Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Spring Training by William Zinsser Zinsser, William 1922- PERSONAL: Surname is pronounced Zin -zer; born October 7, 1922, in New York, NY; son of William H. and Joyce (Knowlton) Zinsser; married Caroline Fraser, October 10, 1954; children: Amy, John William. Education: Princeton University, A.B., 1944. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Protestant. ADDRESSES: Home —45 East 62nd St., New York, NY 10021. Office —Department of Journalism Studies, Columbia University, 2960 Broadway, New York, NY 10027-6902. CAREER: Writer, editor, and educator. New York Herald Tribune , New York, NY, feature writer, 1946–49, drama editor, 1949–54, film critic, 1955–58, editorial writer, 1958–59; freelance writer, 1959–; Yale University, New Haven, CT, member of English faculty, 1970–79, master of Branford College, 1973–79; Book-of-the-Month Club, New York, NY, execu-tive editor, 1979–87; teacher, New School University, 1993–. Sunday , NBC-TV, entertainment critic, 1963–64; Brooklyn Museum, member of board of governors, 1965–72. Military service: U.S. Army, 1943–45; served in North Africa and Italy; became sergeant. MEMBER: Century Association (New York, NY), Coffee House (New York, NY). AWARDS, HONORS: Honorary degrees from Rollins College, University of Southern Indiana, and Wesleyan University. WRITINGS: Any Old Place with You , Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1957. Seen Any Good Movies Lately? , Doubleday (New York, NY), 1958. Search and Research , New York Public Library (New York, NY), 1961. The City Dwellers , Harper (New York, NY), 1962. (With Howard Lindsay, Harry Golden, Walt Kelly, and John Updike) Five Boyhoods , Doubleday (New York, NY), 1962. Weekend Guests , Harper (New York, NY), 1963. The Haircurl Papers , Harper (New York, NY), 1964. Pop Goes America , Harper (New York, NY), 1966. The Paradise Bit (novel), Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1967. Annual Report of the National Refractory & Brake Company , drawings by James Stevenson, Harper & Row (New York, NY), 1969. The Lunacy Boom , Harper (New York, NY), 1970. On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction , Harper (New York, NY), 1976, 30th anniversary edition, 6th edition revised and updated, published as On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction , HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2006. Writing with a Word Processor , Harper (New York, NY), 1983. Willie and Dwike: An American Profile , Harper (New York, NY), 1984, published as Mitchell & Ruff: An American Profile in Jazz , foreword by Albert Murray, Paul Dry Books (Philadelphia, PA), 2000. Writing to Learn , Harper (New York, NY), 1988. Spring Training , Harper (New York, NY), 1989. American Places , Harper (New York, NY), 1992. Speaking of Journalism, 12 Writers Talk about Their Work , HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1994. Easy to Remember: The Great American Songwriters and Their Songs , David R. Godine (Boston, MA), 2001. Writing about Your Life: A Journey into the Past , Marlowe (New York, NY), 2004. EDITOR. Extraordinary Lives: The Art and Craft of American Biography , American Heritage Publishing, 1986. Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir , Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1987, revised and expanded edition, 1998. Spiritual Quests: The Art and Craft of Religious Writing , Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1988, revised and expanded edition published as Going on Faith: Writing as a Spiritual Quest , Marlowe & Co. (New York, NY), 1999. Paths of Resistance: The Art and Craft of the Political Novel , Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1989. Worlds of Childhood: The Art and Craft of Writing for Children , Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1990. They Went: The Art and Craft of Travel Writings , Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1991. OTHER. Contributor to Peterson's Birds: The Art and Photography of Roger Tory Peterson , edited by Roger Tory Peterson and Rudy Hoglund, Universe (New York, NY), 2002; columnist for Look , 1967; Life, 1968–72 ; and the New York Times , 1977; contributor to magazines, including New Yorker . SIDELIGHTS: "I don't think writing is an art," William Zinsser told Publishers Weekly interviewer Sybil Steinberg. "I think sometimes it's raised to an art, but basically it's a craft, like cabinet-making or carpentry." A seasoned author and journalist, Zinsser recommends a workmanlike approach to writing in On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction . He claims that "the only way to learn to write is to force yourself to produce a certain number of words on a regular basis." On Writing Well had its genesis in a writing course that the author taught at Yale University in the 1970s; the class proved so popular that Zinsser decided to expand it into a book. By the time its 25th-anniversary sixth edition was published in 1998, On Writing Well had sold over one million copies and was in use in classrooms and newsrooms throughout the United States. "Zinsser is a veteran journalist, and On Writing Well exhibits his savvy," noted Washington Post Book World contributor Dennis Drabelle. "Like Strunk and White's The Elements of Style , to which it pays homage, Zinsser's book is crisp and bossy." Sher-win D. Smith similarly praised Zinsser's guide, observing in the New York Times Book Review that the author's "message can be absorbed with profit by any writer, no matter what his experience or his field." Part of Zinsser's success is due to his attempts to personalize his guide and make himself "very accessible to the reader," as he told Steinberg. "I think that On Writing Well has been successful because readers know they're not learning from a professor of rhetoric, but from someone who actually has struggled with the craft of writing," the author