Assistant Director of Development Rhonda K. Miller: “writing…can take a person anywhere”

What writing project(s) are you working on right now?

I’ve been writing faculty profiles for Bucknell’s Web site. I interview new or newly promoted faculty, then write their story on a freelance basis. Sometimes I interview long-term faculty who haven’t had a profile published. These are 300-400 word vignettes that often present challenge since the faculty are extremely accomplished. It forces brevity. For my full-time job, I write campaign proposals, pledge forms, endowment agreements, donor letters and other more technical pieces related to fundraising at Bucknell. Personally, I am reworking a story I filed about three years ago in Robert Rosenberg’s advanced fiction course. I’m rethinking the entire approach, while trying not to overthink it. I hope to publish a version of it someday.

What do you love about it?

I’ve been writing nonfiction professionally for 26 years, and my favorite part is learning about topics that I wouldn’t have picked on my own. One of the first stories I published was about a grocery story that doubled as an opossum museum in an obscure part of Texas. I’ve done news stories on pretty much everything – interviewing a local farmer who grew a 75-pound zucchini to recounting the last days in a 22-year-old’s life prior to his brutal murder. When I worked for the New York Times Magazine Group, I traveled around the country reviewing fancy tennis resorts, and I wrote about the fitness routines of players such as Steffi Graf. I’ve written about tennis equipment, small town government, industrial chemical fires and the benefits of nap rooms for employees. I’ve worked at local newspapers and national magazines – what I love about writing is it can take a person anywhere. Think: Oh, The Places You’ll Go!

What about writing drives you nuts?

I usually dread starting, but it’s always worth it.

How would you describe your writing process?

When I worked in the news business, there wasn’t time to ruminate over stories. You went out, got the story, came back, wrote and filed by deadline. I was only concerned about meeting deadline with an accurate account of what I was reporting. I realized years later that I might have missed some flavor – describing local personalities or including more of my own voice instead of just the cold, hard facts. By my own voice, I’m not advocating a writer’s opinion in a news story but rather taking more time with turn of phrase. Now I mentally process stories longer than I used to, meaning I think about them for days, sometimes a week, depending on my deadline. I find that my writing flows better. Then I rewrite.

What kind of feedback on your writing do you find most helpful?

I want to know if the story makes sense to the reader. I want to know if it has accomplished the assigned mission. Other sets of eyes are always good.

What would you like students to know about writing?

Take time to listen for stories – stories are everywhere! Be willing to try all forms of writing: business, creative, journalism, sports. Read. Two of my undergraduate faculty gave me this advice: 1. Take risks; 2. Have a notebook and pen strapped to your person at all times.

Rhonda K . Miller is an Assistant Director of Development in Development & Alumni Relations. She’s written for Tennis Magazine, Human Resource Executive Magazine, the New York Times Magazine, the Norwalk Hour, Fairfield Citizen-News, the Knox Alumnus and Bucknell Magazine, among others.

Fiction Writer Claire Watkins, Assistant Professor of English, on walking into the unknown and waiting for “the click”

Photo credit:  Lily Glass

What writing project(s) are you working on right now?

I'm currently at work on my first novel. I've previously only written short stories, so this is my first stab at the longer form, ever. I wish I could tell you more about it, but I am too superstitious.

What do you love about it?  

Compared to short stories, writing a novel seems very freeing. You have the room to expand and explore, though you don't have to. It feels more forgiving of whims, digressions, experiments, so composition on this project has been a more extemporaneous process. That's a real thrill.

What about it (if anything) is driving you nuts?

Pretty much everything. I don't know myself as a novelist. For example, I write short stories from outlines but that practice hasn't exactly translated to novel writing, so it's really freaky not to have a plan, not to have a better sense of where the project is going (or when it will end). Of course, the same process exists when I'm writing stories--giddy inspiration, walking into the unknown, the click when everything makes sense again--but it's extended over years, rather than months. So I've been walking into the unknown for some time now, and I sure could use a click.  

What would you like students to know about you as a writer?

I'd like them to know that I fail at writing all the time, every day. I'd like to remind them that my published work--or anyone's--is elaborately constructed to hide its flaws, so those are difficult to see, especially when you've just begun. But those flaws are certainly there, and always will be. I'd also like to tell them that while I was not a huge reader for most of my young life, reading and writing have become the most important, most sustaining non-human things in my life. Whether students consider themselves "writers" or not, I hope they carry the nourishing practice of reading and writing, which are, fundamentally, acts of empathy, with them wherever they go.

Check out Claire's website.

Read a review of Battleborn in The New York Times.

See a profile of Claire on Bucknell's website.