The Savvy Self-Publisher
Poets & Writers Magazine|September - October 2022
DEBRA ENGLANDER is a consulting editor for Post Hill Press and a book coach who advises authors on the publishing industry, whether they're self-publishing or seeking a traditional publisher. She lives in New York City.
NITA WIGGINS
The Savvy Self-Publisher

NITA Wiggins knew when she was eight years old that she wanted to be a reporter covering the Dallas Cowboys. Her interest in sports originated from spending time with her father, who coached her younger brother's basketball and baseball teams in Augusta, Georgia, where she grew up in the 1970s and '80s; on Sundays during football season she would sit with her father and watch games on TV for hours. After graduating from Augusta College with a degree in communications in 1986, Wiggins went on to work as a television reporter at several stations before getting her dream job in 1999 at KDFW TV-Fox 4 in Dallas, interviewing high-profile figures such as Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Rosa Parks, and President Jimmy Carter. Wiggins shared a regional Emmy for Special Events Coverage in 2001 for her work on Fox 4's Cotton Bowl pregame show. After more than twenty years of on-air reporting, however, she grew disillusioned with the business and in 2009 moved to Paris, where she teaches journalism at the École supérieure de journalisme de Paris and other schools and regularly appears on French television.

I spoke with Wiggins about her book, Civil Rights Baby: My Story of Race, Sports, and Breaking Barriers in American Journalism, which was initially published by Casa Express Editions in 2019, and why she chose to self-publish the revised edition, which she released in 2021. For perspectives on the challenges of self-publishing, I turned to Sha-Shana Crichton, a literary agent in Washington, D.C., and Dawn Michelle Hardy, owner of the Literary Lobbyist, a publicity firm and literary agency in Charlotte, North Carolina.

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Literary MagNet
Poets & Writers Magazine

Literary MagNet

When Greg Marshall began writing the essays that would become his memoir, Leg: The Story of a Limb and the Boy Who Grew From It (Abrams Press, June 2023), he wanted to explore growing up in Utah and what he calls \"the oddball occurrences in my oddball family.\" He says, \"I wanted to call the book Long-Term Side Effects of Accutane and pitch it as Six Feet Under meets The Wonder Years.\" But in 2014 he discovered his diagnosis of cerebral palsy, information his family had withheld from him for nearly thirty years, telling him he had \"tight tendons\" in his leg. This revelation shifted the focus of the project, which became an \"investigation into selfhood, uncovering the untold story of my body,\" says Marshall. Irreverent and playful, Leg reckons with disability, illness, queerness, and the process of understanding our families and ourselves.

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3 mins  |
July - August 2023
THE MEUSEUM OF HUMAN HISTORY
Poets & Writers Magazine

THE MEUSEUM OF HUMAN HISTORY

READING The Museum of Human History felt like listening to a great harmonic hum. After I finished it I found the hum lingering in my ears. Its echo continued for days.

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4 mins  |
July - August 2023
The Sea Elephants
Poets & Writers Magazine

The Sea Elephants

SHASTRI Akella's poised, elegant debut, The Sea Elephants, is a bildungsroman of a young man who joins a street theater group in India after fleeing his father's violent disapproval, the death of his twin sisters, and his mother's unfathomable grief.

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4 mins  |
July - August 2023
The History of a Difficult Child
Poets & Writers Magazine

The History of a Difficult Child

MIHRET Sibhat's debut novel begins with God dumping rain on a small Ethiopian town as though. He were mad at somebody.

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The Sorrows of Others
Poets & Writers Magazine

The Sorrows of Others

AS I read each story in Ada Zhang’s brilliant collection, The Sorrows of Others, within the first few paragraphs— sometimes the first few sentences— I felt I understood the characters intimately and profoundly, such that every choice they made, no matter how radical, ill-advised, or baffling to those around them, seemed inevitable and true to me.

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6 mins  |
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We Are a Haunting
Poets & Writers Magazine

We Are a Haunting

TYRIEK White’s debut novel, We Are a Haunting, strikes me as both a love letter to New York City and a kind of elegy.

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4 mins  |
July - August 2023
RADICAL ATTENTION
Poets & Writers Magazine

RADICAL ATTENTION

IN HER LATEST BOOK, THE LIGHT ROOM: ON ART AND CARE, PUBLISHED BY RIVERHEAD BOOKS IN JULY, KATE ZAMBRENO CELEBRATES THE ETHICAL WORK OF CAREGIVING, THE SMALL JOYS OF ORDINARY LIFE, AND AN ENGAGEMENT WITH THE NATURAL WORLD WITHIN HUMAN SPACES.

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10+ mins  |
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The Fine Print
Poets & Writers Magazine

The Fine Print

HOW TO READ YOUR BOOK CONTRACT

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10 mins  |
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First
Poets & Writers Magazine

First

GINA CHUNG'S SEA CHANGE

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10+ mins  |
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Blooming how she must
Poets & Writers Magazine

Blooming how she must

WITH ROOTS IN NATURE WRITING, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE, POETRY, AND PHOTOGRAPHY, CAMILLE T. DUNGY'S NEW BOOK, SOIL: THE STORY OF A BLACK MOTHER'S GARDEN, DELVES INTO THE PERSONAL AND POLITICAL ACT OF CULTIVATING AND DIVERSIFYING A GARDEN OF HERBS, VEGETABLES, FLOWERS, AND OTHER PLANTS IN THE PREDOMINANTLY WHITE COMMUNITY OF FORT COLLINS, COLORADO.

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May - June 2023