3 Questions

You know her, you love her, she used to work here—it's journalist/Santa Fe University of Art and Design educator Julia Goldberg, and she's written a new book about—get this—writing! Inside Story combines textbook, memoir, tips and tricks into one compendium perfect for anyone from the newest student to the most grizzled whiskey-swilling newspaper writer. Published through local publisher Leaf Storm Press, Inside Story drops this week (6 pm Saturday April 8. Free. Collected Works Bookstore, 202 Galisteo St., 988-4226) so we caught up with Goldberg to get the inside scoop on this wildly useful tome.

The obvious question: Why'd you write this book?
I don't think I would have thought to do this book if I hadn't started teaching. There's so many great books, but I couldn't find one that had exactly what I wanted in it. You have to write a book to get that. I thought, 'I want you to have this anecdote that happened to me.' I kept telling a lot of stories in class and finally I thought it would be a lot easier if I just had a book.

Was it an easy or challenging project, given your writing background?
It took me about a year. I think writing on a deadline is, to some degree, 'easy.' I think if I have a very finite assignment, I can usually bang it out. But this book was hard for me to write. When I write my own personal thing ... I'm not Stephen King who can't stop writing. I have been working on the worst American novel, I read a lot of fiction, I read a lot about everything, but it wasn't as though someone handed me a curriculum.

Do you think people are getting sick of looking at screens and hoping to get back to print media?
I don't think print is dead as long as we have paper.Some of the predictions about the book industry turned out to not be accurate ... so far. It's hard to feel like there's any end to people's love of it.

Santa Fe Reporter