explained. He used a similar approach in Writing with a Word Processor where, he related, "I wanted the reader to become involved with me and my own anxieties and apprehensions and phobias in writing with a new technology. If I make myself vulnerable, and if readers identify with me, they will learn as I do." In a third volume, Writing to Learn , the author addresses the anxiety that writing itself can inspire. "Zinsser wants to relieve our fear of writing," summarized Chicago Tribune Books critic John Blades, "which, he says, is not the intimidating task that English teachers so often make it seem." By giving examples of clear, organized, comprehensible writing by men and women from many disciplines, Zinsser demonstrates that by "writing to learn" about any subject, an untrained author can write well. Blades also noted that in Writing to Learn: "Zinsser writes so well himself that he makes us forget, if only temporarily, how frightening it can be." One of Zinsser's own "writing to learn" exercises came during the preparation of the biography Willie and Dwike: An American Profile . Working in a new genre, Zinsser needed to find a new approach to writing. He told Publishers Weekly contributor Steinberg that "in this book I tried to stay out of it as an explainer. I saw it as my job to gather the material and arrange it, to put a shape to it. That's something new I learned at this late stage of my career." Zinsser collected his material on pianist Dwike Mitchell and bass and French horn player Willie Ruff by accompanying them on concerts in the United States. He also went with them on a precedent-setting trip to China, where the duo became the first American jazz musicians to perform there. Although noted for their jazz playing, the two men have also been classically trained and frequently explain the history of their music during appearances. "They are on almost all counts remarkable men, and in Willie and Dwike William Zinsser pays them precisely their due," commented the Washington Post 's Jonathan Yardley; "he writes about them with undisguised admiration and affection, and he conveys a real sense of what has made them successful as musicians and as men." In 2000, the book was reissued under the title Mitchell & Ruff: An American Profile in Jazz . A Publishers Weekly contributor wrote that the success of the book lies in Zinsser's decision to let his subjects speak for themselves. The voices of Dwike Mitchell and Willie Ruff can be heard directly through long quotations, while Zinsser's commentary puts their words and their lives in context. "The result is a highly infectious, Studs Terkel-like chronicle about the unorthodox development of two distinguished musicians," the critic concluded. "Like Willie and Dwike ," Zinsser told CA, Spring Training is "very much a book about America, which I consider one of my subjects, and about teaching and learning, which is my main subject." For Spring Training Zinsser attended the Pittsburgh Pirates' camp in Bradenton, Florida, interviewing the manager, coaches, players, umpires, and scouts. "Zinsser is at heart a teacher," noted New York Times Book Review contributor Lawrence S. Ritter, and "to judge by this book, he is a very good one indeed." Ritter elaborated: "Virtually everyone he talked to manages to be instructive, clearly explaining in entertaining fashion what he does and how he does it." Ritter also wrote that Spring Training is "amusing as well as informative." Zinsser once told CA: "American Places is a pilgrimage that I made to fifteen sites that have become major icons, such as Mount Rushmore, the Alamo, Yellowstone Park, Niagara Falls, and Pearl Harbor, or that embody a distinctive idea about American values and aspirations, such as the Wright brothers' Kitty Hawk; Mark Twain's Hannibal; Eisenhower's Abilene; Chautauqua, NY; and Disneyland. My method was not to ask tourists gazing up at Mount Rushmore, 'What do you feel?,' but to go to the custodians of those sacred places—park rangers, curators, librarians, oldtimers, Daughters of the Alamo, ladies of the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, etc.—and ask them, 'Why do you think two million people a year visit Mount Rushmore, or three million people visit the Alamo, or one million people walk across Concord Bridge? What psychological baggage and patriotic needs are all these people bringing to this place?' That method enabled me to tap into the affection and the emotional equity that the custodians have for the places where they work. Writing the book reshaped my thinking, both as a writer and as a teacher of nonfiction writing. I realized that people and places are intertwined, and that by writing about people in a place, or by writing about oneself in relation to a place (which might be a place in our past), we can say much of what we want to say and I can teach much of what I want to teach." "For Speaking of Journalism ," Zinsser told CA: "I invited eleven of my former writing students at Yale in the 1970s who are now successful writers and editors themselves—e.g., Mark Singer and Jane Mayer of the New Yorker , John Tierney of the New York Times —to write a chapter about their journalistic specialty: feature writing, the personal column, scientific and technical writing, political and public affairs reporting, health-and social-issues reporting, magazine editing, sportswriting, environmental and nature writing, and local and regional journalism. My instructions were simple: 'Come and tell stories about what you do and how you do it, and how you got started, and what experiences you learned from, including your mistakes. Tell stories that illustrate a point about your kind of writing or editing that aspiring writers will find helpful.' After each chapter I wrote a postscript relating it to some incident in my own career. My purpose was not only to give the book a connecting thread, but to anchor it in an older journalistic