Whether you’re writing a nonfiction book, a magazine article, or checking the facts about anything that really matters to your health, home or livelihood, the ability to cultivate and interview sources can be more authoritative than anything you can find on the internet.
Getting original information out of experts is key to tapping into the premium fees offered for investigative features and non-fiction book advances.
This class will cover:
- Basic interview manners, charm and protocol
- Discussion of “off” vs. “on” the record
- How to get information out of your sources (even reluctant ones)
- How to get a sense of whether you can rely on the information you get
- Cultivating sources
- In-class practice via role-playing
Instructor: Katherine Wessling has spent more than two decades as a fact checker and reporter. She honed her skills as a researcher at Esquire magazine working with writers such as Tom Wolfe, Jim Harrison, John Berendt, Pete Hamill and Peter Maas.
Since then, she has created the research department at Good Housekeeping magazine, been a research editor at O, The Oprah Magazine, gone in-house as a research consultant for Mediabistro and freelanced in the research departments of over a dozen other major national media outlets.
As a corporate communications consultant for News Corp., Katherine mined online news sources and blogs daily to create the go-to list for media news.
She has also done primary research for playwright Eve Ensler, YA writer and style journalist Veronica Chambers, investigative journalist and New York Times bestselling author Vicky Ward, and others.
Date & Time: TBA
Cost: TBA
Location: TBA
Have a question about Ideasmyth courses? Contact courses@ideasmyth.com.