For our final Editing and Publishing project, we have to put together (write, edit, etc.) a roughly fifty-page book. This is my proposal.
There’s a growing market today for memoirs. I hope to tap into that market with my book: Growing Up Bicontinental
This book will be a combination of photography, poetry, creative prose, and travel writing about Austria and my experiences there. My goal is for all of the book’s content to be my own original work. I may use photographs taken by family members like my mom and sisters. I will, of course, get their permission. This book will be part memoir, part travel writing. The memoir part of the book will include details about my friends and family, as their lives are intertwined with mine. The split of written text and photography throughout the book will be about 50/50.
The author’s background (my background) will be included as an integral part of the story this book tells. I will probably be the only author. If I end up including my family’s photography, I will include their backgrounds as well. I was born in Bad Ischl, Austria, and I moved to the United States with my mom and step-dad when I was six years old. We return to Austria more or less annually to visit family and friends. We usually visit over the summer when my sister and I have a break from school. I spend weekends during our trips with my dad and his family. My grandma takes us, and sometimes just me, on trips to various museums and other special places. We attend any and all special events in our family members’ lives while we’re there—sometimes that includes funerals. These adventures will be recorded in this book.
An index may be included in this book. It may also require a glossary, especially of German words and phrases. I would like to mix German with English in this book, since being bilingual is an important part of my identity, as well as my family’s identity.
The audience for this book will be anyone interested in memoir, photography, poetry, creative writing, travel, travel writing, German, Austria, and family ties. On the one hand, it seems like a huge audience, but in fact, the audience is certainly minimized by the book’s text—not everyone will have the patience for the poetry and creative writing. Therefore, the inclusion of poetry will remain at a minimum. The prose to be included will be very accessible. While the subject matter might not interest children, the reading level will be at about an 8th grade level. Memoir is perhaps the most fitting genre for this book.
Istanbul by Orhan Pamuk is among the competition. Pamuk’s memoir interweaves his life with the story of the city in which he grew up. His book is mainly prose, but he includes many photographs of himself, his family, and the city. My book will be much shorter as the photographs to be included will be in full color and of a higher image quality—Istanbul features only black and white images, some of them quite grainy because they are very old. The tone of my book will be much more joyful and optimistic than Pamuk’s, which is rather melancholy. Finally, my book will be based less on history and culture, in short, be less academic than Pamuk’s.
Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis: the Story of a Childhood is another part of the competition. This is a graphic novel that mixes Satrapi’s autobiography with the culture, religion, and history of her homeland, Iran. Since my discussion of Austria does not contain a serious topic like the Iranian Revolution, my book will be much less somber. Also, my book will not be a graphic novel, but a sort of expanded photo essay. I hope to include the same kind of childlike humor and worldview as well as the quirky honesty Satrapi offers.
Other than memoir and autobiography, coffee table books of landscape photography will also be among my competition. Pacific Northwest: Land of Light and Water by Brenda Peterson and Art Wolfe features the kind of photography my book will include. Wolfe and Peterson offer not just landscapes, but also images of the plants and animals inhabiting the area. My book, like theirs, will provide a map of the area in question at the beginning. However, my book will contain much more written text and fewer photographs. My photographs will also be of a less professional style, offering more of a family album style look at Austria.
Of Woods and Water: A Photographic Journey across Michigan by Ron Leonetti and Christopher Jordan is another such photographic ode to nature. Again, my book will be more text heavy and lighter on images. The journey aspect of my book will be slightly different as well. Since my book will be a memoir, the journey will be my own, as an individual but also as part of my family, rather than a trek through the Austrian wilderness simply for the sake of admiring nature—though such treks will certainly be included in my book.
Stuck under a Cat 