We’re looking for our next columnist(s)

We’re looking for our next local columnist or columnists.

If you’re a regular reader of this page, you know Diana Dolecki’s “As I See It” ran for the final time last week.

Diana visited me several months ago to express concern about her column. She felt she was struggling to keep it relevant. She wondered if it was time to give it up.

My advice was to take some time and think about how she wanted to move forward. She could give up the column if she wanted to do so. Or, if writing weekly was too much, maybe every other week or once a month would work out better.

She decided it was time to move on.

With Diana giving up her weekly column, we have an opening. 

In the short term, you’ll see a variety of columns filling this space. You may see me here again. You may see Hank Nuwer, who writes the “Far From Randolph County” column that appears in The News-Gazette (Winchester). You may see a selection of national columnists. We’ll deal with it on a week-to-week basis.

But we’d also like to know, would you like to be our next Family page columnist?

We’ve had a variety of contributors provide columns over the years. When I started at The Commercial Review in 2001, Dorothy Warner was writing “At Random.” Diana’s column ran for more than two decades.

We’ve had others approach us over the years about writing columns.

Jack Ronald’s response was always: “Write six.” I developed the same rule. And there’s good reason.

Writing a regular column is no easy thing.

It’s different from covering a meeting or writing a game story. In those cases, you observe something and report what happened.

With a column, it’s all year. You come up with the idea. You formulate it into something that might be of interest to readers. You produce every word.

A lot of folks can write one column. Maybe even two or three. But then, it gets difficult.

Thus, Jack’s response: “Write six.”

I’m going to take a slightly less rigid approach. If you’re interested in becoming a columnist for The Commercial Review, write one column and send it to me ([email protected]). If it seems like you might be onto something, I’ll ask you to write a couple more. If that goes well, we can discuss a longer-term arrangement.

Here is some advice:

•Keep it somewhere between 400 and 700 words. If you find yourself going over 700 words, do some self-editing.

•Write about things you know. If you have to dive down a Wikipedia rabbit hole to finish your column, you’re on the wrong track.

•Read other columnists. We’re not looking for a copycat. But reading good writing makes you a better writer. And reading good columnists can help spark ideas.

•Be personal. As Jack’s family can tell you, being related to a columnist means your stories tend to end up in print. (Make sure your family is comfortable with this possibility.)

•Have a thick skin. You can’t be a writer without being open to someone — me — telling you no or suggesting edits. And, if your pieces do make it to print, you will receive criticism from readers. Everyone does.

As we move forward, I’m open to a variety of options for this column. Maybe someone emerges and writes a weekly column again. Maybe it becomes a space where we rotate two or three or four local columnists.

We look forward to reading your submissions and, possibly, printing them here.