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Much Ado About Publishing

Hey, When Are You Going to Write About Me?
In the Acknowledgments of Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Anna Quindlen’s book, Thinking Out Loud, a collection of her columns, she thanks her husband by writing: “…he is responsible for what remains the best line in anything that has appeared with my byline: ‘Could you get up and get me a beer without writing about it?’”

Some jobs have occupational hazards. But, writing is a job with an occupational hazard for the people whom we know: We are going to write about you.

In the tradition of the late, great film director Alfred Hitchcock, who made a cameo appearance in each of his films, my friends, family, and colleagues have made cameo appearances (and a few extended visits) in many of my feature articles and essays.

You don’t have to do much to get into your writer friends’ stories. Just breathe. Or sneeze. Mindi and Shirley sneezed their way into the lead in my article on herbal cold and flu remedies in Body Mind Spirit Magazine.

My friend and former editor, Erica, helped me pack my books when I wrote about my move in this column last year.

In a humor piece years ago, I praised my ex-husband for his skill at changing the vacuum cleaner bag. And who ever said this writing business isn’t glamorous?

Six years ago, in Tropic, the Sunday magazine of The Miami Herald, I pondered in print: Whatever happened to the people who ate paste as kids? Since they were often the math and science geeks, I wondered, “Did they grow up to be some of the finest scientific minds of their generation? Or did they just grow up to have chronic indigestion?”

My mission, as my essay’s title stated, was to ask, “Are You Now or Have You Ever Been a Paste Eater?”

I asked people I was already interviewing for other articles. And I also asked family, friends, neighbors, and colleagues.

“Without exception, and to my great surprise, all were very eager to talk,” I wrote.

Oddly enough, this wasn’t one of those times when people said, “You can write about me, but please don’t use my name.” The people who’d eaten paste actually wanted you to know who they are.

Usually, people are pretty neutral about appearing in my writing, whether their real names (or any names) will be used or not. They’re not chomping at the bit for me to write about them, but they’re amused when I do.

Until recently, nobody had ever said, “Hey, when are you going to write about me?” But that’s exactly what this eager fellow said to me a few weeks ago.

He knew that I’d written about other friends, and I guess he was having a testosterone-fueled, competitive moment. Makes sense when you think about it. Years ago, he played high school football and turned down offers from college teams.

“I wanted my knees to last past the age of twenty-four,” he jokes. Besides, he says, he didn’t have the jock mentality or a particularly strong love for sports. He only played football because they practically begged him to.

He’s the size of my car.

How could they look at this 6’6”, 250-plus pound land mass and not have visions of touchdowns?

At 5’3” and about 98 pounds, I could fit in his pocket. We talked once about going canoeing, but ruled it out because we’d be guaranteed to tip over. Even with him in the back of the canoe and me in the front, it wouldn’t be two people going canoeing. It would be Ollie going canoeing with me as the hood ornament.

Oh, yes, his name is Ollie. Hey, folks, meet Ollie. We’re good buddies. Ollie is feeling much better now. I’m writing about him. Hey, what can I say? When a guy the size of New Jersey wants you to write about him, you write about him.

When people first meet Ollie, they’re really thrown. Well, not by Ollie, of course, he’s a gentle giant. They’re thrown because he has a very distinguished British accent.

“When people talk to me on the phone, they’re expecting David Niven,” he jokes. “And then they meet me and I look like this blonde, All-American, corn-fed, Iowa farm boy. A very big farm boy.”

His accent has come in handy in some pretty strange ways.

When he was in college, he took a summer job at an airport in Alaska. His colleagues only spoke English, and figured that since he’s British and has lived all over the world, he might be able to help out with a language problem they were having with some foreign customers who were trying to book a connecting flight.

So, they sent 6’6”, 250-plus pound Ollie over to talk to a group of German midgets in lederhosen who were on their way to the middle of Alaskan nowhere for a convention of Little People.

Wouldn’t you just love to have a picture of that?

This past fall, I put my journalistic interviewing skills to civilian use when I helped Ollie prepare for a job interview.

“They’re going to ask you about a particular challenge you faced in any of your previous jobs, and how you solved the problem.” I told him.

A few days later, at his job interview, Ollie told his prospective boss how he helped a group of German midgets in lederhosen get to The-Middle-of-Nowhere, Alaska, for a convention of Little People.

He got the job.

So, now, Ollie begins his new job, and he’s finally been immortalized in print, all in the same month.

While Ollie has been the only one to ever ask when I was going to write about him, someone else once made the opposite request.

Years ago, one old friend said, “Don’t ever write about me.”

I never did.

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Nina L. Diamond is a journalist, essayist, and the author of Voices of Truth: Conversations with Scientists, Thinkers & Healers. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Omni, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, and The Miami Herald.

Ms. Diamond was a writer and performer on Pandemonium, the National Public Radio (NPR) satirical humor program, for its entire run in Miami and select markets nationwide from 1984-1998. As an editor, she works frequently with other authors and journalists on both fiction and non-fiction.

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