My Meeting With America’s Greatest Living Writer

James Scott Bell


I was in New York last month for the annual Writer’s Digest conference. Mrs. B and I got there a couple of days early to do some New Yorky things—like going to see Alan Rickman in a new Broadway play about writers, strolling through a snowy Central Park, sampling the hot pastrami at Katz’s Deli.
But the highlight by far was getting to sit down for an hour with America’s greatest living writer.
That designation, of course, is highly subjective. I would think that it would have to be someone who’s been at it a long time. Half a century at least. And someone who has put out a prodigious amount of work that is of the highest quality.
In fiction, Ray Bradbury snaps immediately to mind. Living in So Cal, I’ve had the chance to meet and chat with Mr. Bradbury on a few occasions. He is one of my writing heroes and would get a lot of “greatest living writer” votes.
But if we also include non-fiction writing in there (and why shouldn’t we?) the man we met with definitely deserves a place at the table.
William Zinsser is, of course, the author of the classic On Writing Well. I picked up a first edition in hardcover when it came out, and it’s been something of a “bible” for me ever since. Whenever I write my non-fiction books, an article (or blog post!) I am always thinking Zinsser—cut the clutter! Believe in your own identity! Care about the words, because they’re the only tools you’ve got!
Zinsser the writer is a master of the personal essay. He’s like Mark Twain without the overt jokiness. His humor pads up softly and tickles you, emerging naturally out of the subject. That’s how Zinsser was trained, starting with his time at the New York Herald-Tribune. The story was the star, not the ego of the reporter. Getting the facts right was job number one. Mendacious embellishment was the gravest of sins.


Mr. Zinsser has written eighteen books on a variety of subjects. My absolute favorite is a little gem of cultural history, Writing With a Word Processor. 

Published in 1983, it is the account of his transition from typewriter to computer. It still makes me laugh. Even though the technology aspect is dated, the writing remains fresh, clear and hilarious. I’ll sometimes take it off the shelf and read a random chapter to my wife, and we’ll laugh again at how he captured that historical and hysterical slice of life.

So when Mr. Zinsser consented to have Cindy and me up to his apartment on our recent trip, I was ecstatic. It was also an honor, for he told us that we were the first “guinea pigs” in this latest phase of his life.
You see, glaucoma has forced William Zinsser, at age 89, to finally cease his prodigious output of the written word, it is sad that he didn’t have something similar to this medical marijuana card ohio to aid with his galucoma. He has decided now to concentrate on his role as a mentor and encourager of writers, to help them in any way he can. “I’m still working out how that will look,” he said.
So we sat and talked. About writing and his career. He is a fourth generation New Yorker. He’s always lived in the city, not counting a stint in North Africa and Italy during WWII, and in New Haven when he taught at Yale.
After the war, he “cadged” a job at the newspaper he grew up with, the Herald-Tribune.It was here he learned the lessons on writing he would live by and pass on. As to the facts: Get it right. As to style: Second best is no good.
He did his work on a classic Underwood typewriter. “I’m a child of paper,” he told us. “And that Underwood is still in my closet.”
Zinsser loved working on the newspaper, but saw it sadly decline in the late fifties due to mismanagement. When he couldn’t take it anymore he quit and became a freelance writer. This was quite a switch, from regular paycheck to the uncertainty and fickleness of the freelance life.
It didn’t phase him. “You have to make your own luck,” he said. “No one’s going to do it for you.”

So he wrote for the top magazines––Life, Look, The Saturday Evening Post––until they died. He made more of his own luck by turning to teaching––at Yale and later at the Columbia School of Journalism and the New School.
He finally put his words of writing wisdom into On Writing Well, which doesn’t sound like the title of a blockbuster. But, 1.5 million copies later, it certainly qualifies.

I don’t care if you write fiction or non-fiction, books or blogs. If you write anything that has to connect with a wide readership, and you don’t own a copy of On Writing Well, order it now. It needs to be in every writer’s library.

I would also highly recommend Mr. Zinsser’s book about his own writing journey, Writing Places. It is one of the most enjoyable memoirs I’ve ever read.
You can also read his most recent essays online. For two years, until his retirement, he wrote a weekly essay for The American Scholar. Check them out. It’s a master class in writing.
When our chat was over and we were about to leave, Mr. Zinsser reflected on the new technologies available for the writer these days. They are about convenience, but not essence. They don’t fundamentally change what writing has always been about.
“We are all in the storytelling business,” he said, “whatever the technology you’re set up with. Most of what I’ve done, frankly, is tell a story.”

