Writer shares joys of craft with aspiring journalists
By Roxye Arellano
Diversity Institute Fellow
07.29.02
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| Tina McElroy Ansa. Photo by Shiloh Crawford III |
Tina McElroy Ansa, author of the new book You Know Better, gave tips on reporting and writing to aspiring journalists at the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute in Nashville on July 10.
“As journalists you can use writing as a tool and be able to share those stories with the larger world,” Ansa said.
Nine fellows from across the country are studying how to be journalists as part of a 12-week program sponsored by the Freedom Forum. They are taking intensive courses and will return to their hometowns later this summer to begin work as either full-time reporters or visual journalists at daily newspapers.
Editors nominated individuals in the program because they showed potential for becoming successful journalists and are familiar with the communities from which they hail. Ansa said homegrown talent can help local newspapers do a better job of covering the communities they serve.
“There are tons of community members who are dying for attention,” Ansa told the students. “The average person wants to share that information with someone.”
Several students said they found Ansa to be a wonderfully witty story teller. At various points, students chuckled as she talked about her experience as a writer and how her work connects her with her past.
For instance, Ansa recalled how she used to keep a pad by her bed so that she could write down ideas as they came to her. Often, those ideas came to her just as she was falling off to sleep or even in the midst of sleep. Her plan was the write them down so she wouldn’t forget them. But often times, she would forget to flip the page and instead would write several ideas – one on top of the other – on the same sheet of paper.
“When I would wake up in the morning and look at my pad, I would just see words, like chicken scratch, and I would think, 'Oh, dear Lord, the Holy Grail is in there somewhere,' and I couldn’t remember what the idea was,” Ansa said. “So, one of the things I discovered was Post-its. … I would write my thoughts down and tear them off and put them above my head and organize them in the morning.”
Ansa also entertained the class by reading passages from her book. She later attended several book-signing engagements at stores throughout Nashville, as well as a public session at the Freedom Forum.