WAPL - Luncheon: The Writer's Real Life, or Be Your Own Boss! Work at Home and Pray for Universal Coverage

Jay Rath is a Madison area journalist, playwright, and author. He is a third generation writer. Rhonda Puntney (WAPL) chair gave a personal introduction. Jay started by noting that tomorrow's lunch speaker is an athletic coach who would most likely talk about teamwork. He presented the opposing view, since writers work alone.

He quoted Edna Ferber who said: "I hate writing, I adore having written. ..." Much of his work is free-lance which requires knowing about a lot of different areas. He therefore visits the Madison Public Library about every other day.

He joked about rewriting Dickens' Tale of Two Cites for the 21st Century and used "smiley" icons for punctuations of the opening sentence. He then cited some of the stereotypes of writers with references to pop culture portrayals.

It is really hard to capture the essence of a humor talk. Jay was a great speaker, a series of laughs. Great stories. He read sections of both articles and his books.

It was a humorous talk about writing, libraries, and the challenges of the 21st century.