My Meeting With America’s Greatest Living Writer

James Scott Bell


I was in New York last month for the annual Writer’s Digest conference. Mrs. B and I got there a couple of days early to do some New Yorky things—like going to see Alan Rickman in a new Broadway play about writers, strolling through a snowy Central Park, sampling the hot pastrami at Katz’s Deli.
But the highlight by far was getting to sit down for an hour with America’s greatest living writer.
That designation, of course, is highly subjective. I would think that it would have to be someone who’s been at it a long time. Half a century at least. And someone who has put out a prodigious amount of work that is of the highest quality.
In fiction, Ray Bradbury snaps immediately to mind. Living in So Cal, I’ve had the chance to meet and chat with Mr. Bradbury on a few occasions. He is one of my writing heroes and would get a lot of “greatest living writer” votes.
But if we also include non-fiction writing in there (and why shouldn’t we?) the man we met with definitely deserves a place at the table.
William Zinsser is, of course, the author of the classic On Writing Well. I picked up a first edition in hardcover when it came out, and it’s been something of a “bible” for me ever since. Whenever I write my non-fiction books, an article (or blog post!) I am always thinking Zinsser—cut the clutter! Believe in your own identity! Care about the words, because they’re the only tools you’ve got!
Zinsser the writer is a master of the personal essay. He’s like Mark Twain without the overt jokiness. His humor pads up softly and tickles you, emerging naturally out of the subject. That’s how Zinsser was trained, starting with his time at the New York Herald-Tribune. The story was the star, not the ego of the reporter. Getting the facts right was job number one. Mendacious embellishment was the gravest of sins.


Mr. Zinsser has written eighteen books on a variety of subjects. My absolute favorite is a little gem of cultural history, Writing With a Word Processor. 

Published in 1983, it is the account of his transition from typewriter to computer. It still makes me laugh. Even though the technology aspect is dated, the writing remains fresh, clear and hilarious. I’ll sometimes take it off the shelf and read a random chapter to my wife, and we’ll laugh again at how he captured that historical and hysterical slice of life.

So when Mr. Zinsser consented to have Cindy and me up to his apartment on our recent trip, I was ecstatic. It was also an honor, for he told us that we were the first “guinea pigs” in this latest phase of his life.
You see, glaucoma has forced William Zinsser, at age 89, to finally cease his prodigious output of the written word. He has decided now to concentrate on his role as a mentor and encourager of writers, to help them in any way he can. “I’m still working out how that will look,” he said.
So we sat and talked. About writing and his career. He is a fourth generation New Yorker. He’s always lived in the city, not counting a stint in North Africa and Italy during WWII, and in New Haven when he taught at Yale.
After the war, he “cadged” a job at the newspaper he grew up with, the Herald-Tribune.It was here he learned the lessons on writing he would live by and pass on. As to the facts: Get it right. As to style: Second best is no good.
He did his work on a classic Underwood typewriter. “I’m a child of paper,” he told us. “And that Underwood is still in my closet.”
Zinsser loved working on the newspaper, but saw it sadly decline in the late fifties due to mismanagement. When he couldn’t take it anymore he quit and became a freelance writer. This was quite a switch, from regular paycheck to the uncertainty and fickleness of the freelance life.
It didn’t phase him. “You have to make your own luck,” he said. “No one’s going to do it for you.”

So he wrote for the top magazines––Life, Look, The Saturday Evening Post––until they died. He made more of his own luck by turning to teaching––at Yale and later at the Columbia School of Journalism and the New School.
He finally put his words of writing wisdom into On Writing Well, which doesn’t sound like the title of a blockbuster. But, 1.5 million copies later, it certainly qualifies.

I don’t care if you write fiction or non-fiction, books or blogs. If you write anything that has to connect with a wide readership, and you don’t own a copy of On Writing Well, order it now. It needs to be in every writer’s library.

I would also highly recommend Mr. Zinsser’s book about his own writing journey, Writing Places. It is one of the most enjoyable memoirs I’ve ever read.
You can also read his most recent essays online. For two years, until his retirement, he wrote a weekly essay for The American Scholar. Check them out. It’s a master class in writing.
When our chat was over and we were about to leave, Mr. Zinsser reflected on the new technologies available for the writer these days. They are about convenience, but not essence. They don’t fundamentally change what writing has always been about.
“We are all in the storytelling business,” he said, “whatever the technology you’re set up with. Most of what I’ve done, frankly, is tell a story.”

