This cheesily-produced video opens with a young businessman looking at a magazine and thinking, "I know that writing can help my career, and I think I can write just as good [sic] as these published writers. I'm just not sure where to begin." He goes to his computer, where freelance writer and instructor Eric Bean appears on the screen to help him. Bean, 35, publishes primarily in local Michigan outlets. Most of the rest of this tedious production features Bean at a writing workshop for hopeful neophytes. As a writer, I hate this kind of approach, which has little to do with writing and everything to do with hustling. Bean advises that writing is "an administrative task" and likens query letters to playing the lottery: "If you don't enter, you can't win." Still, for the beginning writer, this inexpensive video may be helpful, and it does actually offer some decent advice on writing query letters and the like. Optional. Aud: P. (M. Pendergrast)
Writing for Publication
(1998) 115 min. $29.95 ($59.95 w/PPR). Deadline Communications. ISBN: 0-9665165-0-8. Vol. 14, Issue 2
Writing for Publication
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