Jennifer Brozek is an author and editor who has spent years continually perfecting her craft. Recipient of an Origins Award, an Australian Shadows Award, and a silver ENnie, Jennifer’s writing in horror, science fiction and role-playing games is a labor of dedication and love. The editor and publisher behind the long-lived web publication The Edge of Propinquity, her projects have included columns on making anthologies, writing for role-playing games, a number of short stories, and a forthcoming anthology from DAW as editor for Human for a Day.

Jennifer is also someone I’ve known for years; from standing in line together for lattes to watching her win an ENnie at GenCon in 2011, Jennifer started out a friend and professional that I knew well, eventually becoming my boss. Our long familiarity means I’ve read a number of her interviews, and knew there were questions about her industry and career that she had yet to be asked.

AP: What convinced you to take writing seriously?

JB: So, way back in the long ago, I believe around 2000, my friend David Webb was part of a small indie RPG company called Otherworld Creations. And I wanted to write for him. A mutual friend of ours and I were talking, and I mentioned this to our friend. And what our mutual friend said was, “Well, I suggested you to him, and Dave’s response was, “She’s just a dreamer. Until she gets out there and starts publishing, she’ll never be a professional. And that’s why I can’t use her.”

I was so angry and so offended at it — he’d used someone else who was unpublished — to me at the time it felt like a double standard. The other reason I was so angry is because it was true. He got to the heart of it. I was too afraid to submit my work. So I was just a dreamer. The next day, after I got over the rage part of my pique, I emailed Don Bassingthwaite, an editor at Black Gate Magazine, and told him “I noticed you guys review RPGs, but you don’t have a female reviewer. I’m a female gamer and I want to write for you.’” I have no idea what Don’s personal feelings were, but he emailed me back and said, “Okay. I’ll send you some product, and you write me a 600 word article. If it’s good, I pay you and you keep the product. If it’s bad, you keep the product.” That started my writing career.

From there I did reviews for Campaign Magazine, because I gamed with one of their editors, and he discovered I was doing reviews for Black Gate. And then after that, I pitched him a fiction series called Tales of the Hucked Tankard. Campaign Magazine accepted the series, and started out paying me .5 cents a word. You know the kicker? I had no idea .5 cents a word was an industry pro standard. So I said, ‘Why don’t we do a flat fee?” I’ve learned a lot since then. My way of getting into publishing was to prove to someone else that I wasn’t just a dreamer, and that I was good enough to write for him.

AP: What are some of the things you’ve learned producing the Edge of Propinquity?

JB: Authors are a flakey bunch. Some of them are divas when they don’t deserve to be. But! When you get a good continuing story, it makes my job so awesome. Webzines are expensive to produce. I must have liked it; I’ve done it for six years. I think most of my hard lessons came in the first year or two. But right now I think the best lesson I learned was one I put forward from the beginning: the due date is ten days before anything is actually due. In six years I can count on two hands the number of times an author got me their story on time. Building in a deadline buffer is key to doing a monthly zine, especially when you have continuing stories.

I also learned you have to be patient, and that life happens. You have to send out reminders. And when you see something going wrong in a story, you need to stop and talk to the author. There’s one author I didn’t do that with, and I kind of regret it.

AP: What do you think readers get out of reading horror?

JB: Readers get a safe but proactive way to face fear. It’s our modern-day way of passing on cautionary tales. Cautionary tales of what the author wants to express could be bad for you. Horror allows readers to face personal demons by living vicariously through the characters. And when you are frightened by a book, there’s a psychological and chemical response, it’s a way to get your adrenaline rush without someone actually wielding a knife at you. Because honestly, I’d never want to live the life of people in my books! There’s this saying, “An adventure is someone a thousand miles away having a perfectly rotten time.”

AP: What is it you love about science fiction?

JB: I love the potential. I love the stories and the dreams and where my mind goes and where it’s led. I think science fiction makes the world a better place because it encourages people to look forward, and invent, and to strive for things like the stars.

AP: Why is travel so necessary for writers?

JB: One of the most important aspects of being a writer is face to face contact with your peers, members of the industry and your fanbase. The industry is very small, and it’s good to forge face to face connections. I as an editor and an author am more likely to do a project with someone after I’ve met them and had a good experience.

Example: an author bought me a drink at a bar two years ago. She said, “Hey, let me get that for you. I’d heard your name around and wanted to say hi.” She didn’t pitch me after that, she just bought me the drink and we started talking. I’ve discovered from face to face meetings with people that some folks who telegraph as very short online are some of the most wonderful people in person. At one convention I met a senior member of a publishing company, and my meeting with them was fantastic. I had a great time, even though before I’d been nervous about it because of what I’d heard about them.

