Writer's Panel

Last Friday I attended the writer’s panel. The four guests were Gregory Kane, Elizabeth Evitts, Chez Thompson Cager, and Jane Conly. I have never attended a panel before, and found it really interesting, and a nice change from lectures.

Each of the writers had their own advice and opinions of the world of writing which gave me different perspectives. Kane has his own column in the Baltimore Sun, Evitts is the Editor in Chief for Urbanite Magazine, Cager is a poet, and Conly is an author.

Kane used a term, “pumping the press.” He was saying, that to write a great column you need to get public officials to talk, which is hard, but even harder to get them to tell the truth. He also explained the difference between writing an article and a column; a column he can put his opinion in. An article should be jam-packed with as much information as possible in the beginning, because writers are under the assumption that readers will stop reading after a few paragraphs. In a column, the end is just as important as the beginning.

Jane Conly gave us a brief story on how she started writing about Baltimore, which I found really interesting. She went to a free clinic because she could not afford a doctor. She then started to volunteer there, and found the people she encountered interesting, and started integrating Baltimore into her writing.

Conly also told us that there are two repeated plots in writing: a stranger comes to town, and a person goes on a journey. These both involve culture shocks—either the stranger is the culture shock, or the person encounters it in new areas.

All four writers on the panel discussed how, as a society, we are losing the idea of community, and neighborly-ness. Kane said that as a child people on his block would sit out on their stoops, it was a symbol of pride. For children it was a place to “plot mischief.” However, the older people sitting on their stoops would stop the children from following through with their mischief. People would look out for one another. We are loosing this sense of friendly community. A direct example of this is the blue lights all around Baltimore. Instead of people watching out for each other, we have street poles with blue lights and cameras. Evitts said that the city was designed for human interaction, whereas suburbia is supposed to be more peaceful and secluded. The human interaction, however, is decreasing over time.

As with all the events throughout this semester, we are asked to analyze our sense of community. How can we bring together Baltimore with Loyola, and even further, now, people in general with each other. One of the speakers said that there are some really bad areas in Baltimore that need to be fixed, but it will take something really radical to change them.