tradition. At Yale my eleven students had been taught out of values of my generation of journalists, and I in turn had been influenced by older mentors like the editors at the New York Herald Tribune , my first job, and by earlier models such as H.L. Mencken." For Going on Faith: Writing as a Spiritual Quest , Zinsser gathered another group of writers to contribute essays on their craft as it touches on each author's spiritual life. Originally published in 1988 as Spiritual Quests: The Art and Craft of Religious Writing , a volume which grew out of a series of lectures given at the New York Public Library, the expanded book Going on Faith features essays by Diane Ackerman, Frederick Buechner, Allen Ginsberg, Mary Gordon, and Patricia Hampl, among others, each of whom describes his or her original orientation toward the life of the spirit and the life of the writer. In Easy to Remember: The Great American Songwriters and Their Songs Zinsser presents a history of popular American music from the 1920s through the 1960s. Zinsser covers Broadway musicals, film scores, and popular songs and singers, focusing especially on the work of little- appreciated songwriters and lyricists whose work he admires. Written from his own perspective as a fan, Zinsser's book is idiosyncratic, opinionated, and full of in-depth details. "He's a genuine fan," wrote Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times , "who sweeps you along with his enthusiasm." Zinsser has continued to write about the craft that he loves and offers advice on the popular memoir genre in his book Writing about Your Life: A Journey into the Past . Presenting many of his writings about his own life and travels, Zinsser proceeds to dissect the various pieces, noting where they have failed and succeeded. "The book is essentially a memoir punctuated by the author's comments on his own technique," wrote Susan M. Colowick in the Library Journal . A Publishers Weekly contributor noted that the author's "frank, affirmative and encouraging style will help anyone embarking on writing their own life story." Zinsser's On Writing Well continues to be republished and updated under the deserved title On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction . Writing a review of a 2002 edition of the book, Writer contributor Ronald Kovach noted: "If you … have yet to discover this book, put it high on your list. You'll see why it has gone through multiple, updated editions and sold more than one million copies." BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES: BOOKS. Zinsser, William, On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction , Harper (New York, NY), 1976, 30th anniversary edition, 6th edition revised and updated, published as On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction , HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2006. PERIODICALS. Library Journal , May 1, 2004, Susan M. Colowick, review of Writing about Your Life: A Journey into the Past , p. 122. Library Quarterly , July, 1999, review of Worlds of Childhood: The Art and Craft of Writing for Children , p. 408. New Yorker , September 3, 1984, review of Willie and Dwike: An American Profile , p. 95. New York Times , March 31, 1983, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, review of Writing with a Word Processor , p. 27; July 13, 2001, Anthony Tommasini, "That Beautiful Rhapsody of Love and Youth and Spring," p. B36. New York Times Book Review , February 29, 1976, Sherwin D. Smith, review of On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction; July 15, 1984, Richard P. Brickner, review of Willie and Dwike , p. 14; April 23, 1989, Lawrence Ritter, review of Spring Training , p. 11. Publishers Weekly , June 29, 1984, Sybil Steinberg, "William Zinsser," interview with author, p. 106; September 11, 2000, review of Mitchell and Ruff: An American Profile in Jazz , p. 81; April 5, 2004, review of Writing about Your Life , p. 52. Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), April 17, 1988, John Blades, review of Writing to Learn , p. 3; April 2, 1989, review of Spring Training , p. 1. Washington Post , June 20, 1984, Jonathan Yardley, review of Willie and Dwike , p. B1; July 15, 1986; November 17, 1987. Washington Post Book World , February 24, 1980, Dennis Drabelle, review of On Writing Well; August 2, 1998, review of Worlds of Childhood , p. 6. Writer , July, 2002, Ronald Kovach, review of On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction , p. 48. William Zinsser - Writer. William Zinsser was a lifelong journalist and nonfiction writer—he began his career on the New York Herald Tribune in 1946—and was also a teacher, best known for his book On Writing Well , a companion held in affection by three generations of writers, reporters, editors, teachers and students. His 18 other books range from commentary ( The Writer Who Stayed ), memoir ( Writing Places; Writing About Your Life ) to travel ( American Places ), jazz ( Mitchell & Ruff ), American popular song ( Easy to Remember ), baseball ( Spring Training ) and the craft of writing ( Writing to Learn ). During the 1970s he was at Yale University, where he was master of Branford College and taught the influential nonfiction workshop that would start many writers and editors on their careers. From 2010 - 11 he wrote a weekly blog for The American Scholar , "Zinsser on Friday" about the craft of writing, popular culture, and the arts. That column recently won The National Magazine Award for digital commentary and has now been published as a book, The Writer Who Stayed (Paul Dry Books). William Zinsser - Writer. Cleveland Amory, William Zinsser (right) and a young cousin prepare to set sail on Manhasset Bay in the summer of 1936. Amory, who would become a famous author, was hired as a “tutor” by Zinsser’s parents while they took his older sisters on a European tour. “I was born into the Northeastern WASP establishment and have never quite stopped pretending that I wasn’t. My boyhood was spent in a big house on the north shore of Long Island that overlooked the water and had its own tennis court. But I always wanted to get beyond that narrow world. In the summer of 1936, when I was 13, my parents took my older sisters on a Grand Tour of Europe, leaving me with my grandmother. To keep me company they advertised for a ‘tutor.’ “A suitable-sounding candidate was found—Harvard junior, all-around athlete, an editor of the Crimson—and was invited for Sunday dinner to be looked over. His name was Cleveland Amory. The name signified that he was a Boston Brahmin. Many years later it would become a familiar presence on the best-seller lists for his droll social histories like The Proper Bostonians. “My father explained to Amory that he would mainly be expected to play golf and tennis and go sailing with me—the usual WASP sports. His biggest problem, my father was sorry to say, would be to wrest me away from my obsessive interest in baseball. The tutor smiled the smile of a young man who has found the perfect summer job. “When summer arrived, my new friend tried at first to adhere to the conditions of his employment. But our hearts were elsewhere. Amory, it turned out, was a crazed Boston Red Sox fan, and our schedule began to tilt. We would put our golf clubs in the family Buick, head for the Piping Rock Club, and somehow wind up at Yankee Stadium." —from “A Reluctant WASP,” Town & Country, August 2004. Sergeant William Zinsser in Florence in 1945 after the end of World War II. The historic Ponte Vecchio was the only one of the city’s bridges over the Arno River still standing; the rest had been blown up by the retreating Nazi troops. “That summer the army established a college in Florence to ease the boredom of its newly idle soldiers. Our campus was an aeronautical academy that Mussolini had built just outside the city. I knew nothing about art, so I signed up for art history courses. In the mornings I would hear lectures and see slides of the great works of the Renaissance, and in the afternoons, which we had off, I would see the great works themselves. The Florentines had just begun to bring out of hiding the art treasures they had concealed from the Nazis, and sometimes I would see those works being hauled through the streets and put back in place. I looked Cellini’s Perseus in the eye as he was hoisted onto his pedestal. It was a re- Renaissance; art belonged to the people again, as it had in the time of the Medicis. In September the college sent me back to my unit and I was given six certificates listing the courses I had taken and the grades I received. But only I knew how much they certified.” —from “Writing About Your Life” William Zinsser working in his New York appartment on the Underwood typewriter that was the inseparable friend of his years as a free-lance writer. From 1968 to 1972 he mainly wrote for Life. This photograph accompanied an editor’s column in Life introducing him to its readers. “The social revolutions of the Sixties became my main subject in 1968, when Ralph Graves, managing editor of Life, signed me to write regular pieces of serious humor—pieces that would use the mechanisms of humor, such as parody and satire and lampoon, to make a serious point. Week after week I tried to hold the galloping Sixties still for 15 minutes—long enough for readers to laugh or cry over the latest cultural or military- industrial lunacy. In those days the outlandish became routine overnight, and only the humorists were pointing out that it was still outlandish. They were a mixed bag of night-club comics (Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce), cartoonists (Herblock, Jules Feiffer) and newspapermen (Art Buchwald), and all of them were dead serious. I continued to send columns to Life until one day when my editor called and said. ‘Whatever you’ve got in your typewriter, send it to someone else.’ Mighty Life had folded, its glorious 36-year reign ingloriously over.” William Zinsser, master of Branford College at Yale University in the 1970s, gives a newly minted Yale graduate his diploma. “Caroline and I and Amy and John settled into our new home in Branford College and adjusted to its quirks, including a 44-bell carillon in Harkness Tower, which rose almost directly over the master’s house. Probably I had heard the carillon from a distance and thought of it as mere perfume in the academic air. But that was from a distance. Now, overhead, the giant bells were less euphonious, their tone cloudy and not quite musical. They were also very loud. Nor was there much of a repertory for those bells. Occasionally a student carilloneur, striving for relevance, would play a Beatles song, but I don’t think John Lennon would have taken it as a favor. “All four of us were caught up in the domestic rhythms of the 400 young people living in our midst, never surprised by a knock on the door at some odd hour. Many knocks could be expected just before the students went home for Christmas vacation. They came bearing their houseplants for us to keep warm and watered, often accompanied by a note specifying the care and feeding that their plant absolutely couldn’t live without. Caroline put all the plants on the tile floor of one of our unused bathrooms, which began to look like a miniature rain forest. During the three-week vacation she watered them on a schedule of her own, ignoring the sacred instructions, and they all thrived. One year a student left a small plant that was a smaller specimen of one that she herself had raised to a larger size. When the student came back she couldn’t resist giving him the bigger one, pointing out how well it had done. He was amazed and only slowly figured out what growth hormone had been at work.” The shed in Niantic, Connecticut, where William Zinsser wrote “On Writing Well” in the summer of 1974. “You should write a book about how to write,” Caroline