Adieu

To all my friends in the wine industry, my sincere apologies, but I am no longer a wine writer. I've gone over to the 'dark side', and am now a sales rep for a wine distributor. I won't tell you which one or where, but there it is.

Ernest Hemingway, known to wine lovers for his singular take on white Bordeaux, oysters and sausage, once said that journalism is a good learning ground for writers, but best to get out as quickly as possible. Though I'm not a huge Hemingway fan (actually I'm quite short), I take his comment to heart. Journalism teaches you two very positive things; deadline, and column inches. Get it in on time, and at the right length. Editors hate writers who miss deadlines, and are especially perturbed by too lengthy or too short submissions (basically editors are lazy assholes). Journalism teaches the writer discipline.

But in part because of those two positives, many negatives emerge. A writer on deadline can never truly think through any piece of writing. And confined to concrete space limitations, the journalist cannot 'stretch out', but must instead rely heavily on cliches and terseness. Creativity? Pah!

So I bid a fond farewell to the world of journalism and sadly to the numerous friends (and yes, enemies) I have made in the Northwest wine industry. But I am back where I belong; in the Land of Fiction. Where I don't have to 'engage the reader in the first graph', or stop and explain every time I mention a grape, region, or French term. Where people can be refered to by nicknames, and no one, 'goes missing'. Where you can use 40 words where one would suffice, or employ outrageous metaphors that everyone nonetheless understands. Where obscure references are not challenged (or more likely, crossed out), and editors are...o well, still assholes.

So, adieu, and keep drinking good Oregon and Washington wines. I will.