The real answer is rarely the one we give
I probably spent too much time as a general assignment reporter, but ever since I had to write a proposal and then a bio for my first book, I have been confounded by this question. With my third book out in the world, it’s starting to keep me up nights.
Not because I’m worried that it won’t be good but because I still haven’t answered that question to my own satisfaction.
The answer to “What are your qualifications?” is supposed to be a laundry list, accomplishments and courses of study that lead inexorably to the conclusion that you are the right person for the job.
The question always makes me dissemble.
“Dissemble” might be a little strong. Maybe it’s better to say I answer truthfully, just not to myself. I pick out the facts supporting my assertion, that I have done similar things before, that I have gone to certain classes, etc.
In my current bio I focus on my moderate success in writing profiles, particularly of non-famous people who give us a snapshot of our culture now.
Those are true facts, but they’re not what made me qualified to write the book. I’m qualified only because I happened upon a thread and was overcome with curiosity about what it would unravel.
The Other Time Anger at the Elites Drove Americans a Little Crazy
Nearly 100 years after the pernicious scam, there’s a moral in Drake’s Fortunebytonyrusso.medium.com
It’s the kind of curiosity that changed time, eating entire days of my life cold-calling strangers and having long, wandering conversations about their experiences and beliefs; an all-consuming curiosity about what the facts around the story say about me and about us.
While I recognize it makes for a pretty stupid bio, what I want to say is something like:
“Tony Russo found out a lot of cool stuff that he thinks might connect with you in a meaningful way.”
If you were on the fence about buying a book, that is not the kind of bio you want to read. Setting aside the obvious question: “Who the hell is Tony Russo?” is an even more basic one: “What does he think he knows about me?”
It Is About Discovery and Curiosity
The point of this story is that I don’t know who the hell Tony Russo is that he should make that claim. That is, the fact that Tony Russo is making the claim isn’t helpful.
The only think I know about you is that if you pick up a non-fiction book, you have the same curiosity as me. I know that if I do a good enough job to hold your attention, you’ll like my story.
What’s important is the cool stuff and the connection, which brings be back to general assignment reporting. It’s a world where a story has to be told, which makes you pretty good at finding the most fascinating aspects of mundane events.
I don’t think it’s novel to say that writing is trying to figure out how to tell a story in a way people will understand and care about. The only way I’ve ever been able to do that is by caring myself. I cannot imagine I’m alone.
A Bagel Manifesto
Stories about coming to terms with belief, culture, and the profound sense of loss that no one really cares about bagels anymore.bit.ly
When you hear political types complain that a reporter got a story wrong, what they’re really saying is they disagree about what was important in the story.
They don’t know about storytelling or trying to get at something true. It’s beyond their capacity. That’s not really a dig, it’s kind of the point.
It’s beyond my capacity to do the kind of glad-handing that keeps political figures employed. We all have our things we do. That’s why I keep grappling with this idea of qualifications.
What makes me qualified to write anything is that I am a writer. I have to share stories and I have to see why things are the way they are. I know that my name is going to go on the byline, and when everything is said and done, I need people to know I was honest, or at least forthright.
Whether I tell a story well or poorly is a matter of aesthetics, but whether I tell it with the conviction and gravity the story requires isn’t.
What many non-writers might not get is that writers just have to tell stories worth telling. They acquire the expertise it takes to tell a particular story along the way. The fact that it is finished is what makes the author qualified to have written it.
Maybe my next book bio will say, “Some guy was consumed for years by the story he saw in a bunch of facts he found and, in his arrogance, he believes he brought that story out of those facts mostly intact. He thinks there’s a chance they might consume you too.”
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Tony Russo is a journalist and author of “Dragged Into the Light: Truthers, Reptilians, Super Soldiers, and Death Inside an Online Cult.” Subscribe to his Bagel Manifesto here.