Career Achievement

by ASJA Founders Award recipient Sally Wendkos Olds

The following is the speech Sally Wendkos Olds, recipient of the ASJA Founders’ Award for Career Achievement, gave at the ASJA Awards luncheon on April 23, 2010.

Thank you, Andie [who presented Sally's award], and thank you to the Awards committee -- and the conference committee -- and all the other hard-working ASJA committees.

I am so grateful to the Society, not just for this wonderful award, but for having helped me in so many ways to be considered worthy of it.

Joining ASJA was by far the best professional decision I ever made. The Society has been a major player in my career -- and my life.

I once went to a panel where a successful New York writer (not a member) was dispensing advice on breaking in to freelance writing. "Well," she said, "you go to parties where you meet editors and you talk to them and you tell them your name and then when you call them they'll remember you and they'll buy your writing."

Okay. I don't know about all of you, but invitations to those parties never arrived in my mailbox, and that was so far from the way I got into freelance writing that I could have been living and writing on a different planet.

I wrote my first magazine article in 1957 as a new mother in Ohio, far from parties with important editors. I had read the articles in a free magazine from my diaper service and said, "I can do better than that." Well, they bought my submission -- and sent me a check ... for five dollars ... two years later.

This did not seem like the most promising career, so I went on to have more babies and hold a string of part-time jobs. I'm happy that two of my "babies" are here today, my daughters Nancy and Dorri. And my "grand-baby," Anna.

Some 10 years later, in 1967, and now living in Illinois, I sold an article to Parents Magazine, and found that I loved the whole article-writing process: getting the idea, doing research, interviewing, organizing, and then putting words to paper.

I couldn't get over the realization that I could get paid for doing something I liked so much -- and for writing about issues I cared about.

So I signed up for a workshop taught by Richard Dunlop, a writer who kept talking about this wonderful organization called the Society of Magazine Writers.

And life suddenly looked like one big collection of articles. I sent out queries and manuscripts -- and when they came back in my self-addressed stamped envelopes I ironed them -- yes, I put them on an ironing board and ironed them so I wouldn't have to retype them before sending them out again.

I kept elaborate charts about what was where. I wrote an article for a church magazine which brought payment of 100 copies of the magazine. Then I met with editors on a visit back to New York, and came home with assignments. And in 1969, I managed to amass the bare minimum of writing creds to squeak into the Society of Magazine Writers, which we now know as the American Society of Journalists and Authors.

Soon afterwards, readers of an article I had written about hyperactive children asked me to recommend a book to them and I couldn't because there wasn't any. I wanted to write this book and I wanted to find an agent who could help me do it.

Combing through the ASJA directory, I found Julian Bach, and a member he represented called him on my behalf. Julian taught me how to write a book proposal. He said it was worth putting time into a long one because he was sure the book would sell and the proposal would help me. He was right on both counts.

Meanwhile, Peter Workman, the president of Workman Publishing, became a father and told Julian he wanted to publish a new book about breastfeeding. Julian turned to me because of the writing I had done about health. He didn't even know that I had nursed my own children.

The Complete Book of Breastfeeding was published in 1972, and the fourth edition will be published this summer. I'm delighted that Suzanne Rafer and Erin Klabunde, my editors for this edition, are here with us today.

Soon afterwards a college division editor found me -- through the Society directory. McGraw-Hill wanted to take a new approach to textbooks, teaming an academic with a writer for a popular audience.

I had never imagined writing a textbook -- but for the next 25 years I went back and forth between textbook and trade writing, with good cross-pollination between the two.

Back to 1969 and my first Society meeting in New York, where I was now living: At dinner I happened to sit next to Mort Weisinger, one of our founders. Mort became my guru, and through our friendship, I learned that I could call fellow members with questions and get honest answers, and share both ups and downs in this crazy business.

When I had cover-line articles for six months in a row in leading women's magazines, Mort kvelled over me. And then there was that really bad day, after two articles I had written on the basis of go-aheads were both turned down. Mort suggested that I list among my specialties in the directory, "Writing Queries."

A better suggestion came some years later from another member, Mary-Scott Welch. When Scotty learned I would be trekking in Nepal, she told me I had to get in touch with her cousin, Marge Roche, an artist who had been there many times.

Marge and I went to Nepal together—four times—and ended up doing a book, with my words, her art. My agent at that time—Julian had since retired—loved the book but couldn't place it anywhere. Who came to my rescue? ASJA!

In 1999 I had served on a committee looking into the new concept of print-on-demand publishing. After ASJA affiliated with one of these publishers—iUniverse—my book, A Balcony in Nepal, came into being. It meant a lot to me to bring the stories of the villagers I had lived among to the niche audience of readers who care about this disappearing way of life.

Besides these career-changing highlights, ASJA has helped me in so many other ways: Members who became editors offered assignments. Members too busy to take an assignment passed them on to me. I found my present terrific agent, Linda Konner, through the society—she's a longtime member. I can't count the number of members who have gone out of their way to help me out, have shared contacts and sources and warnings, and have even shared that most secret of subjects in American society—money.

In a sense we're all competitors, all trying to get our words in the same space. and yet I have never met a more collegial, more generous group of people.

I can honestly say that some of my best friends are ASJA members, and, friends, I am thrilled to be receiving this award from you. Thank you so much for this great honor.