Columbia University Press
Portraits in Print: A Collection of Profiles and the Stories Behind Them
Key Metrics
- Helen Benedict
- Columbia University Press
- Paperback
- 9780231072274
- 8.99 X 5.87 X 0.45 inches
- 0.68 pounds
- Biography & Autobiography > General
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
Among the persons profiled here are Joseph Brodsky, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Susan Sontag, Paule Marshall, Bernard Malamud, and Beverly Sills. In a general introduction and in lively discussions after each profile, Helen Benedict describes how she selected the subjects, got them to agree to be interviewed, convinced the magazines' editor's to assign her the pieces, prepared for the interviews, and set about writing each one after the research and interviewing were complete. Benedict also discusses how much confidence to betray, how personal to get, what to leave out, and the writer's power over the profile subject. This is fascinating reading, especially for aspiring writers who hope to learn more about the skills and practices of this popular genre.
Portraits in Print concludes with an Afterward by the famous muckraker and author of The American Way of Death, Jessica Mitford. Mitford takes the opposite tack, in an amusing essay about what it is like to be an interviewee.
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