The Roger Smith Food Writers’ Conference
Friday, February 12 - Sunday, February 14, 2010
Conference Program
Friday, February 12, 2010
12 Noon -1 PM Conference and Workshop Registration
Pre-Conference Workshop
1-6 PM Introduction to Food Writing
This fast-paced five hour workshop covers just the basics– query letters, writing articles for newspapers and magazines, food book and cookbook proposals, ebooks, recipe writing, restaurant reviewing, blogging, etc. It is intended as a brief introduction for those interested in entering the field. The workshop will be organized by Andrew F. Smith and will include professionals who write, edit or publish in food magazines, newspapers, cookbooks, food books, websites and blogs.
Andrew F. Smith
Teaches food writing & food studies at the New School University in Manhattan; author/editor of seventeen books and more than 300 articles
Please note: Separate registration is required for all workshops.
Conference Opening
4-6 PM Conference Registration
6-8 PM Reception with Edible Manhattan
8-9 AM Conference Registration
9 AM-5 PM Concurrent Panels and Participants
Food Writing Profession: Current State and Future Prospects Fight and Flight: the Newspaper Food Section of the Future
Holly Hughes’ words, “Food has never been so high on America ’s agenda – are 21st-century food writers ready to meet that challenge?” To open the conference, a panel of four food-writing visionaries will present the art of food writing historically, presently and in the future from their points of view. Molly O’Neill will discuss the changing context of American food writing, including food-travelogues to a social/political commentary on the world to legitimization of the nostalgia cult. In a more microscopic way, Holly Hughes will focus on the past decade in food writing. How do the lines between journalism and entertainment blur, considering celebrity chefs and television cooks who produce cookbooks? Where do food safety and health fall in the spectrum of food writing today? Then, with a macro view of the world of food words, Ray Sokolov will look into the future. He sees the future of food writing much like its past, only more so. Moderator Antonia Allegra will look at why food writers write, even in this difficult economy; and she will discuss the thrust of food writing for cookbooks and other culinary writing as it exists today.
Antonia Allegra, chair
Holly Hughes
Molly O’Neill
Ray Sokolov
A discussion of the evolution of food writing as newspapers take on the challenges of a very new day. The effect of RSS feeds; blogs; recipe websites; Twitter; the Food Network; and the turn away from print, on content, style, format, and even survival.
Cara De Silva, chair
Jane Black
Sylvia Carter
Kim Severson
Judith Weinraub
Surface or Substance: Food Writing in Magazines
What is the role of magazines in the food world today? Should they provide a practical guide to the kitchen, with plenty of recipes and useful techniques? Should they offer diversion through lifestyle stories and glossy images that make readers drool? Or do magazines have a responsibility to report on the ethical and political issues surrounding food in the twenty-first century? This panel of seasoned magazine editors and writers will explore the possibilities and limitations of food writing for magazines today.
Darra Goldstein, chair
Dana Bowen
Barbara Fairchild
Jane Daniels Lear
Jordana Rothman
Bret Thorn
Food for Thought: The Future of Academic Food Writing
Recent years have witnessed an explosion in academic food writing. Food series have rolled off university presses and specialized and cross-disciplinary journals abound, all to sate the growing appetite for classroom materials and scholarly investigation. This panel unites distinguished authors and editors in the academic world to assess where we are and where we might be going in this hot pot of academe.
Cathy Kaufman, chair
Ken Albala
Jennifer Crewe
Bruce Kraig
Marion Nestle
Andrew F. Smith
Cookbooks and the Cyber-Age?
This panel will examine the current state and highly uncertain future of cookbook publishing. Panelists will consider how shifting patterns in home cooking and restaurant dining are altering people's expectations of cookbooks. They will also discuss the impact that television has already had on the American cookbook audience as well as the radical changes being brought about by new phenomena such as cyber-publishing, culinary websites, blogs, and online recipe searches.
Anne Mendelson, chair
Rux Martin
Molly O’Neill
Roy Finamore
Angela Miller
From Websites to Blogs to Facebook
Food writing has progressed from tiny triangular marks impressed in clay tablets, stored in heaps in Mesopotamia, to much tinier magnetic impressions stored somewhere "out there" in cyberspace. Changes in the medium may change the message, but the goal is the same: writers want readers to experience their work—what's different is that readers get to respond to writers more directly than ever before. Like it or not, food writing is not likely to change back to the one-directional medium it once was.
Gary Allen, chair
Irena Chalmers
Mitchell Davis
Bret Thorn
Laura Weiss
Blogs with Tweet Sauce: The Future of Recipes
The Internet and television cooking shows have irrevocably changed the way cooks search out and use recipes. How do we deal with the challenges of this new environment? What recipes can we trust? Is the on-line community fostered by recipe ratings of any value? This panel will explore the future of recipes, their reliability, their validity as cultural documents, and their impact on how people learn to cook and go about preparing daily meals.