said in June of 1974 when I was complaining to her, as I often did, that I had run out of things to write about. At that time our family lived at Yale. When the academic year ended we would move to our summer house in Niantic, Connecticut, and there I would hole up for three months doing writing projects of my own. I worked in a crude shed at the rear of the property, next to some woods, my Underwood typewriter perched on a green metal typing table under a light bulb suspended from the ceiling. “Caroline’s suggestion came from out of nowhere—I had never thought of writing a textbook—but it felt right. By then I had been teaching my course at Yale for four years, and I liked the idea of trying to capture it in a book.” William Zinsser with the Pittsburgh Pirates pitching coach, Ray Miller, at the team's spring training camp in Bradenton, Florida, in 1989. Zinsser's book about the Bucs, "Spring Training," had just been published. “One afternoon, when the Pirates were playing the Blue Jays, I was told that it had been arranged for me to throw out the first ball. Me? Throw out the first ball? Over the years I've had some minor dreams of glory—I've been in a Blondie comic strip and a Woody Allen movie and a lot of double-crostic puzzles. But what American boy doesn't want to throw out the first ball? "My thoughts went back to the final chapter of my book, which describes the opening day ceremonies of the Pirates' 1988 season in Three Rivers Stadium—the moment when spring training finally ends. Fred Rogers, a native Pittsburgh son, whose Mister Rogers' Neighborhood was then in its 20th year, was there to throw out the first ball. Rogers made a terrible pitch that didn't reach home plate and had to be blocked in the dirt by the catcher, and I remember thinking, 'What a wimp! Anybody can throw a ball that far.' "Now I was the one being handed a new National League baseball. Suddenly the pitcher's box looked a long way off. As I walked through the gate I felt an arm around my shoulder and heard a voice saying, 'Let me show you how to do this.' It was Ray Miller, the Pirates pitching coach. 'What you do,' he said, 'is you don't go all the way out to the mound. You walk down the first-base line, and when you get halfway there you turn around and throw to the catcher.' "I headed down the first-base line and heard my name and my book being announced over the public address system. Halfway to first base I turned and saw the Pirate catcher, Junior Ortiz, standing expectantly at the plate, caparisoned in his protective gear and mask, his mitt outstretched. He looked as if he could handle anything I threw at him. "I wound up and pitched the ball toward Ortiz's mitt. I don't remember whether my pitch was high or low or wide, but I do remember that it reached him and didn't bounce in the dirt. Ray Miller had wanted to spare me that possible humiliation." William Zinsser with the pianist Dwike Mitchell on the Great Wall of China in June, 1981. He had gone to Shanghai to write about a concert given by Mitchell and the bassist amd French-horn player Willie Ruff at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, introducing live jazz to China for the first time. Ruff learned Mandarin so that he could tell the students and professors at China’s oldest conservatory the story of the music of his people. His listeners had no concept of—and no word for—improvisation. Ruff defined it as “something created during the process of delivery.” “The next number was one I didn't recognize. At the end, Ruff said. 'That's called Shanghai Blues. We just made it up.' The audience buzzed with amazement and pleasure. An old professor stood up. 'When you played Shanghai Blues just now,' he said, 'Did you have a form for it, or a logical plan?' "'I just started tapping my foot,' Ruff said, 'and then I started to play the first thought that came into my mind with the horn. And Mitchell heard it. And he answered. And after that we heard and answered, heard and answered, heard and answered.' "'But how can you ever play it again?' the old professor asked. "'We never can,' Ruff replied. "'That is beyond our imagination. Our students play a piece 100 times, or 200 times, to get it exactly right. You play something once—something very beautiful—and then you just throw it away.' "Now the questions tumbled out. Was it really possible, a student wanted to know, to improvise on any tune at all—even one the musicians had never heard before? "Ruff said, 'I would like to invite one of the pianists here to play a short Chinese melody that I'm sure we wouldn't know, and we will make a piece out of that.'" Oil portrait of William Zinsser by Thomas S. Buechner, 2006. “The American painter Thomas S. Buechner is best known for his portraits. His is the portrait of Alice Tully that hangs in Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, and his portrait of a teenage girl named Leslie is in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In a long career of painting more than 3,000 pictures he has also found time to be the founding director of the Corning Museum of Glass, director of the Brooklyn Museum and president of Steuben Glass. He is also a teacher and a writer; his book How I Paint is a model of explanatory prose. He is also, less pertinently, my second cousin; our German-American grandmothers, Frida and Louise Scharmann, were sisters. ”Over the years Tom has occasionally asked me to be his editor. most recently on the catalog for a museum exhibition of 175 of his works that chronologically tell the story of his life as an artist. Putting that jigsaw puzzle together was a complex task, and afterward Tom said, ’I don’t know how to thank you.’ I told him I was just glad we were able to solve the problem. Then he said, ‘Would you like me to do your portrait?’ I said, ‘Oh, no.’ WASPS are trained not to put people to any extra trouble. “But that night my wife said, 'It would be nice to have a portrait by Tom.' Of course she was right, so I called Tom back, and we agreed that I would come to Corning. the city in south-central New York where he has long lived, and spend two days sitting for him. “'I’ll be asking you a lot of questions,’ he said. That sounded ominous. I’ve always thought of portrait painters as unlicensed psychiatrists, using their eyes instead of their ears to read the human heart. I doubt if Rembrandt’s sitters had many secrets he didn’t know about. What would it be like to have my 80-year-old cousin reading my 83-year-old face and putting onto canvas what he saw written there? “I decided to bring along my reporter’s notebook and do a portrait of my own. It would be a triple portrait. One would be of Tom Buechner and his methods as a portrait painter. One would be of myself as I sat and thought my thoughts of time and mortality. And the third would be of the portait itself as it gradually came to life.” William Zinsser working in his office in mid-Manhattan. The painting on the wall is by his son, the artist John Zinsser. The baseball is a reminder of his book, “Spring Training,” written in 1988, about the spring training camp of the Pittsburgh Pirates in Bradenton, Florida. “In this last of my writing places, all the strands of my life come together. I never know what outpost of my past I’ll hear from. Many people who telephone feel that they know me from On Writing Well. A woman named Fatima Al-Rasheed called from Kuwait to say that she had some writing problems she wanted to ask me about. A few weeks later she was in my office, bearing a gift of dates packed in a sumptuous wooden box. An editor from Los Angeles left a message asking me to call back as soon as possible. She and her collaborator were mired in an ethical dilemma they hadn’t been able to solve—a matter of rights and credits. When I reached her she was in her car. ‘Are you on the freeway?’ I asked. She said she was about to get on the freeway. ‘Well, pull over and park somewhere,’ I said, and for 20 minutes we traversed the hills and valleys of literary fairness and arrived at a place where she felt comfortable. “Many younger writers have taken me as a mentor. They just look me up in the Manhattan telephone book. ‘I know how busy you are,’ they say, assuming that I spend every minute writing at my computer. I tell them I have many ways of being busy, and this is one of the ways I like best. I particularly like to be busy with people who want their writing to make a difference. and by now I have a small shelf of their books.” Spring Training. Publisher: HarperCollins, Scranton, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. Publication Date: 1989. Binding: Hard Cover. Book Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. Signed: Signed by Author. Edition: First Edition 2nd Printing. About this title. A life-long baseball fan describes spring training with the Pittsburgh Pirates in Bradenton, Florida, in an account filled with interviews, baseball lore, and information on techniques. From the Back Cover: "A song of baseball's sweetest season."- Boston Globe. "Will take you to the endangered soul of baseball."-George Vecsey, New York Times. "Written with the same grace and intelligence Willie Mays brought to the game."- Booklist. Spring training, a time when every team is in first place, is an American tradition dating back to the early years of the twentieth century. William Zinsser vividly brings to life the unique, once-a-year relationship between Bradenton, Florida, and its adopted team, the Pittsburgh Pirates. In 1988 the Pirates were an unproven yet promising bunch with high hopes of competing for the National League pennant. Given rare access to players, management, scouts and umpires, Zinsser sought to discover how a team prepares for the longest season in professional sports. As valid today as it was when first published, Spring Training reveals how the fundamentals of baseball are taught and learned. The author has added a new introduction and postscript, which includes a lengthy interview with manager Jim Leyland about the lessons that can be learned from losing. "About this title" may belong to another edition of this title. Books will be shipped within two days of purchase. If for any reason the buyer is not satisifed with the book, we will gladly refund their full purchase price and shipping. All books are wrapped in paper and bubble-wrap. Shipping costs are based on books weighing 2.2 LB, or 1 KG. If your book order is heavy or oversized, we will contact you to let you know extra shipping is required. Spring Training by William Zinsser. Guide to the William Zinsser Papers ca. 1946-1998 MSS 031. Fales Library and Special Collections Elmer Holmes Bobst Library 70 Washington Square South 3rd Floor New York, NY 10012 Phone: (212) 998-2596 [email protected]. Fales Library and Special Collections. Collection processed by Katherine Harris, June-November 1998. This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on February 14, 2018. Administrative Information. Provenance. The William Zinsser Papers were a gift of William Zinsser in June 1998 in conjunction with the publication of the 6th edition of On Writing Well . Included in William Zinsser’s gift to Fales Library was a collection of the books that he authored and edited. The accession number associated with these materials is 1998.031. Access Restrictions. Materials are open to researchers. Please contact the Fales Library and Special Collections, [email protected], 212-998-2596. Use Restrictions. Copyright (or related rights to publicity and privacy) for materials in this collection was not transferred to New York University. Permission to use materials must be secured from the copyright holder. Please contact the Fales Library and Special Collections, [email protected], 212-998- 2596. Preferred Citation. Published citations should take the following form: Identification of item, date (if