VICTOR SCHMITT-BUSH AND ANGELINA DOHRE
Staff Writer and Photo Editor
This past week, New York Times bestselling author and Fredonia alumna Wendy Corsi Staub returned to campus with HarperCollins executive editor Lucia Macro. The two presented several opportunities for students to meet with them and discuss novel writing, publishing and job searching.
After much planning, on their part and the school’s, both editor and novelist held office hours for students and staff alike on Thursday. Anyone with an interest in writing and publishing, career building or even just a sense of curiosity was encouraged to ask questions.
According to Staub, the point of having office hours was for students to ask questions that they may not have been able to ask during a workshop. To them, it’s the conversation that matters.
“We did a similar residency at Geneseo and found that it worked well to have one-on-one time with students who might be hesitant to speak up or approach in a more public forum,” she said. “We’re always happy to chat about writing and publishing, although we don’t pretend to have all the answers.”
Following their office hours, Staub and Macro formally introduced themselves and their work to students and staff at their first public talk, “From Mundy’s Landing to Lily Dale: Where Fact Meets Fiction.” They both explained how real and fictional Western New York locations have inspired Staub’s fiction.
“We got really fascinated with the idea of the really bucolic, beautiful small town and the unsolved true crime that might [have] happened in the past, and then people coming back to solve it,” Macro said.
The talk was followed by a book-launch reception and signing for the third installment of Staub’s Lily Dale mystery “Dead of Winter” and the final installment in the Mundy’s Landing series “Bone White.”
“‘Dead of Winter’ is my upcoming release, and it’s set in Western NY, in Lily Dale, a few miles away from Fredonia,” said Staub. “‘Bone White’ was out in March, and Lucia edited it along with over a dozen of my other psychological suspense novels.”
On Friday, after they made an appearance on the student-run Fredonia Radio Systems’ “High Noon Friday,” Staub and Macro held their first workshop titled “You’re Hired!: Landing a Job after Graduation.” It focused on how to avoid common missteps, craft documents and generate a professional image in the working world.
Staub and Macro’s final workshop “Crafting Stories, Crafting Relationships” tackled topics like writing fiction and working with an editor. Staub described what her own writing process was like and encouraged prospective writers not to be afraid to self edit. “I don’t write a whole first draft and go back and rewrite it,” she said. “Every morning as I go I pick up what I did the day before and I start tinkering with that.
Sometimes the forward trajectory is more like backwards, but I’d still consider that a writing day because I fixed what I already wrote. Every writer has to know how to recognize that something you did might still need work.”
The two then discussed their working relationship, how a manuscript becomes a book and the difficulties and triumphs that happen along the way.
Staub also expressed her knowledge in different fields of study at a lunch meeting in Cranston Marche. She capitalized on the fact that it is fiction writing that is her strong suit, even though she loves to talk about other topics such as nonfiction, poetry, screenwriting, career building and publishing.
“I can tell you all day long about writing novels and how that works, but when it comes to other areas I can tell you what I’ve heard and what I think, but I can’t pretend to know,” she said. “So non-fiction, I think that I always feel like if I don’t do it, then I can’t really advise other people on how to do it.”
Staub said that she worked for the newspaper on campus during her college years. She even thought she was going to be a journalist before she graduated. She stressed the importance of doing these things early on, because time flies. Being involved in extracurricular activities, she feels, is a huge part of the college experience.
“I wrote for The Leader too back in the day,” she said. “I was very good and I didn’t start doing it until it was late in my college career. In fact, I wish I had done more of that sooner.”
Staub and Macro have returned to Fredonia in the past. Macro recalls visiting the campus for the first time.
“Although I did not go to a SUNY school, I’m a real believer in the SUNY system,” she said. “I remember I just got such a great impression of the university, the students and the faculty.”