AP: What do you get out being a member of SFWA [Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America]?

JB: As an editor I get access to a means to contact most authors I want to work with. So networking is key in SFWA, it’s one of the most valuable things about it. You also know every active member in SFWA has had three pro sales or a novel sale, and every affiliate works in the industry. Next up, you get all kinds of advice. Help on contract negotiation, dispute help, there are certain calls for submission for SFWA only members. You have a group of like minded individuals, all working for a common goal, which is to benefit authors and authors’ rights in the publishing industry.

For more, visit Jennifer’s website and be sure to follow @jenniferbrozek on Twitter. Also, check out her web publication The Edge of Propinquity. Photos by Rasmus.

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Greg Young is an executive producer and director at University of Washington, which means working on programming for UWTV, as well as all the administrative work that comes with such a position. And it doesn’t end there. Greg is involved in several projects and interest groups, centered around his passion for media production and visual storytelling.

I met Greg at the studio where he does most of his work. When we talked, it was clear that not only is he an excellent listener, but also a fast thinker with a lot on his mind. In the following he shares some insight into his work and advice to those who have an interest in making pictures move on screen.

AP: You’ve known you wanted to be behind the camera doing television since you were a kid. What is it about pictures moving on a screen that’s kept your interest all these years?

GY: I honestly have no idea. I remember as a child always telling my parents I wanted to be a filmmaker. Every single year for Christmas and my birthday when they asked what I wanted for a present, the answer was always the same, a video camera. Never got it, but I still ended up here.

My interest shifted from film to TV after seeing a behind the scenes of what it took to produce a Monday night football game. I was enamored at all the moving parts and no one had a clue what it really took to do all this.

What’s really kept me interested all these years is the variety and constant challenges this industry has to offer. Every project presents it’s own challenges to over come. I guess for me it’s a puzzle and I have a blast putting all the pieces together.

AP: What’s your mental approach to producing? Is there an underlying philosophy or does it always depend on the project?

GY: I speak a lot about the psychology behind video. This is an art that that many new content creators have yet to learn. There is a process to bringing in your viewer and one that is even more important today with the amount of content available. You need to be able to captivate someone within seconds and hook them within minutes.

Many people don’t know, but they are drawn into a video by a series of subliminal actions. One of the best analogies of this that I like to use, is the comparison of the Burger King/Carl’s Jr. ad campaigns from the mid to late 90′s. Burger King had a very successful ad campaign that ran for a few years that features beauty shots of their burgers set to popular music. Then Carl’s Jr comes and does something no one else had done. They showed real people eating their burgers.

Have you ever wondered why the food you buy doesn’t look the same as in the commercials? Because the food in the commercials aren’t edible. At least they weren’t in the 90′s. The hot lights would wilt the food before the commercial shoot could be done. They were props or coated with a glycerin to help the food continue to look fresh, so they could never have people eating. Edible food is unpredictable and messy, so the geniuses that came up with the campaign incorporated this hurdle into the campaign with the famous tag line, “If it doesn’t get all over the place, it doesn’t belong in your face.”

Since then, you’ll be hard pressed to find a fast food commercial that does not at least have one scene of someone eating the food. The reason is because this connects with people subconsciously. Viewers see “real” people eat this burger and on a sub-conscious level they are relating to that.

Psychology also plays a huge role on the success of a viral campaign. Even the way you conduct an interview with a subject is a play on a series of subliminal actions. Although I don’t post regularly, I like to post my theories on this topic on my blog.

AP: You’ve done all sorts of work, but seem to have specialized in live production. What appeals to you about the live element? How important is having a specialty or niche?

GY: I LOVE live television. There have been times where I’ve spent days preparing for a live broadcast only to have the whole thing go to hell in a hand basket. At that moment, in an instant, you need to know exactly what to do. At best, you’ll have a couple minutes during a break to retool your whole plan. You’re basically making split second decisions on the fly. As a producer, you have a whole team waiting for directions from you on what will happen next. For some, this is extremely stressful and for others, like myself it is exhilarating.

This type of work perfectly fits my personality. When I need to make a decision, I make it. And quickly. I don’t need to weigh options and I almost never second guess myself. In this business, I don’t have that luxury. Have I made bad decision during a live production? Of course, but it’s like someone learning to ride a bike or a horse. When you fall off you need to get right back on it and not be intimidated by it. Like every great producer, our career is built off our ability to constantly adjust to our mistakes.

As for your second question, I’ve always been one that believes you should at least hold every position in production. Learn to shoot, run audio, lighting, editing. Be a PA or grip on a few productions. Having experienced nearly every position, this has given me a unique perspective on production processes. I can better calculate how long or how much it will cost to do a production. I can more easily communicate and delegate to my team what needs to get done in a way that they understand. Knowing all these positions, I can better anticipate trouble areas and build contingency before they become a problem.

