Every year the Kansas City Star invites writers to apply to a panel called Midwest Voices. Ten people are chosen to write a column four times over the course of a year. My writer friend, Ellen, just finished her gig and I decided to give it a shot.
The application process required a sample of your writing as well as a written bio. I agonized over what to send and changed my mind a dozen times. The deadline was mid-December and I hit “send” with high hopes that what I submitted was what they were looking for. It was not.
On Saturday, the paper introduced the readers to its new panel and this is what we learned about these writers………..one guy likes to play with his pit bull and eat red meat, another likes to read comics and tabloid magazines, one was a high school champion table tennis player. Of the women, we have someone who likes to tweet, another who walks, works out and chases her dogs and somebody who does origami.
I think I may have misunderstood the bio portion of the process. I kept it simple and said I was married with three kids, a partner in a vintage decor business and wrote a blog. It never occurred to me that anyone would be interested in what kind of meat I ate, what sport I excelled in forty years ago, or that when The World News was still in publication, my favorite story was of newborn monkeys being dressed in children’s clothing and passed off as human babies up for adoption.
Note to self for next time: Dumb. It. Down.
Unfortunately this also says a lot about the audience.