Telling Stories

My Substack has had another makeover. I started it as a vehicle for publishing my novel, Hiram Falls. When I decided to try to sell the book, this site became a place where I could share sketches that led to the novel and to share with you some of what I learned in the five years of writing it.

But now I’ve decided to expand, to share with you what I’ve learned and created over 52 years in profession writing and editing. I hope this entertains you, but I also hope helps you with your storytelling. Here’s what I offer:

• Stories — a collection of my best stories, some real, some not.

• On Writing — an erratically regular series about techniques and tricks gleaned about writing, editing, storytelling and telling stories with digital media — audio, images and short video.

• Hiram Falls — updates on the novel, Sketches that were performed on stage and led to creation of Hiram Falls; A Writer’s Journey an ongoing series about how I wrote the book — with related tips from my career.

• Engagement (coming in May) will include writing sessions, workshops, challenges and discussions. For this, I will be asking you to donate to three nonprofits I hold dear.

My aim is to pass forward what was passed on to me by some brilliant writers and editors.

My hope is that you will discover new ways of writing that strengthen your own writing voice. I hope, too, to build a supportive community of writers and readers.

If you like what I offer, please subscribe.

And if you can manage two suggestions at once, feel free to support the excellent nonprofits I mentioned: Young Writers Project, Vermont Stage Company and Media Factory.

I will be posting every Tuesday, with occasional Thursday bonus material. Most will include an audio narration. Comments encouraged.

So who am I?

I am Geoffrey Gevalt. To me all writing is narrative or, at least, should be. Stories take a direct path to readers’ hearts.

I tell stories with words and sometimes with photographs and sound. I write tiny stories and long projects. I love to talk to people, to learn about them. I love helping people write better and have worked with all ages — from kids in second grade to people in their late 70s.

I am digitally inclined. In 1995, I led the startup of what was then the 13th news site on the Web — think about that for a moment — and edited the first syndicated column about the Internet. I have built hundreds of web sites used by kids in schools to learn how to like to write together and provided teachers with curricula and training. I love the outdoors and have explored places unseen by humans — until us, of course.

I am always looking for stories.

I am married, but I respect my wife’s privacy. I have three children, but they are on their own. I miss them.

I grew up in a tiny town in the mountains where everyone knew everything about everybody. I was not Geoffrey or Geoff; I was "Doc's youngest," my Dad being an old-style doctor who made house calls, even though he had polio, an affliction we shared; damage to his body was far, far more severe.

For 33 years of my professional life I was a journalist, mostly with newspapers, where I learned from some of the nation's best. I began in Maine (Lewiston Daily Sun and Portland Press Herald/Evening Express/Sunday Telegram). My travels took me to New York City (Institutional Investor Magazine), Baltimore (Associated Press), Boston (Boston Business Journal & Quincy Patriot Ledger), Akron (The Beacon Journal) and finally Burlington, VT, (Burlington Free Press).

I still work as a journalist. I just began as managing editor of our town’s tiny nonprofit monthly (weekly on the Web) The Hinesburg Record; and I am guest editor of the Santa Cruz (CA) Lookout.

I am lucky. My colleagues and I won lots of national and regional awards, including the George S. Polk Award for investigative journalism. We changed some laws, brought some joy to people’s lives and put some crooks into prison, too. And for two years I was a juror for the Pulitzer Prizes.

Journalism is fun. It saddens me that newspapers — and professional media outlets in general — have become inconsequential and maligned and so decimated by their new corporate owners. Support them. Subscribe to them. We must keep them alive.

At my last newspaper job — the Free Press in northern Vermont — I returned to my rural roots. We had a great, feisty newsroom. We did a lot. I also grew concerned that so many kids in school were learning how to hate writing, particularly in fifth grade when confronted by the dreaded Five Paragraph Essay. They also learned, or thought they had learned, that they were no good at writing.

I decided to do something about it. With a group of teachers, we started a weekly feature designed to highlight interesting student writing and to showcase different – and better – ways to teach writing.

In 2006, I was presented with an unsolicited grant from the Vermont Business Roundtable to leave journalism and transform the newspaper feature into an organization: Young Writers Project was born, a web-centric, nonprofit that helped and still helps young people find voice.

We learned quickly that kids, when left to their own devices, will give each other respect and support and within that safe environment will freely take creative risk. We gave them affirmation – and YWP still does – by publishing their best work in newspapers, on radio, on other websites and in a digital magazine and annual anthology.

I ran the project for 12 years. In that time we:

• connected with an estimated 100,000+ young people, published the work of 18,000 students in 23 partner news organizations;

• provided professional support to 2,500+ teachers including a Master’s class for another 250;

• built, supported and provided training for private websites in 65 schools where students and teachers wrote for fun and followed a writing curriculum we set up.

• maintained the original online community, youngwritersproject.org, which continues to support approximately 4,000 active young writers from around the world.

In July, 2018, I stepped down as executive director of YWP and in 2019 stepped away entirely (no executive director likes to have the founder kicking around).

I left because I wanted to write a novel. The seeds for the book, Hiram Falls, were stories I wrote for and continue to write for performance on stage. It took me five years and 12 major revisions to complete.

When I have a work in progress I wake at 4 a.m., start writing at 4:30 and write until noon or well beyond. Here are few things I do or have done outside of my personal writing:

• Digital photography. Photography provides a nice break from writing; it uses a different part of your brain.

• For nine months, I led weekly writing sessions for people struggling with opiate addiction.

• For four and a half years, I ran weekly writing sessions online, sometimes with guest writers. I will resume them here.

• In the spring, summer and fall I am an obsessed gardener. I grow vegetables; my partner tends to perennials.

Be well. Keep on writin’.