AP: What’s your take on the future of television and video online? Where would you like it to be, and where do you think it’s heading?

GY: I get asked this a lot. I don’t think it’s any surprise to anyone that the access to video content is going online. Things like Hulu, Netflix, Roku, Apple TV have started to become household names. User generated content is on the raise and I’m not talking about funny home videos on YouTube. I talking full, self-funded internet series like The Guild and Journey Quest. We are essentially drowning in online video content. But nobody knows about it.

I believe that the next huge boom for online video will be in aggregation. The person or company that figures out a way to aggregate all the video content online into one place will put the cable industry out of business. I honestly don’t think we’ll have to wait too long.

Think about it, for those who already consume content online, we have already conditioned ourselves to aggregating all the content we want to come to us. Services like Tumblr, Stumble Upon and RSS feeds continually satisfy our need for content.

Now I need that one service that is on my internet enabled TV that gives me access to all this great user generated content, blockbuster movies and network shows. Honestly, we’re not that far away from this. If I were the CEO of Hulu, I would be taking a serious consideration at merging with sites like Blip.tv. In my opinion one of the greatest contributors to the success of UGC web series.

I can go for hours on this topic. Buy me a beer and I’d be happy to ramble on about it.

AP: You’ve pretty much worked your way up from a teenage assistant to senior producer. Is this a path you’d recommend in the age of YouTube? What advice would you give a kid wanting to do what you do, starting out today?

GY: My biggest mistake was not getting a college degree. I am 20+ years into my career and I’m more than ready for management, but I am continually looked over because I don’t have a piece of paper that says I’m qualified to do what I do. If you’re trying to get into this business, go get a BA in business. This will come in very handy later on. While you’re doing that, volunteer, intern, work on any production you can. Be humble and never assume you know what you’re doing.

Occasionally I like to take on simple low level gigs, like PA or grip on low-no budget projects. Usually a bunch of weekend filmmakers who think it would be fun to “make a film”. I don’t tell folks about my experience, because I’m usually using it as a recruiting tool. I like to see how people handle their work, their interactions with others.

Surprisingly, there are a lot of dicks and know-it-alls at this level. But I always find at least one person that I then hire later on. Someone who is humble, yet confident in their abilities and respects and solicits input from others. These are the folks who should be in this industry, not the assholes who think they’re the shit because they got best in show at a film festival no one has heard of.

I’ll conclude with one piece of advice I give lots of young people that almost is never followed, NEVER oversell your capabilities. Don’t say you have “experience” on a piece of software or equipment you have been using for only a couple months. You will be put to the test and when you fail, you’re done. This is a small and very competitive industry and we all talk to each other.

If you’re curious to know more about Greg Young, be sure to check out his website and blog. You can also follow him as @CoolGuyGreg on Twitter.

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1. Interview: Tracy Record – Seattle’s Queen of Hyperlocal News Tracy Record is almost half an hour late to our...

Tracy Record is almost half an hour late to our meeting, but I was expecting that. She apologizes and explains that three stories were all happening at the same time, and that time just slipped away. With her schedule, I’m happy she found time to meet with me at all. Tracy is a busy lady, covering every local event, meeting, accident and yard sale for her own West Seattle Blog, a hyperlocal news outlet that’s taken Seattle by storm.

West Seattle Blog (WSB) is not your average weblog. In 2009 it ranked number 5 on Google’s list of hottest search terms in the Seattle area, beating all the major networks and traditional media outlets. But Tracy Record is no stranger to success. She has a distinguished career behind her in television, newspapers and radio and three Emmy Awards to prove it. Still, Tracy threw all that away for a blog about the goings on of just a single neighborhood.

Today, WSB has a small staff of contributing freelancers, but Tracy and her businesspartner/husband – Patrick Sand – remain in full control over what can only be described as a driving community force. Did I mention that they were awarded a Citizen Appreciation Award by the Seattle Police Department in 2008?

Tracy checks her Twitter, blog and e-mail almost in real time.

AP: What is it about hyperlocal news that makes it worth dedicating your time to?

TR: I have spent two-thirds of my life delivering information to people, in a variety of ways. This is the most meaningful way yet. To be able to directly report on, answer questions for, share information about/from my community, and make a living doing it, is a joy. So much different from all my years in citywide/regional news, when we managers/producers would sit in a room and often wind up having to send someone off to whatever the most shocking crime du jour in the region happened to be, parachute in, parachute out, on to the next Big Story.

