About Candace Dempsey
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Food Writing: The Secret Recipe for Success (10 weeks)
Hey, foodies: Looking for a career to feed your passion? Well, roll up your sleeves and sharpen your knives. Whether you're a chef, home cook, restaurant employee, published writer or newbie, this fun 10-week introductory course will help you break into food writing.
First you'll explore the full culinary menu, from restaurant reviewing and memoir to recipes, blogs and travel-related stories. Then you'll choose the specialties that suit you. Finally, you'll learn how to target editors and iron-chef the competition.
Over the 10 weeks you'll create one tasty food article, plus a delicious query letter to land that dream assignment. You'll snap appetizing food photos and, if you choose, create your own blog (Don't worry. It's easy.).
Not only will you receive weekly feedback from the instructor, but you'll also share experiences with fellow students around the globe. You'll be encouraged to unearth family recipes. Visit your local butcher. Hang out in farmers' markets. Get creative in your kitchen. Become an expert on your favorite cuisine.
You'll also learn how to:
* Figure out what editors "want"
* Interview chefs, winemakers and other experts
* Use all five senses to enrich your writing
* Combine travel and food writing
* Draw inspiration from the Food Network, culinary magazines and writers such as M.F.K. Fisher, Ernest Hemingway and Colette
The goal: Get paid to do what you love. Eat, drink, write.
Suggested readings:
Will Write for Food: The Complete Guide to Writing Cookbooks, Restaurant Reviews, Articles, Memoir,
Fiction and More, by Diane Jacobs.
American Food Writing: An Anthology: With Classic Recipes, edited by Molly O'Neill.
Best Food Writing 2007, edited by Holly Hughes.
Class Outline
Week 1: What's cooking in the food market?
Explore food writing specialties. What do you bring to the table? Where do you fit in? Assignment: Write a blog post (minimum 400 words). Describe in luscious detail the most memorable meal you ate as a child. Who made it? Who was at the table? What happened while you were eating it?
Week 2: The very idea!
What stories do you want to tell? Get inspiration: visit restaurants, food markets, restaurants, delis. Cook new recipes. Skim television shows, blogs, newspapers, magazines, media kits, press releases, Web forums. Note trends. Talk to experts. Review previous blog item. Assignment: List 10 story ideas, boiled down to single sentences (e.g., 10 best restaurants in Las Vegas)
Week 3: Get deeper into the market
Learn to "read" a magazine's table of contents, ads and masthead. Get writers' guidelines. Review story ideas. Assignment: Choose your hottest story idea. Write a one-page query letter tailored to your top three markets.
Week 4: Target editors
Find out what they "need." Google them. Get their contact information. Figure out how to approach them. Email? Snail mail? Personalize that query letter. Assignment: Outline your story idea.
Week 5: Use all the tools in your kitchen
Flesh out your idea with interviews, quotations, statistics. Develop a list of sensual food words (avoid cliches such as mouth-watering). Assignment: Write a compelling opener for your story.
Week 6: Deepen your writing
Study the work of your favorite food writers, such as Ruth Reichl or R.W. Apple. Note their specialties. See how they use recipes, humor, quotes, suspense, dialog and other ingredients to spice up their stories. Assignment: Begin a rough draft of your story (under 800 words).
Week 7: Study your audience
Time for some sleuthing. Identify the audience for your targeted markets. Professionals, weekend wonders, armchair cooks? Find out their gender, age, education, interests. Assignment: Tailor your rough draft to that audience.
Week 8: Frost that cake
Use key words to create snappy headlines. Add colorful details. Supply missing ingredients. Delete repetitions. Review rough draft. Assignment: Polish your story (800 words or less).
Week 9: Creating appetizing food photos
Snap spicy photos. Get people and workspaces into your photos. Legalities. Digital equipment. Rights. Payments. Assignment: Hand in polished article.
Week 10: Launch your career
Easy ways to create a culinary blog and writer's website. Bios. Business cards. Food-related conferences. Assignment spreadsheets. Contracts. Rights. Payments. Ethical "free food" dilemmas. Cookbooks. Memoirs. Anthologies.
COMMON QUESTIONS
Where do I take this class?
Entirely online. Students can move freely around the world during the course. Lessons and discussions can be called up from an Internet cafe in Katmandu if necessary. Just make sure you have the time and discipline to complete assignments while on the road.
I'm already a published writer. Will this intro course work for me?
But, of course. Especially if you're jumping specialties or need to brush up your skills (e.g., blogs, digital photos). You'll find the marketing information and critiques helpful, not to mention encouragement from classmates.
How much time does it take?
I keep assignments short, to encourage students to explore the culinary world first-hand. Plan to spend 30-60 minutes for reading each week and up to several hours to complete the longer assignments. Want to delve more deeply into the material? Just ask the instructor for suggestions.
Where do the students come from?
All over the globe. The more countries represented, the richer our culinary experience will be.
About Candace Dempsey
CANDACE DEMPSEY is an award-winning food and travel writer, plus an editor and writing coach. An Italian-American journalist based in Seattle, she writes the Italian Woman at the Table blog for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and a wilder version on her own site.. She's interviewed many food celebs, from the Barefoot Contessa to Ruth Reichl. Like her idol, Peter Mayle, she's a talented home cook and appreciative eater. A former restaurant reviewer for Sidewalk.com and Downtown Source, she's also been a restaurant server and short-order cook.
Candace has a B.A. in English and education, plus a master's degree from the University of Oregon School of Journalism, where she was a Graduate Teaching Fellow. She's also the former editor and producer of UnderWire, a MSN Website that Newsweek called "cheeky, nicely written, fun" and The New York Times praised for "serious sisterhood."
Her stories appear in many Travelers' Tales and Seal Press anthologies, plus numerous newspapers and magazines, including The Chicago Tribune, Passionfruit, Adventure Journal, Art & Antiques, and The Boston Phoenix. Check out her most delicious articles at candacedempsey.com.
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