UDPATED:
''With more and more cli-fi novels and movies on tap, I cannot stop thinking about how it is now possible to mine affecting, resonant drama out of the certainty of climate change catastrophe. It's no longer science fiction. What I'm saying here is that living through the twilight of humankind is gonna be worth it for future cli-fi novels and movies.''
-- Stephen Kelly, UK culture writer in London
HOW THE ARTICLE CAME TO BE:
[What was the genesis of Nat Rich's 30,000-word long-form reportage in the Times taking up the entire issue of the August 5 edition of the glossy New York Times Sunday Magazine? Two years in the making, with 18 solid months of researching and writing, and conducting over 100 interviews, the piece went viral online and on blogs and Twitter, attracting both wild approving applause ....and angry, stinging criticism.]
]Many people want to know: Did Nat pitch the idea to his editors? No, they and the Pulitzer Center people pitched it to him as a major marketing and branding undertaking, and he took them up on it -- with a nice payday, too, as you can imagine.]
[Nat, 38, explained it all in a recent podcast in NYC, still online, done with a friend, Max Linsky, 36:]
[Paraphrased and slightly edited for clarity]:
''......No, I did not pitch the idea to the Times. Rather, it happened this way: The Times and the Pulitzer Center team asked me two years ago if this project would be something that I would be interested in doing. And I said yes.''
"And so the NYT editors and the Pulitzer Center people asked me two years ago, in 2016, if I was interested in doing something, and I said ''of course'' and we tried to figure out a way to take on the issue in an original manner, and so we came upon the idea of doing a historical piece covering ten years from 1979 to 1989.''
"So the Times has had a partnership with the Pulitzer Center ....and after a long-form article like mine is published in the Times Sunday Magazine, the Pultizer Center which helped fund my reporting, they also, after publication, chop it up into different sections for their student and educational outreach and create course syllabi and have a whole educational program and apparatus which is pretty substantial..... so my piece gets a longer life after publication than a normal NYT Sunday Magazine piece.... and in 2016 they [The Pulitzer Center people] wanted to do something about climate change. That's how all this came together over a two-year period of collaboration between the NYT and the Pulitzer Center. ''
=====================================
webposted August 6, 2018 by our staff writer, with agencies
Just after the end of the war, in 1946, American author John Hersey published a short book, about 30,000 words, titled "Hiroshima" about the day the Japanese city of Hiroshima was destroyed by an first atomic bomb dropped over the city by a U.S. bomber. The book, still in print after all these years, turned out to be Hersey's journalistic masterpiece, told through the memories of survivors of that fateful day: August 6, 1945. A timeless, powerful and compassionate document, the short book became a classic the New York Times said "stirs the conscience of humanity."
Fast forward to 2018, and Nat Rich, a reporter for the New York Times, has recently published a 30,000-word long-form essay titled "Losing Earth" about a key period of time in American history (1979-1989) when climate scientists and politicians on both sides of the aisle where trying to come to grips with the great existential threat humankind had every faced. The article ran in tne New York Times Sunday Magazine, taking up the entire issue and getting a huge response online and worldwide from readers who were both applauding Rich's work and criticizing it as well.
"Losing Earth" is now set to become a 30,000-word paperback, capitalizing on the forward momentum the Times article created, and much like John Hersey's 1946 paperback, Rich's book is likely to become an American classic, too. Give it time. It's only 2018 and the article is still fresh in readers' minds. By 2050, how will "Losing Earth" be seen by readers then and by our descendants 100 years from now?
Hersey's gripping account of what he discovered about survivors in Hiroshima has withstood the test of time. Will Nat Rich's upcoming book about his New York Times reporting stand the test of time? Time will tell.
Meanwhile, according to sources close the Times, Nat is at this very moment prepping a non-fiction book based on his controversial climate change reporting, a process that took 18 months of research and writing and entailed doing over 100 interviews with people involved in that momentous decade. The publisher has not been announced yet, and the publication date remains an industry secret, but sources in New York tell me the book could be out this fall or in early 2019.
Okay, it's going to a short book, just 30,000 words, but it's going to be a big book, given the publicity it has also generated all over the world. Most books come in at 80,000 words or more, some as much as 150,000 words. So a short 30,000-word book about climate change is going to be a unique kind of publishing venture.
When it comes down to it, it's all about word count. British ''Atonement'' author Ian McEwan has said a ''novella'' -- a short novel, longer than a short story but shorter than full-length novel -- usually comes in at around 20,000 and 40,000 words. Other book pundits put the word-count at around 50,000 words.
So Nat Rich's hugely popular and stunning (and controversial) news article won't be that unusual for a New York publisher to handle, even with a shorter than usual word count, according to book industry sources.
Once that book is released, Nat will be expected to go on another round of marketing and promotional chores, doing interviews on TV, NPR radio and in print publications nationwide. There will be college lecture tours, book signings, panel discussions and bookstore visits.
