I Got an Essay Published
It's been a while. Here's how I did it.
Personal essays are hard to get right, especially because they stir lots of emotions in the writer. But recently I got one published, and I thought I’d share my process.
I began the piece in April last year, about the death of my younger cousin Dana and our friendship. We both loved to eat and cook, and towards the end of his young life, we grew close. But there’s so much more to it. The finished piece is also about longing, loneliness and grief.
First I wrote too much, because I want to put down all my thoughts. Then I had to figure out what I was trying to say. Over four drafts, my essay grew to 3500 words. I asked two friends read it and make comments. I pitched Narratively, Pipe Wrench, Guernica, Catapult, and Bon Appetit. Rejections followed.
I put the essay aside. Then I saw an essay in the New York Times by a daughter who had lost her mother. The lightbulb went off. I saw how she had structured her essay, and I cut and reworked mine.
I sent the essay out again in June. Rejections followed from Modern Love (the New York Times), Ploughshares, the Rumpus, and ANMY.
Finally, in July, the editor of First Person Singular, part of the Substack newsletter Memoir Monday, replied. “I like the piece, and would be happy to edit/publish it for mid- or late-September.”
After minor edits from the editor, Cooking with Dana for the Last Time was published on September 9. I’ve learned that I’m very slow, and that’s okay! I hope you’ll read it and let me know your thoughts.
What I’m eating:
This was my most successful post on Twitter, ever. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, because people love to answer a question. After reading all the feedback (including some funny ones, such as “They make lovely compost.”), I made a gratin. I used Baked Swiss Chard Stems with Parmesan, from Kalyn’s Kitchen. It was simple and good; similar to fennel.
Zoom Classes
**COMING UP!** Jumpstart Your Cookbook Proposal
3 Thursdays, October 27, November 3 and 10, 4 - 7 p.m. PT/ 7-10 p.m. ET
Civic Kitchen 3-hour Zoom Classes
12 students maximum
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Are you procrastinating about writing your cookbook proposal? Or maybe you're not sure what to write, or you need accountability and support. If so, this is the class for you.
You’ll get lots of strategic insider advice gained from my years of covering cookbooks in my blog, judging them for contests, and from writing my own. I'll lay out how the publishing industry works and what editors and agents look for in a proposal. Then I'll discuss what goes in each section of successful proposal.
You will write first drafts of several proposal sections in the class. At the end of three weeks, you'll have the start of your proposal, and the knowledge of how to make it irresistible to an agent or editor.
Bonus: It's unusual to see someone’s successful cookbook proposal. I'll share one of mine, which led to a beautiful cookbook by Rizzoli.
Private Consult
Through a partner, Delicious Experiences
One-hour consult: $250
For years I've had a five-hour minimum for consulting. But now, through Delicious Experiences, you can book a Zoom call with me for just one hour or more. If you’ve wanted to start your dream cookbook, get your book published, or get better freelance assignments, let’s move you forward. I’ve talked with writers at all levels about a variety of food-writing topics.
What I'm Reading
The realities of writing a cookbook for hire. One writer’s experience.
Fall is the big season for cookbooks. Epicurious goes all out with 80 New Cookbooks Coming Fall 2022. Eater lays out their standouts in The 10 Best Cookbooks of Fall 2022. Food & Wine wrote 28 Cookbooks and Food Books to Add to Your Shelf This Fall. And Publishers Weekly posted Life Is What You Bake It: Cookbooks 2022, which features authors with huge social media followings.
If you’re not too sick of lists, see 27 of the best cookbooks according to Goodreads members, from French classics to new vegan recipes. Yes, that and also Pioneer Woman’s cookbooks. And The Best Baking Cookbooks of All Time, According to the Pros. (“The Pros” are 13 baking experts.) And 8 Delicious Cooking Memoirs.
What does being a "recipe tester" even mean? Kara Elder describes the job in her Substack newsletter.
Vintage Cookbook Collecting Is Often Kind, Sometimes Cutthroat, and Now Extremely Online. Hold on to your wallet!
In praise of single-subject cookbooks. Nic Miller gets writers and editors to name their favorites.
The Magic of Cookbooks in Fiction. About culinary cozies, the subject of my summer newsletter about fun reads.
How I Got My Job: Writing Children’s Books About Food. Sarah Thomas uses chefs as the subject in her books, and had her career blow up after Eric Ripert came aboard.
Woke food lovers have lost their minds over ‘cultural appropriation.’ This author is outraged by criticisms of chef dishes.
A Culinary Journey: Close-Up on Hardie Grant and Quadrille Cookbooks. Publishers Weekly interviews the heads of these two publishers about their brands and what’s coming up.
'It's messy, colorful and abstract as hell!' FatBoy Zine creator Chis O'Leary on his Asian food diary. How one guy started his own gorgeous food magazine.
The Pirate Who Penned the First English-Language Guacamole Recipe. A click-baity piece about possibly the first food writer (in English) but quite entertaining.
The Endless Torment of the ‘Recipe?’ Guy. Tejal Rao of the New York Times delves into why people ask for the recipe when you post a photo. (Unlocked article.)
Smitten Kitchen Conversation | ‘LJ’ Talks with Deb Perelman About Cooking, Cookbooks, and Her Favorite Pandemic Food Finds. What she says about writing a book is so relatable!
Recipe Introductions Matter. Here's Why. A Food52 piece about headnotes, with commentary by John Birdsall, Nik Sharma and other cookbook authors.
On Being ‘Diasporican’: A New Puerto Rican Cookbook Experiments Without Apology. How Illyanna got her book deal and what she wants to get across.
News About Clients and Students
Cookbook giveaway!
Congratulations to Maggie Zhu, whose cookbook just came out: Chinese Homestyle: Everyday Plant-Based Recipes for Takeout, Dim Sum, Noodles and More. I found so many tantalizing recipes in this beautifully-photographed book. To win a copy, enter here.
Monti Carlo’s cookbook, My Spanglish Kitchen, will be published by Simon Element in 2024. I coached Monti on the proposal.
Food52 published Rachel Ciordas’ recipe for gluten-free sugar cookies. Rachel was a student in my IACP 2022 class.
Anna Mindess wrote and photographed Cafe Ohlone’s triumphant return for Berkeleyside.org.
Carina Ost wrote "The uncertainty of life became unavoidable." Why I decided to freeze my eggs for mamamia.com. I coached her on the essay.
Kat Romanow wrote an elegy for Montreal cream cheese for The Nosher.
Food Blogger Pro featured Yvette Marquez-Sharpnack in a podcast about Preserving Family Recipes Through Cookbooks. Her next cookbook will be published by Weldon Owen. I coached her on the book proposal and query letter.
Dora Stone’s cookbook on vegan Mexican food was sold at auction to Hachette Go, to be published in 2025. I coached her on the book proposal.
Savvytokyo.com featured a profile of Melissa Uchiyama about her Kids Write workshop.
(I like to brag about food writing accomplishments here. Send me an email: dj@diannej.com.)
Thanks for Reading
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Dianne Jacob
Editor, Writer and Coach
Email: dj@diannej.com
Website: http://www.diannej.com
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My Books
Will Write for Food: 2021 4th Edition
Disclosures: I am an affiliate of Food Blogger Pro, Amazon and Bookshop.org.
What a heart warming piece.
I paused for a seconds remembering my father’s last moments before he passed away.
Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for your many interesting and useful links, deep knowledge of the cookbook publishing world, and the moving essay (and the details of how you got it published). How lucky that your cousin had you and how sad to think how many more gifted, lonely, suffering souls like him there are out there, most without a cousin to love and memorialize them.