A few years ago, I started a blog called Inspired by CNY but somewhere in the midst of other projects, it fell by the wayside.
Then one day last spring, I stumbled across something called literary journalism and it captivated my imagination as nothing else had done in a long time. It's more creative than the news writing I learned at Syracuse University years ago. It's more artistic than the copywriting I've been practicing recently. But I saw that working with it could improve my magazine articles and my website content. So I pressed on to learn more.
I read Lee Gutkind's book, You Can't Make This Stuff Up and said, "I want to write like that!" Then I went on a three-day retreat with the Downtown Writer's Center and took an excellent class with author Jim Farfaglia at the DWC in Syracuse.
I've been studying how to add a story arc, dialog, different structures, metaphors, and other literary elements to the articles I write for Accent Monthly and the web content I write for clients.
But my head is brimming with story ideas and how all this can be applied to articles about Central New York. Then I knew it was time for Inspired by CNY to return. And when I told some of my writer friends about this idea, they wanted to join in too.
Here we'll do our best to write beautifully about the people, places, and projects we see around us here in Central New York.
We're looking forward to reading your comments on our posts.
~Sue Smith Romero