Lorna Sass, chair
Elissa Altman
Melissa Clark
Barbara Haber
Amanda Hesser
Sarah Kagan
Barbara Ostmann
The Future of Food Writing on the Internet
This panel will explore how the continually changing, ever-evolving world of Internet technology is impacting food writers. Will technology make it easier--or harder--for writers to make a living? Will there come a time when a writer can completely sidestep traditional media and become successful, financially and critically? How will developing technologies impact--positively and negatively--the industry
David Leite, chair
Elissa Altman
Joe Langhan
Bonnie Tandy Leblang
Renee Schletter
Good-Bye Gourmet, Hello Yelp!: The Changing Role of the Restaurant Critic
However much the media landscape has changed, people still want to know where to eat. This panel on restaurant reviewing will touch on the past, current, and future of restaurant reviewing. Emphasis will be placed on changes in the relationship between the reviewer and diners, the reviewer and media outlets, and the reviewer and the restaurant industry. The craft of reviewing restaurants will be explored in the context of other forms of cultural criticism.
Mitchell Davis, chair
Gabriella Gershenson
Irene Sax
Robert Sietsema
Turning Your Life and Food into a Best Seller
In today's world, food writing is everywhere-- in newspapers, magazines, recipe headnotes, web sites, blogs and tweets. Much of it is informative and some of it pretty interesting, but not necessarily the stuff of literature. For that, readers turn to memoirs--some food based, some with food as a potent ingredient unveiling other lives and times. What distinguishes a food memoir and makes it fresh? These panelists will tell you how they did just that.
Judith Weinraub, chair
Monica Bhide
Kathleen Flinn
Betty Fussell
Mimi Sheraton
TV and Beyond: The Future of Food and Cooking in Broadcast Media
Beginning with home economist-hosted programs in the 1940s, cooking on television has evolved over the last sixty plus years into a phenomenal industry and pastime. What does the future of food media look like and where/how will we view it? Who will be our guides? What will we be taught and how and what will we learn?
Kathleen Collins, chair
Geof Drummond
Joe Langhan
Dana Polan
Krishnendu Ray
Kate Rohmann
Powerful Potables
Calling all cork dorks and coffee geeks! How is the increasingly specialized world of beverage writing evolving? How have platforms like Wine 2.0 changed the playing field? If you already write about food, what tools & training do you need to expand into writing about wine and other potables.
Kara Newman, chair
Alice Feiring
Alan Kropf
Nora Maynard
5-6 PM Reception
Sunday February 14, 2010
Post-Conference Workshops
8:30-9 PM Workshop Registration
Advance registration is required for all workshops. Please register for only one workshop on Sunday. Additional fee is $50 for each workshop.
9 AM -12 Noon
Please note: Separate registration is required for workshops.
The Art and Craft of Recipe Writing
Join us for an in-depth workshop that will cover the basics for novices and be a good refresher course for those with more experience. Topics will include recipe writing and editing fundamentals; the importance of recipe testing and proper note taking; style sheets; developing a personal voice; headnotes; "editorial testing" techniques; copyright, plagiarism and ethics; and more, plus plenty of Q&A.
Barbara Gibbs Ostmann
Co-author, The Recipe Writer's Handbook (Wiley)
To Agent or Not To Agent?
This workshop will cover in depth the pros and cons of having an agent. Lorna Sass, who has had various agents and has negotiated her last four book contracts on her own, will offer advice on whether or not you need an agent, what to look for in an agent, and how to find the right agent for your needs and personality.
Prominent literary agent Sarah Jane Freymann, who represents some of the country's top cookbook authors, will describe how best to get an agent's attention and land a cookbook contract, what types of cookbooks are selling, and what it is realistic to hope for in this difficult economy. She will also discuss the added value an agent can bring.
Bonnie Tandy Leblang, who has used an agent, acted as her own agent, and been a literary and talent agent for others (negotiating spokesperson opportunities for culinary talent) will address the topic based on her experience and dozens of interviews with authors, attorneys, and agents for her forthcoming article in SPEAKER magazine.
We will also discuss the importance of understanding publishing contacts and royalty statements whether you have an agent or decide to negotiate on your own. There will be plenty of time for questions and discussion. Lorna Sass, Veteran Cookbook Author, workshop chair
Sarah Jane Freymann, Literary Agent
Bonnie Tandy Leblang, Talent Agent
How to Make a Living as a Food Writer
What does it take to turn your passion for food and your love of writing into a full-time, rent-paying occupation? Talent, unfortunately, is not enough. First, your work must be noticed by the people who pay for content. Then you have to “pitch a fit”—come up with a story idea that fits the venue. And when you do get that first assignment, you need to deliver more than just good writing in order to parlay it into a regular work. Learn what it takes to get your work noticed; how to turn one assignment into an ongoing relationship; what kinds of work pays the most—and least; and the surprising and often fun non-writing gigs that help build your career and your income.
Marge Perry
Instructor of Food Writing and National Media Columnist