known); William Zinsser Papers; MSS 31; box number; folder number; Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University Libraries. Related Material at the Fales Library and Special Collections. Separated Material. The following collection of books authored and edited by William Zinsser were donated with his papers. These items were separated into the Fales American Collection and have been individually cataloged. Records for the items can be located in Bobcat. American places : a writer's pilgrimage to 15 of this country's most visited and cherished sites / William Zinsser, 1st ed., New York : HarperCollins Publishers, c1992. American places : a writer's pilgrimage to 15 of this country's most visited and cherished sites / William Zinsser, 1st Harper Perennial ed., New York : Harper Perennial, 1993, c1992. Annual report of the National Refractory & Brake Company [by William Zinsser. Drawings by James Stevenson, [New York, Harper & Row, 1969] Any old place with you / Zinsser, William Knowlton, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1957. The city dwellers / Zinsser, William Knowlton, [1st ed.], New York, Harper & Row [1962] Easy to remember : the great American songwriters and their songs / William Zinsser, Jaffrey, N.H. : David R. Godine, 2001, c2000. Extraordinary lives : the art and craft of American biography / Robert A. Caro . [et al.] ; edited by William Zinsser, New York : American Heritage ; Boston : Distributed by Houghton Mifflin, 1986. Extraordinary lives : the art and craft of American biography / Robert A. Caro . [et al.] ; edited by William Zinsser, Boston : Houghton Mifflin, [1988] A family of readers : an informal portrait of the Book-of-the-Month Club and its members on the occasion of its 60th anniversary / William Zinsser, New York : Book-of-the-Month Club, 1986. Going on faith : writing as a spiritual quest / edited and with an introduction by William Zinsser ; [contributors], Diane Ackerman . [et al.]., New York : Marlowe & Co. : Distributed by Publishers Group West, [1999] The haircurl papers and other searches for the lost individual / Zinsser, William Knowlton, 1st ed., New York, Harper & Row, 1964. Inventing the truth : the art and craft of memoir / Russell Baker . [et al.] ; edited with a memoir and an introduction by William Zinsser, Boston : Houghton Mifflin, c1987. Inventing the truth : the art and craft of memoir / Russell Baker . [et al.] ; edited with a memoir and an introduction by William Zinsser, New York: Book-of-the-Month-Club 1987. Inventing the truth : the art and craft of memoir / Russell Baker . [et al.] ; edited with an introduction by William Zinsser, Rev. and expanded 2nd ed., Boston : Houghton Mifflin, c1995. Inventing the truth : the art and craft of memoir / Russell Baker . [et al.] ; edited with an introduction by William Zinsser, Rev. and expanded ed., 1st Mariner books ed., Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1998. Look, Ma, I am kool! and other casuals / compiled and edited by Burton Bernstein, Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice-Hall, c1977. The lunacy boom [by] William Zinsser, [1st ed.], New York, Harper & Row [1970] Mitchell & Ruff : an American profile in jazz / William Zinsser ; foreword by Albert Murray, 1st Paul Dry Books ed., Philadelphia : Paul Dry Books, 2000. On writing well : an informal guide to writing nonfiction / William Zinsser, 1st ed., New York : Harper & Row, c1976. On writing well : an informal guide to writing nonfiction / William Zinsser, 2nd. ed., New York : Harper and Row, c1980. On writing well : an informal guide to writing nonfiction / William Zinsser, 3rd ed., rev. and enlarged, New York : Harper & Row, c1985. On writing well : an informal guide to writing nonfiction / William Zinsser, 4th ed., rev., updated, and expanded, New York, N.Y. : Harper Perennial, c1990. On writing well : the classic guide to writing nonfiction / William Zinsser, 6th ed., rev. and updated, New York : Harper Perennial, c1998. On writing well [sound recording] / William Zinsser, Abridged, New York, NY : HarperCollins, c1998. On writing well : the classic guide to writing nonfiction / William Zinsser, 25th anniversary ed., 6th ed. rev. and updated., 1st Harper Resource Quill ed., New York : Quill, 2001. The paradise bit, a novel / [by] William K. Zinsser., [1st ed.], Boston : Little, Brown, [1967] Paths of resistance : the art and craft of the political novel / Isabel Allende . [et al.] ; edited by William Zinsser, Boston : Houghton Mifflin, c1989. Pop goes America / Zinsser, William Knowlton, [1st ed.], New York, Harper & Row [1966] Search & research; the collections and uses of the New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street / Zinsser, William Knowlton, New York, New York Public Library, 1961. Seen any good movies lately? / Zinsser, William Knowlton, [1st ed.], Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1958. Speaking of journalism : 12 writers and editors talk about their work / William Zinsser, and Jennifer Allen . [et al.]., 1st ed., New York : HarperCollins, 1994. Speaking of journalism : 12 writers and editors talk about their work / William Zinsser ; and Jennifer Allen . [et al.]., 1st Harper Perennial ed., New York : Harper Perennial, 1995. Spiritual quests : the art and craft of religious writing / Mary Gordon . [et al.] ; edited by William Zinsser, Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1988. Spring training / William Zinsser, 1st ed., New York : Harper & Row, c1989. Spring training / William Zinsser ; introduction by Daniel Okrent, 1st Prentice Hall Press ed., New York : Prentice Hall Press, [1990] They went : the art and craft of travel writing / Ian Frazier . [et al.] ; edited by William Zinsser, Boston : Houghton Mifflin, c1991. Weekend guests; from "we're so glad you could come" to "we're so sorry you have to go," and vice-versa / Zinsser, William Knowlton, [1st ed.], New York, Harper & Row [1963] Willie and Dwike : an American profile / by William Zinsser, 1st ed., New York : Harper & Row, c1984. Worlds of childhood : the art and craft of writing for children / Jean Fritz . [et al.] ; edited by William Zinsser, Boston : Houghton Mifflin, c1990. Writing to learn / William Zinsser, 1st ed., New York : Harper & Row, c1988. Writing with a word processor / William Zinsser, 1st ed., New York : Harper & Row, c1983. The Writer Who Stayed. Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books, 2012. Writing Places: The Life Journey of a Writer and Teacher. New York: Harper Collins, 2009. American Places: updated and expanded by the author. The Akadine Press, 2002. Writing About Your Life: A Journey into the Past. New York: Marlowe & Company, 2004. Processing Information. In 2017 the following accretions were integrated into the collection. Accretion 2005, containing letters, articles, biographical information, and documents on talks and workshops, was integrated into Series I, II, III, and IV, respectively. The accession number associated with these materials is 2005.031. Accretion 2010, containing letters, articles, and manuscripts, was integrated into Series I and II. The accession number associated with these materials is 2010.031. Accretion 2012 consists of letters and was integrated into Series I. The accession number associated with these materials is 2012.031. Accretion 2013 includes letters, integrated into Series I, and printouts of the blog "Zinsser on Friday," published in 2012 as The Writer Who Stayed. These printouts have been integrated into Series II. The accession number associated with these materials is 2013.031. Bibliography. Zinsser, William. American Places: A Writer’s Pilgrimage to 15 of This Country’s Most Visited and Cherished Sites . HarperCollins: New York, 1992. Zinsser, William. American Places: A Writer’s Pilgrimage to 15 of This Country’s Most Visited and Cherished Sites . HarperPerennial: New York, 1993. Zinsser, William. Annual Reprot [sic] of the National Refractory & Brake Company . Illus. James Stevenson. Harper & Row: New York, 1969.Zinsser, William. Any Old Place With You . Illus. Robt Day. Simon and Schuster: New York, 1957Zinsser, William. "A Connoisseur’s Guide to H2O." "Jury Duty." "Peabody’s Complaint." Look, Ma, I am Kool! And Other Casuals . Ed. Burton Bernstein. Prentice- Hall, Inc.: Englewood Cliffs, 1977. 221-235. Zinsser, William. Ed. Extraordinary Lives: The Art and Craft of American Biography . Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1986.Zinsser, William. Ed. Extraordinary Lives: The Art and Craft of American Biography . Boston:Houghton Mifflin Company, (1988).Zinsser, William. A Family of Readers: An Informal Portrait of The Book-of-the-Month Club and Its Members on the Occasion of its 60th Anniversary . Book-of-the-Month Club: New York, 1986.Zinsser, William. The Haircurl Papers & Other Searches for the Lost Individual . Harper & Row: New York, 1964.Zinsser, William. Ed. Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir . Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1987.Zinsser, William. Ed. Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir . Rev. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1995.Zinsser, William. ed. Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir . Rev. intro. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998.Zinsser, William. "[1930's]." Five Boyhoods: Howard Lindsay, Harry Golden, Walt Kelly, William K. Zinsser, and John Updike . Ed. Martin Levin. Doubleday & Company, Inc.: New York, 1962. 117-154. Zinsser, William. On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction . Harper & Row: New York, 1976. Zinsser, William. On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction . 2nd ed. Harper & Row: NewYork, 1980. Zinsser, William. On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction . 3rd ed., rev. and enlarged. Harper & Row: New York, 1985. Zinsser, William. On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction . 3rd ed. [Chinese] Harper & Row: New York, 1985. The Rock House Publishers: Hong Kong, 1985. Zinsser, William. On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction . 4th ed., rev., updated, and exp. HarperPerennial: New York, 1990. Zinsser, William. On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction . Audio recording of 4th ed. [HarperCollins Publishers: New York, 1991.] Harper Audio: New York, Nov. 21, 1990. Zinsser, William. On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction . 6th ed., rev. and updated. HarperPerennial: New York, 1998. Zinsser, William. ed. Paths of Resistance: The Art and Craft of the Political Novel . Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1989.Zinsser, William. Search & Research: The Collections and Uses of the New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street . Illus. Tom Funk. The New York Public Library: New York, 1961.Zinsser, William. Seen Any Good Movies Lately? Or, The Education of a Movie Critic . Illus. Robert Day. Doubleday & Company, Inc.: New York, 1958.Zinsser, William. Speaking of Journalism: 12 Writers and Editors Talk About Their Work . HarperCollins: New York, 1994. Zinsser, William. Speaking of Journalism: 12 Writers and Editors Talk About Their Work . HarperPerennial: New York, 1995. Zinsser, William. Ed. Spiritual Quests: The Art and Craft of Religious Writing . Boston: Houghton MifflinCompany, 1988. Zinsser, William. Spring Training . Harper & Row: New York, 1989. Re-print. Prentice Hall Press, 1990.Zinsser, William. Ed. They Went: The Art and Craft of Travel Writing . Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1991.Zinsser, William. ed. Worlds of Childhood: The Art and Craft of Writing for Children . Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990.Zinsser, William. Ordbehandlaren Och Jag . [ Writing with a World [sic] Processor . (Swedish)] 1983. Berghs Förlag Ab; Malmö, 1984.