Will the book come with an introduction by someone famous, such as James Hansen or Rafe Pomerance or Al Gore, or will Nat write a new introduction for readersm taking into account the controversy (and the applause) that ensued after the initial newspaper story went viral?
This will be a book worth waiting for, and you won't have to wait that long for it to appear in print.
=========================
UPDATE: THIS a photo of Mia, the 12 year old girl who asked an important question at Nat Rich #NYT event: ''Where can I be safe?'' She is not a white girl. She is a #POC.
We typically put most fiction books into one of 2 categories: They are either a short story, or a novel. That's for fiction.
For non-fiction, we have short nonfiction books and long ones.
When it comes down to it, though, it's all about word count. Atonement author Ian McEwan, discussing his love of the form in The New Yorker in 2012, defined the ''novella'' as being between roughly 20,000 and 40,000 words, according to reporter Shaunacy Ferro writing for Mental Floss in February 2018. Writer's Digest says, she says, a novella can run up to 50,000 words. But around 30,000 is more typical.
So what's this I hear about Nat Rich's hugely popular and stunning (and controversial, among both leftwingers and rightwingers) New York Times Sunday Magazine article, coming in at around 30,000 words being prepped now at this very moment for a hardcover book titled the same as the NYT piece -- LOSING EARTH -- and set for a fall 2018 release or in early 2019. Possibly January.
It's all rumor now, but just think about it. The NYT piece was more or less a book-length piece. Nat's name in literary circles in huge and any book, fiction or nonfiction, carrying his byline is sure to sell well.
So there's that. Who's agenting the LOSING EARTH book and who will the publisher be? Will there be an extensive PR and promotional tour for the book when it comes out, rehashing once again the controversy over the original NYT magazine piece? And will the book come with an introduction by someone famous? Maybe James Hansen or Rafe Pomerance or Al Gore?
Inquiring minds want to know. For now, I know nuttin'
[If you know anything, drop me a line.]
There's a book in the works I am not at liberty to say when of the publisher. Ask Nat.
ReplyDeleteRubbish
ReplyDelete"Losing Earth' author Nat Rich plans to publish book with same title
ReplyDeleteJust after the end of the war, in 1946, American author John Hersey published a short book, about 30,000 words, titled "Hiroshima" about the day the Japanese city of Hiroshima was destroyed by an first atomic bomb dropped over the city by a U.S. bomber. The book, still in print after all these years, turned out to be Hersey's journalistic masterpiece, told through the memories of survivors of that fateful day: August 6, 1945. A timeless, powerful and compassionate document, the short book became a classic the New York Times said "stirs the conscience of humanity."
Fast forward to 2018, and Nat Rich, a reporter for the New York Times, has recently published a 30,000-word long-form essay titled "Losing Earth" about a key period of time in American history (1979-1989) when climate scientists and politicians on both sides of the aisle where trying to come to grips with the great existential threat humankind had every faced. The article ran in tne New York Times Sunday Magazine, taking up the entire issue and getting a huge response online and worldwide from readers who were both applauding Rich's work and criticizing it as well.
"Losing Earth" is now set to become a 30,000-word paperback, capitalizing on the forward momentum the Times article created, and much like John Hersey's 1946 paperback, Rich's book is likely to become an American classic, too. Give it time. It's only 2018 and the article is still fresh in readers' minds. By 2050, how will "Losing Earth" be seen by readers then and by our descendants 100 years from now?
Hersey's gripping account of what he discovered about survivors in Hiroshima has withstood the test of time. Will Nat Rich's upcoming book about his New York Times reporting stand the test of time? Time will tell.
Meanwhile, according to sources close the Times, Nat is at this very moment prepping a non-fiction book based on his controversial climate change reporting, a process that took 18 months of research and writing and entailed doing over 100 interviews with people involved in that momentous decade. The publisher has not been announced yet, and the publication date remains an industry secret, but sources in New York tell me the book could be out this fall or in early 2019.
Okay, it's going to a short book, just 30,000 words, but it's going to be a big book, given the publicity it has also generated all over the world. Most books come in at 80,000 words or more, some as much as 150,000 words. So a short 30,000-word book about climate change is going to be a unique kind of publishing venture.
When it comes down to it, it's all about word count. British ''Atonement'' author Ian McEwan has said a ''novella'' -- a short novel, longer than a short story but shorter than full-length novel -- usually comes in at around 20,000 and 40,000 words. Other book pundits put the word-count at around 50,000 words.
So Nat Rich's hugely popular and stunning (and controversial) news article won't be that unusual for a New York publisher to handle, even with a shorter than usual word count, according to book industry sources.
Once that book is released, Nat will be expected to go on another round of marketing and promotional chores, doing interviews on TV, NPR radio and in print publications nationwide. There will be college lecture tours, book signings, panel discussions and bookstore visits.
Will the book come with an introduction by someone famous, such as James Hansen or Rafe Pomerance or Al Gore, or will Nat write a new introduction for readersm taking into account the controversy (and the applause) that ensued after the initial newspaper story went viral?
This will be a book worth waiting for, and you won't have to wait that long for it to appear in print.