ANGELINA DOHRE
Special to The Leader
This past week, alumnus Phil Zimmer visited Fredonia from Nov. 3 through Nov. 5 and organized three Writers@Work panels for students and the public to attend, in addition to speaking in various classes. The workshops were “Writing History for a Public Audience and Specialty Magazines,” “Working with Editors” and a World War II veterans panel.
Zimmer graduated from Fredonia in 1969, majoring in history, and first gained his experience in the communication and marketing world when he was a senior, working as a staff member for The Leader. For three years after graduation, Zimmer worked as a city hall and general assignment reporter for the Jamestown, New York paper.
He was named director of communications at the Chautauqua Institution in 1978 and worked on Chautauqua’s public relations, media, marketing and advertising, all while working as business manager for the newspaper.
In 1988, Zimmer was named director of university relations while working at the University of Akron in Ohio and held a similar position later at the University of Vermont.
Although he is now retired, Zimmer continues to freelance stories in nationally distributed specialty magazines focusing on World War II. He also volunteers at the Robert H. Jackson Foundation in Jamestown, where he and co-founder Greg Peterson are founders of the project Defenders of Freedom.
This project was displayed at Zimmer’s last panel, the World War II Veterans Panel. “[The project] is dedicated to preserving the stories of those men and women in our local Western New York area who served in the armed services during World War II,” said History Department Chair Mary Beth Sievens.
Peterson gave some background information regarding the Defenders of Freedom project before the panel began. “Since Dec. 7, 2014 we have interviewed over 100 individuals,” he said. “Many of them are online. We take their interviews, edit them and then try to find footage which might go with their time and place in history.”
He also mentioned why the Defenders of Freedom project was started.
“Within our area here of Chautauqua Cattaraugus County are in fact some of the real heroes because they gave up their early lives,” he said. “While people were in college, they were out in the field, really for this cause we enjoy today – this freedom we have. We can’t say enough about them.”
During the panel, Peterson interviewed three World War II Veterans from Chautauqua County: Dick Anson, Lester Bishop and Doug Manly. The three of them each told their stories from the day Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, all the way to their homecoming at the end of the war.
The two other workshops Zimmer organized were held earlier in the week. “Writing History for a Public Audience and Specialty Magazines” focused on how to write for specialty magazines.
“Topics we dealt with were how to approach a specialty magazine, what a pitch letter is, what a lead is and determining what’s a lead that works and doesn’t work,” Zimmer said. “Some kids, believe it or not, didn’t even know what a lead was, which I thought was very interesting.”
“Working with Editors” stressed the importance of having a good relationship between the writer and editor.
“You shouldn’t feel intimidated by an editor. A good writer appreciates a good editor,” Zimmer said. “They are someone who can help to give you direction to the story.”
Zimmer was very pleased with the turnouts at his workshops.
“I was delighted to be on the campus at Fredonia after being away for so long,” he said. “I had a great opportunity to meet with students and talk to them about World War II, how to write and things of that nature.”
He also noted how impressed he was with the caliber of students.
“There are a lot of bright-eyed, bushy-tailed people that are running around campus,” he said. “I hope they picked up one or two ideas that prove useful to them as they move forward in doing some writing, whether it’d be just college work or whether they’d go out and do some professional writing as well.”