November 18, 2008

John Moir

Bringing Back the Condor/Building A Writing Career

Our November guest, award-winning science writer John Moir told members and guests that storytelling is a gift and that the very term implies an audience for the stories we have to tell. His latest book, RETURN OF THE CONDOR: The Race To Save Our Largest Bird From Extinction, proves his point. Inspired by an almost chance encounter with condors and the dedicated biologists working to protect them, John, an avid birder, wrote an article about the encounter for a national birding magazine. He also submitted the article to the California Writers Club's 2004 East of Eden Conference nonfiction competition. While the article satisfied John's desire to get the story out, he realized that there was much more to the story than could be told in a single article. The idea for a book began to take shape.

During his talk, John quoted the late Michael Crichton as defining success as opportunity. Opportunity tapped John Moir on the shoulder at the 2004 East of Eden conference. Seated at a table during the opening dinner with writing friends and two agents who later would participate in the "Meet an Agent" session, One of the agents turned to John and said, "So, what are you writing?" Fortunately, John had prepared his 10-second pitch for the condor story. The agent seemed "mildly interested" in John's words. When it was announced that the article he'd submitted to the competition won first place in the nonfiction category, John had the agent's full attention. Meetings, discussions, and friendship followed, and in 2006, RETURN OF THE CONDOR became a reality.

John urged us all to develop three attributes he sees as essential to the successful writer: Attitude, entrepreneurship, and leverage. The attitude John refers to is the unyielding belief that you can accomplish your writing goals, no matter what. John recounted an answer given by a successful author when asked how she continued to motivate herself given the grim statistic that one has only a 1 in 100 chance of having submitted work even looked at. Her answer? "I never thought that applied to me." That's attitude. Telling and selling stories is a business that requires an entrepreneurial energy to drive our work into the market and an awareness of each opportunity that comes our way.

Thank you, John, for giving us all not only a intimate glimpse into the lives of the condor, but also for sharing some very useful, practical, and first-person advice on saving our own writing careers from the brink of extinction.

John Moir is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists, the Author's Guild, the National Association of Science Writers, and the Northern California Science Writers Association. RETURN OF THE CONDOR was recognized by the National Association of Science Writers in their Science-in-Society Journalism Awards as one of five outstanding works of science journalism that were published or broadcast in 2006. For more information, visit his Web site: http://returnofthecondor.com.

The lucky group of door-prize winners congratulate one another at our November meeting.