We cover crime, of course, but from the standpoint of sharing information that helps people protect themselves and figure out how to fight back, particularly against property crime like burglaries, auto thefts and vandalism. Yet though “hard news” is a huge area of coverage for us, I also adore being able to publish orca sightings, pretty sunsets, parade previews, Christmas Ship video!

AP: What were your considerations before taking the jump from mainstream media to starting on your own?

TR: It was clear by the time we got to fall 2007 that there was a huge need in the community for real-time information and neighborhood-issue coverage, and we had found ourselves trying to help fill it, since the December 2006 windstorm/power outages, when we started getting e-mail from people saying “we can’t find out ANYTHING about when the power’s going to be back, can you guys find something out?”.

The only real consideration was whether we could support ourselves doing this – would enough local businesses and organizations choose to sponsor WSB to add up to what we needed for business expenses and a modest lifestyle. I had absolutely no concern otherwise about leaving my longtime corporate-news-media career – the TV business didn’t interest me much any more for a variety of reasons, and it felt wrong to collect a paycheck for something I didn’t feel passionate about.

AP: In 2007, WSB held a pledge to get a feel for the level of support amongst your readers. That went so well, you turned it into an actual business. Could you share a little about that transition, the plans and concerns you had, compared to how it actually went?

TR: The “pledge day” wasn’t actually a barometer of support for whether we could make a go of it as a business. We already knew from the readership, through site stats and through e-mail and other feedback/communication, that there were enough people finding value in being part of WSB every day. In fact, the percentage of people who chose to donate was relatively low, maybe 3%, and that is one of the reasons I don’t believe an operation like ours could operate on a subscription-only basis, which some have suggested we try.

Of course I’m not downplaying the amazing generosity of the 3% who did choose to give us money; it added up to almost $2,000, which we used to set up the business (licenses, a business-only cell phone, etc.) and buy our first video camera. At the time we had the “pledge day” in August 2007, we still weren’t even sure we might try to take the leap and start selling ads – keep in mind, we not only didn’t sell ads at that point, we didn’t even engage in the common practice of running Google AdSense text ads on the site. We were wholly noncommercial. But there were a couple local businesspeople who actually kept urging us to offer ads, so we did some research and made some plans and Patrick started going out on sales calls in October.

We had no idea if we would be able to sell 2 ads or 20. But after about six weeks, the interest was strong enough that it seemed worth taking the risk to try working on it fulltime. The only financial backup we had was my 401k, and a huge factor in the decision to quit was when I learned that you could withdraw from it as long as you paid a penalty … until then I had thought that money was completely inaccessible. But I withdrew as little as possible — we lived even more frugally than before — and haven’t touched it in a year and a half – our business is 100 percent financially self-sustaining, which is still not that common for independent local news sites.

Tools of the trade: Flip camcorder, battleworn digital camera and a cracked iPhone.

AP: You are constantly attending meetings, markets and other events; you keep long hours and have a family at the same time. How do you keep the energy up?

TR: I have been a night owl all my life and have managed to do OK on five or so hours sleep. These days, three-hour nights are more common than five-hour nights, though, and I tend to nod off in the living-room chair while trying to finish that one last story that it always comes down to around 2, 3 am.

What keeps me going the times the energy just lags, is the fact that people tell us what we are doing – with their help! – matters. But the real hero is my husband Patrick, who not only works full-time as our business development director, but also goes out to breaking-news scenes to call in info and send photos, and to meetings on nights when there are two that need to be covered, and also engages in good old-fashioned community relations, meeting and talking with people.

AP: What have been the biggest obstacles for you, in starting and running this project, and what have you done to overcome them?

TR: I have never been so singleminded about anything. I have been focused, I have been devoted, I’ve done things like work many days in a row on a big project like producing election coverage or a special broadcast, but never before has one job, one task been so all-consuming for so many days, weeks, months. I know that we will eventually get to a point where we will have a paid staff – right now we pay freelancers, which is a start – and then the 20-hour days will just be a memory … we’ll be able to cut back to 16-hour days, ha.

I have also become an even-more serious person than I already was, have just never been the kind of person who could just go out and cut loose anyway, but now even if I was, there is no time. And last but not least, I have lost a lot of fear.

Becoming a mother tends to boost you to a certain stage of fearlessness, because you know you have walked through fire to bring that child into the world and you would walk through fire to protect him if need be … and becoming self-employed takes you to another level, knowing there is no safety net, there is no semi-guaranteed paycheck every two weeks, there’s no big boss looking over your shoulder to tell you you screwed up bigtime or maybe even catch you before you make a big mistake. It’s both exhilarating and terrifying, and each day of it that you survive, you feel a little tougher, a little prouder.

Would you like to know more about Tracy Record? Check out West Seattle Blog, her twitter account (@westseattleblog) or this interview from April 2009.