The Church at Ground Zero


George Washington prayed here.
St. Paul’s Chapel in lower Manhattan has stood since 1766. It’s the oldest continuous use building in New York. Inside you’ll still find George Washington’s box pew on display. I’m sure our first president offered up prayers for the young country he helped create. Perhaps he prayed for citizens yet to come, hoping they would continue the selflessness that was so needed in those early years.
If so, his prayers were answered in the days and months following the attacks of September 11, 2001.


St. Paul’s is a pebble’s throw from Ground Zero. When the towers went down those who knew the chapel thought it had to be a goner. But miraculously it was untouched, save for the debris and ash that accompanied the destruction.
There was a reason for this.
The chapel became a base for the rescue workers. They came here for respite and sleep, often lying down right on the wooden pews. Their gear put scuffs and scratches on those pews in what many came to see as holy marks of what was taking place inside St. Paul’s.
Over the course of time more than 5,000 volunteers would help turn St. Paul’s into a place of refuge and recovery, refreshment and rest. Doctors and lawyers swept floors and served coffee. Single moms and teenagers took out trash and prepared food.
This was America coming together in a time of crisis. It was our true spirit displayed, our best side writ large. That’s what I remember most each September 11: the rescue workers and volunteers who became the living, breathing embodiment of “Love thy neighbor.”
So on this tenth year of remembrance of 9/11, take a few moments to put down the cell phone, rest the computer, turn off the TV, set aside the e-readers. Find a quiet spot and for a little while think about what’s right with our country. Think about­­ the ordinary citizens who, when the chips are down, spring into action and help those in need, and do so without a second thought.
Think about the African American woman, some eighty-years-old, who heard on the news that a worker at Ground Zero had hurt his leg. She got on the subway in the South Bronx and came all the way down to Lower Manhattan. She talked her way through the police lines, would not take No for an answer, and found her way to St. Paul’s. Inside she went up to one of the associate ministers and gave him her own cane to give to the man who was hurt. Then she quietly turned around and hobbled away.
Think about such things for just a little while, and be thankful.

A Helluva Town

James Scott Bell
The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down. The people ride in a hole in the ground. – Betty Comden and Adolph Green, On the Town

I love New York. Last week I was there, teaching at the first-class 2011 Writer’s Digest Conference. Great turnout despite the cold. How cold was it in the city? It was so cold I saw a lawyer standing on the corner with his hands in his own pockets.
Ba-dump-bump.
But yeah, it was not walking around weather. At least not a lot. But my wife and I didn’t let that stop us. We had a couple of meals with Mort, my former NY apartment mate (from my acting days) and with my agent, Don Maass. Stayed at a great boutique hotel on the East side, the Elysee on 54th, which I highly recommend if you’re looking for convenient location (we took the Air Train from JFK, then the E train to within a block of the hotel) and complimentary evening wine and hors d’oeuvres.

We ended up doing a lot, though we didn’t take in a show. We’re not crazy about the gigantic musicals. We prefer Off Broadway. So we were tempted to go see Alan Rickman in John Gabriel Borkman at BAM, but decided traveling to Brooklyn in sub-zero weather to take in an Ibsen play might lead to intractable despair and pretty much cloud the rest of the trip.
We did get up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where we were blown away by the wall sized piece called “Earth and Heaven” by African artist El Anatsui.  Also by the exhibition of photographs by Stieglitz, Steichen and Strand. I love photography from the early 20th century, when the art of it was just getting underway. Amazing the emotion Stieglitz captured with such primitive equipment.
They also had a Rodin exhibit that knocked me out. He’s like Van Gogh with sculpture. Intense and riveting. You know, if you could write first drafts with the feeling of a Rodin, you’d be 90% of the way toward successful fiction.
Ah, the food. Here are places we ate that I would recommend:
Indigo Indian Bistro, 357 E. 50th Street. Family owned, pleasantly run and just the right spices.
I Trulli, 121 E. 27th. Wonderful Italian fare.
Rocking Horse Café, 8th Ave. and 19th. Excellent Mexican in Chelsea.
Also, the street hot dog guy on 7th and 52d.
Don’t miss the High Line next time you get to NY. No, wait a second. Do miss the High Line when it’s below zero wind chill. Cindy and I walked about a quarter mile of it before we cried for mercy and ducked for cover in the new Chelsea Market. Now that’s a great place to hang out, in any weather. They’ve got upscale stores and markets and live music, all in the old National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) building.
I guess, at heart, I’m a city boy. I grew up in L.A., lived in New York and Chicago. I love London and San Francisco in doses. Nashville’s a nice town. I’m down with Denver, too.
What about you? What’s your favorite city to visit?  Or if the city is not your thing, where would you go with a free pass from an airline and a hotel?