Switching to Non-Fiction
In 2020, my parents both died. Separately, but within weeks of each other. As the writer in the family, I'm the one who put together their obituaries. Mom was first, and her obituary was mainly about what I knew of her and the family.
But Dad's was more complicated. Dad was a bit of big deal in his world of research architecture. And so I wanted his obituary to be filled with more about his work. He'd published a book called Extraordinary Events of My Life - mostly for the family - from which I borrowed liberally. I did some quick Googling of his name, and in the process, learned a lot. I knew Dad, as I said, was something of a big deal. But I had no idea, really, how much.
I began to understand how much when the obituary I wrote and published on Ever Loved, the same website we'd used for Mom, was picked up by numerous publications. It was used by the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA) in their moving tribute to their founding president, John Eberhard. It was used by the State University of New York at Buffalo in a piece on the founding dean of their School of Architecture. It was used by the American Institute of Architects in their piece about Dad's passing as he had been both a Fellow of the AIA (FAIA) and the 2003 Latrobe Prize winner (to found ANFA). In short, it ended up in a bunch of places.
Realizing that Dad was something of a bigger deal than even I knew, I thought he belonged in Wikipedia. Thus began a 1-year process of actually getting Dad's bio in Wikipedia. My original obituary was "too flowery" for them, too many adjectives, too many accolades. Then, I was told Dad just wasn't notable. Which was patently absurd given how many institutions had published about his passing. I finally whittled the article done enough for one of the Wikipedia editors to note the awarding of the Latrobe Prize, and to give Dad a status as "notable" based on that.
By then, I'd done a lot more research, trying to find something that would make Dad notable enough for Wikipedia. And we'd gotten some amazing pieces published by ANFA and some of Dad's AIA colleagues about the great things that Dad had done.
And so, I decided to write a biography of my father. I've never written a biography. I write fiction, though I do call some of my novel fictional biographies. Still, writing non-fiction is a very different thing than writing fiction. For one thing, it requires actual facts. Which means research and footnotes and things like that. It's a daunting idea.
But I'm giving it my best. I have lots of papers from Dad's estate. I have the research I've already done. And I've now interviewed eight of his colleagues, with others to come, I'm sure.
So, for the short term, I'm switching from fiction to non-fiction. The tentative title is Maverick for the Built Environment: A Biography of John Paul Eberhard. We'll see how this goes.
But Dad's was more complicated. Dad was a bit of big deal in his world of research architecture. And so I wanted his obituary to be filled with more about his work. He'd published a book called Extraordinary Events of My Life - mostly for the family - from which I borrowed liberally. I did some quick Googling of his name, and in the process, learned a lot. I knew Dad, as I said, was something of a big deal. But I had no idea, really, how much.
I began to understand how much when the obituary I wrote and published on Ever Loved, the same website we'd used for Mom, was picked up by numerous publications. It was used by the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA) in their moving tribute to their founding president, John Eberhard. It was used by the State University of New York at Buffalo in a piece on the founding dean of their School of Architecture. It was used by the American Institute of Architects in their piece about Dad's passing as he had been both a Fellow of the AIA (FAIA) and the 2003 Latrobe Prize winner (to found ANFA). In short, it ended up in a bunch of places.
Realizing that Dad was something of a bigger deal than even I knew, I thought he belonged in Wikipedia. Thus began a 1-year process of actually getting Dad's bio in Wikipedia. My original obituary was "too flowery" for them, too many adjectives, too many accolades. Then, I was told Dad just wasn't notable. Which was patently absurd given how many institutions had published about his passing. I finally whittled the article done enough for one of the Wikipedia editors to note the awarding of the Latrobe Prize, and to give Dad a status as "notable" based on that.
By then, I'd done a lot more research, trying to find something that would make Dad notable enough for Wikipedia. And we'd gotten some amazing pieces published by ANFA and some of Dad's AIA colleagues about the great things that Dad had done.
And so, I decided to write a biography of my father. I've never written a biography. I write fiction, though I do call some of my novel fictional biographies. Still, writing non-fiction is a very different thing than writing fiction. For one thing, it requires actual facts. Which means research and footnotes and things like that. It's a daunting idea.
But I'm giving it my best. I have lots of papers from Dad's estate. I have the research I've already done. And I've now interviewed eight of his colleagues, with others to come, I'm sure.
So, for the short term, I'm switching from fiction to non-fiction. The tentative title is Maverick for the Built Environment: A Biography of John Paul Eberhard. We'll see how this goes.
No comments have been added yet.
