yeah I could probably you know you could do a certain amount of reporting in a day and sort of maybe get a piece of that nature out in a week but I mean if you're talking five ten thousand mean that's kind of getting into like a significant fraction of like a possible book or something like you you really have to know what you're doing to carry someone through that so that's that's a lot of work so that's probably has a lot to do with it too.
00:08:06
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's true. The kinds of stories that we've taken, they tend to be the kinds of stories that people have, the writers have a kind of investment in in some way. And so a couple of them have actually been related to book projects. So like True Story number two was part of Stephen Church's larger book about tigers and encounters with, you know, wild creatures.
00:08:33
Speaker
And similarly, issue number five, which was Edward McPherson's story, was kind of excerpted from his collection of essays about traveling around America and going to these sites of kind of the past of the future, future of the past. I forget which is. But they are, I think, the kinds of stories that
00:08:59
Speaker
you know, have that sort of level of investment from the writers. There's something that kind of clings to their imagination and really has made them like grip onto it. Even the very first story that was the case, you know, Fruitland, which was
00:09:14
Speaker
Steven Kuritz's story about the Emerson brothers and he had written about them from the New York Times, which of course had much less space and it was just the story had kind of captured his imagination and he found himself fascinated with it. And then he had this like 10,000 word piece and was a little like, well, what do I do with this now? You know, so those kinds of stories, when we find those, that's been a great fit for True Story and we're really happy to kind of be a home for those stories.
00:09:40
Speaker
So what's the process through which that you vet these long pieces? How is it that you won advances to the next round of judging versus something else?
00:09:53
Speaker
It's pretty much the same as our other reading process. We have sort of screeners who are going through the stories to the extent that they're a little bit easier to tell. I'll sometimes dip in and just sort of go through them. It's a little bit easier to tell than it is sometimes for a creative nonfiction, whether a piece will work or not. And I think it's because sometimes in the magazine, the larger magazine, I think it's confusing.
00:10:21
Speaker
In Creative Nonfiction magazine, you know, the pieces can kind of prop each other up or you get a mix of pieces. And so there can be a piece that's really kind of more lyrical or something that's kind of more reported. And collectively, you know, there are a bunch of different flavors and styles for true story.
00:10:43
Speaker
they've all been sort of their own individual styles, but they each have to have a certain balance, you know, that makes you feel like, um, you can read for 5,000 or 10,000 words, that story. And it's a little bit easier to tell on those submissions, whether there's kind of that balance and whether it's going to work. So, so in that sense, it's a little bit easier. Uh, though the reading is a little bit harder because they're longer too. So, you know,
Kickstarter Goals and Self-Sustainability
00:11:12
Speaker
Yeah, and you're kind of alluding to it there with that sort of that balance between various elements. So I wonder what do all the previous 12 issues and the 13th that will be coming out soon, like what do they all have in common? What can readers expect when they get one of those in the mail?
00:11:31
Speaker
Hmm, that's a great question. I mean, I think they're all sort of great examples of creative nonfiction as a genre in the sense of having that balance of sort of a narrative with a compelling voice, with kind of an informative nonfiction element. Aside from that stylistically, I think they've all been really different. We've had some, even in one of the interesting things about it and one of the things that makes it a nice project too is that
00:12:00
Speaker
The layout is sort of simple and it's something that we can teach our interns to do and so it's a good exercise that way. But what it means is the layout and the typesetting happens in our office which isn't the case with Creative Nonfiction Magazine. So we've had to over the first year make some decisions and kind of figure out the quirks and the template and everything.
00:12:22
Speaker
One of the things that's been interesting, and I promise I'm answering your question, is that we've had stories where there hasn't been a single section break and it's just been sort of like a long block of text. And then we've had a couple of pieces that were much more fragmented and kind of jumped around or had or made up of sections of like four or five lines at a time.
00:12:43
Speaker
So visually, we've had to kind of figure out those challenges, but it's been a good reminder of how different all the stories have been because they've all had slightly different design requirements. So really the, I think even in our call for submissions, what we say is, you know, there's really, they just have to be kind of true stories, but we don't try to be too specific besides that because we want to be open to however people kind of, you know, interpret that.
00:13:12
Speaker
And so now you started this Kickstarter campaign. What were those early meetings like when you're like, all right, we've had a good year. Well, why don't we take this to Kickstarter and $27,000 goal? What were those dialogues like? Why do you want to go with Kickstarter and just how's that going so far? Yeah. Well, it's going well so far. We've been up and running for
00:13:43
Speaker
I don't know, 36 hours or something like that and we're a quarter of our way to our goal, which is great. I think we decided to go with Kickstarter partly because it's an easy format to work with. We picked $27,000 because that's more or less the cost of making a year of the magazine.
00:14:05
Speaker
But our real goal is to double the number of subscribers we have because what we'd really like is for True Story to become self-sustaining and pay for itself. And really short of, I mean, we have kind of two ways to do that. One would be to raise prices, which we don't want to do partly because I think some of the appeal of the magazine is that it's cheap. A single issue is $3. It's sort of a low buy-in.
00:14:35
Speaker
So we could raise the prices or if we got more subscribers, roughly double the subscribers we have now, the cost per issue of producing it will fit better with the subscription price point. So really what we're doing is sort of using Kickstarter as a way to do a big subscription campaign.
00:14:57
Speaker
And it's a little early to tell, but it seems like the mix of supporters are some people that we know and some people who are subscribers. It's a good time. You know, there's sort of like a reduced renewal point. So that's nice. But we've also we're picking up new people. And I think really that's what we want is to reach new readers who aren't familiar with the magazine. And so putting it on the Kickstarter platform was also a way to do that. What do you see as the long term vision of True Story?
