On Your Newsstands Now
A few days ago one of my old editors at the Times-Dispatch, with whom I was having breakfast, told me that what my blog needed was an editor to give me some deadlines-meaning this fellow had noticed that I had been lax about writing a new column on a regular-enough basis. For someone who never missed a week of column-writing in 18 years, my efforts here on this blog have been a bit pathetic. It’s amazing how much more inspired one gets when one is being paid to put down his thoughts.
My editor friend was right about my being lax insofar as the blog goes, but I have been writing for other venues. And, in fact, I am delighted to say I’ll be announcing shortly in this space a new permanent weekly home. But here’s what I have been doing while you’ve been wondering where I was.
Since I last updated my blog, I wrote a short little “memory” for Richmond Magazine, and it appeared in a story heralded on the cover of their December issue: “225 Secrets of the City.” I was secret #76, and my secret-a rather surprising one, I guess-was actually announced on the cover.
Then, this week, I made my debut in a couple of other publications, Fifty Plus and the Richmond Free Press. I’m hoping to write as often as possible for Fifty Plus, because those readers are my age group (actually, I’m on the Plus end of it). These are the people who, like me, can sing along with Perry Como’s “Find a Wheel” and remember watching John Cameron Swayze. My first appearance in Fifty Plus is already on the stands and is a Christmas column called “Ghosts of Christmas Trees Past.”
Also this week, the first of my “Our Town” articles appeared in the Richmond Free Press. I will continue to write this column for the Free Press as “an occasional feature,” whenever I come upon interesting stories about the city or interesting people to write about. I love the concept of “Our Town,” and I’m happy to have the chance to look at Richmond from perhaps a new vantage point.
I’m excited about having a chance to go in some different directions with my writing. My “range of motion” was somewhat limited at the Times-Dispatch (generally a very domestic approach), but from now on I’ll not only have the chance to continue with that but be filling a lot of niches as well-I like the challenge of that.
So I hope you’ll look at December’s Richmond Magazine, this week’s Richmond Free Press, the January issue of Fifty Plus, already in the stores, and to stay tuned for another announcement.
I’m hoping I can continue to reach one way or another most of my readers from the Times-Dispatch days. If any of those articles catch your fancy, you might give the publication a call if you want to and tell them you enjoyed seeing me in print again.
Meanwhile, I will be continuing the blog (probably still erratically, though), so keep checking it every now and then, and use it to get in touch with me whenever you’d like.
Barb is recovering nicely-thanks to all who sent messages of good cheer. She says she continues to wear her sling only because it seems to part the holiday shoppers who step aside and give her room, eager to avoid “someone who’s a little bent out of shape,” as she puts it.
She joins me in wishing you a Merry, Merry Christmas and, to those
celebrating another occasion, happy holidays, whatever and whenever your holidays are. Here’s to a wonderful 2007 for all of us.
Randy