00:15:28
Speaker
I mean, I think they'd like to keep it going. You know, there's kind of if we can make it pay for itself, there's sort of no reason that it couldn't just be a monthly magazine that that goes indefinitely.
Submission Details and Common Rejections
00:15:42
Speaker
How can writers submit to True Story if that's something that they've got that long piece that doesn't seem to fit anywhere else? Yeah, absolutely.
00:15:53
Speaker
We take online or print submissions. The bulk of submissions come in online. You can find us either through Creative Nonfiction's website, which is where True Story lives, so creativenonfiction.org.
00:16:07
Speaker
at our submissions page, you can also probably just search submitable directly for it. There's a $3 reading fee, but we don't charge reading fees to current subscribers. So that's kind of a good deal. And it's a way to do that thing, you know, where you check out the magazine you're submitting to and everything. And yeah,
00:16:27
Speaker
We're reading all the time. We're really, the way I say it, we're actively reading. So right now, our turnaround time as far as between acceptance and publication is sometimes really super quick. So I've sent a couple of acceptances, which is really rare. Creative nonfiction, for example, the schedule is so long.
00:16:49
Speaker
You know that we send an acceptance and we're sure like well six months from now It'll be published but true story sometimes is really like congratulations. This is great. We can publish it in six weeks So it's a little bit faster that way Wow
00:17:06
Speaker
And what, with the stories that you're getting for, for the submissions you are getting for two stories, the ones that tend to get turned away, what do those have in common versus the ones that tend to get to your desk and Lee's desk? Hmm. Um, that's a good question. You know, every story is different. I think some of them are just, um, one of the things that is pretty important.
00:17:33
Speaker
with these true story things is a certain narrative element. And so some pieces just don't have that or don't have a strong enough kind of plot narrative element to keep a reader going through it.
00:17:48
Speaker
And I will say just because in the last batch of things I sent to Lee, a lot of them are really, a lot of the submissions are really, and this is kind of a thing with creative nonfiction generally, they're on the depressing side, which is fine. Life is hard. That's the whole thing.
00:18:11
Speaker
But I think we're looking for, you know, we don't want like a monthly storm cloud in your mailbox. It's not like kind of what we're going for. So, we had one story lately that I kind of had a laugh with. It was good and it was really well written, but it was a real downer and Lee's response, he wrote back. He's like, well, this is well written, but honestly, I can't imagine why anyone would subject themselves to like reading the whole way through it.
00:18:38
Speaker
So, you know, something that's long and serious, but I don't know, maybe a little funny also or happy, that would be great. We're really looking for those. What'd it kill you for a smile? Come on, people. Really? Yeah. I mean, it's tough. I get it. It's hard. And it's hard. You know, it's hard. Humor is really hard.
Backer Incentives
00:19:00
Speaker
A long humor story. That would be that would be a challenge. Someone out there should take up that challenge, though. Right.
00:19:07
Speaker
Yeah, but I think you can sort of one of the you can kind of mix tragedy with a certain kind of levity or lightness or, you know, craft that that makes it a little bit more reader friendly.
00:19:20
Speaker
Yeah, and what are some of the goodies for people who pledge on Kickstarter? There's a whole bunch. What are some of the ones that can people expect? We have a whole bunch of great things. At the lower levels, it's things like subscriptions. We have some dual subscriptions to both magazines. We have a lifetime subscription option to both magazines, which is pretty sweet.
00:19:44
Speaker
We also have some True Story gear. We have a t-shirt that we've had for a while, and we have a special t-shirt that Seth Ladon designed for True Story. We also have some original artworks from some of the illustrators for Creative Nonfiction. So we have some really tugboat print shop, which illustrated our marriage issue, has some really great woodblock prints, which are one of them was on the cover
00:20:14
Speaker
of Creative Nonfiction 59. It's beautiful, it's huge, it's really cool. And we have some of Mark Nystrom's wind drawings, which were featured in our weather issue, which he makes with, he puts out instruments to kind of gauge the wind and then he turns those into artworks. Those are great. I might need one of those for one of my walls at home actually. We also have
00:20:39
Speaker
Some signed books and book bundles and things like that and there's a level that there are a couple levels that also include a manuscript review by me. So that's a great perk. Yeah, absolutely. Oh man, well, this is great. I'm gonna get this up as soon as possible and see if it'll do
00:20:59
Speaker
a little bit of the heavy lifting you've got before you.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:21:03
Speaker
So thanks Hattie for doing this and I think even once you've fulfilled your goal, you've touched upon a lot of cool things that are fairly evergreen to true story that I think people get a lot of stuff out of.
00:21:15
Speaker
So it's a lot of fun to make so I hope we can keep doing it really is it's It's such a cool little pan like chat book type thing and it's got the one neat little cover image like it's just a it's just a neat thing from cover to cover so I'm I I can't wait for it to just to keep going and and I wish you the best of luck doubling and tripling and quadrupling your subscriber base and
00:21:40
Speaker
Yeah, thanks so much. We appreciate it. And thanks for the opportunity. Oh, you're welcome. Of course. Anytime, Hattie. All right. Thanks to Hattie for making the time. Say hi on Twitter at Brendan O'Mara and give the podcast a review. They mean a lot. I also have a pretty slick monthly newsletter over at Brendan O'Mara.com. My reading list for the month.
00:22:06
Speaker
as well as what you might have missed from the world of the podcast. But you haven't missed anything from the podcast, have you? Mm-hmm. All right, it's time for beer. Till next week.