Many of us who write from personal experience have ideas for columns and features appropriate, we think, for our local newspapers, but we may never have talked with a newspaper editor to find out what things look like from their side of the desk.

I became acquainted with Kasia Pierzga, the Whidbey Examiner’s owner, publisher and editor, when my publishing partner, Kurt VanderSluis, became the Whidbey Island Examiner’s computer consultant. A long-time journalist from a family of journalists, Kasia bought the Whidbey Island Examiner four years ago. Just this month, the paper celebrated its 16th year of existence on the Northwest island for which it is named.

When I told Kasia that I often advise people to approach a local editor about publishing their writing, she was interested in sharing her point of view. Hearing from a busy editor/publisher will certainly help WIR subscribers create a tighter focus before approaching their communities’ newspaper editors.

Sheila
What prompted you to buy the paper on Whidbey Island?

Kasia
I knew the people who started the paper had been coworkers at another paper, and I knew the work they’d put in, and I knew how much people wanted the paper. The last publisher was getting older and had health problems and would be closing the paper out. There were many interested volunteers working there, and I hated to see the effort come to a halt. I knew there was demand. And once I bought the paper, it did well until the recession when ad revenue declined.

We rely on subscriptions even more now. Keeping a local paper going costs each subscriber a tiny amount but that amount ensures that the paper will keep going. And local papers are growing, unlike the national papers that compete with news online and on TV.

I feel strongly about journalism and local journalism in particular. We can’t have democracy if we don’t have journalism — you don’t know what your government is doing if you are watching “Dancing with the Stars.”

Sheila
How do you describe the scope of your coverage?

Kasia
We cover the community, and we market all over the island, which has three parts: North, South and Central. Our focus is central and south Whidbey but we have readers and all over the island as well as off island: people who want to move there, used to live here.

The parameters of what we include have to do with our small number of pages and how much we have to pay reporters. We receive writing submissions all the time, but what we receive is often not for our market area. And often what we receive is actually promotion about a new business or widget for sale. It is true that any story of interest to people might be of interest to us. We don’t want to publish outside writers who have an agenda but we will write about businesses from the angle of news — is the business new to town, or is it expanding fast, for instance.

Sheila
What is hardest about your business?

 Kasia
What people won’t tell you about!

Sheila
I can see that that would be frustrating for a newspaper person! What is the most exciting/delightful/gratifying aspect of the role you’ve chosen?

Kasia
We have a good writer right now who asks the questions that everyone wants to know the answer to, finds out the little details about people and brings color to the stories — even in straight news stories, it’s the details that add texture and the scenes. The writer must convey tension through the details and in tight writing, too, because we don’t have many words. My new reporter loves to write, has been in the writing community though she is trained in herbal medicine. An eclectic background means she is curious! She is aware of what’s going on and what’s interesting and unusual. She pays attention. Some people don’t notice that a 20 story building going up.

Sheila
What would you advise people who want to “break into” writing for their local paper?

Kasia
When people approach me, they often are not thinking about what readers will get out of their proposed column or feature or what the paper will get out of it. Taking care of elders is a topic we might like to cover, and we would want someone from the local community to do this. A local newspaper is not a literary magazine; I’m not saying I would never publish a poem, for instance, but there would have to be a reason. I wouldn’t just randomly publish a poem I liked. It would have to be on a topic that made sense for a community paper. Here, say, the new ferry is going to come on line; I might ask people to submit memories of the old ferry and then I could run a poem because it would pertain to right now.

When people approach me about an article, I always think, “How can I make this topic of interest to people on Whidbey Island; how is this topic about something going on here?

Say the article is about kids in schools — it must suck the reader in, suck me in. It must feel relevant for the reader, not necessarily the writing community. I want to see writing that is about the impact of events and organizations and issues on the community, our economy. More and more writers are moving here — so I can see an article on the impact on our community of having so many writers here. It’s angles like that that connect the article to the community. I can see letters to the editor as poems; they would be topical.

So, quickly, promotional articles and random poems are out. So is high maintenance. I don’t see myself as a mentor but as the publisher. I don’t have time to hold the writer’s hand. For me to consider publishing an outside writer’s work, it has to be ready for publication.

If you want me to publish opinion pieces about local issues that are more than letters to the editor, there has to be a reason for hearing from you that is compelling to the readers — who you are, for instance. I’d say you’d have to contact me first about why it makes sense for you in particular to write this UFO article; that might be interesting to me.

Sheila
How do people make a submission properly?

Kasia
By mail is better than calling — or call and say you’d like to do such and such an article and why. Actually, email is the best. I’ll take a query and I can give suggestions for improving it because I am a journalist – but I am suspicious about why someone wants to write a particular article. I wonder “What is your agenda?” Are they hiding their desire to promote something or sell something?

Spend time reading the paper; know how many words you will write, what photos you will include. There is no staff to do this. There is not a lot of room for columns, so if you are pitching one, you need a damn compelling subject or angle — and it has to be really connected to the community. I’d tell an interested columnist to send me ten columns — I have to see that this writer can do the job every week.

Sheila
What are the mistakes that you find glaring in work that is submitted to you?

Kasia
Names not spelled right, which is very tacky in a community paper, especially; we have to have correct names of organizations and places; the writer can’t be fuzzy with the facts. If the name is wrong, I wonder, what else is wrong. I know the writer is not paying attention.

Sheila
Do you think that working in a different capacity for a local newspaper would help a writer who wants to see herself published in the paper? If so, how?

Kasia
I don’t have time to train people. If somebody wants to be at the newspaper and see how things work they should get a job answering the phone. Then they can figure out if they can contribute to readers. I don’t seek volunteers – if someone had some time and wanted to learn, I wouldn’t have the time to teach them. But I would love to have help updating subscriptions and thanking new subscribers for subscriptions, saying we appreciate their support, asking if there are stories they’d like to see us include –this might be a win-win, happy conversation to have with a potential volunteer for one day a week — this volunteer would definitely learn about the paper and the community.

Sheila
How can publishing in a local paper lead to bigger opportunities for a writer?

Kasia
Learning to write for a paper is a really good skill, because you must write accurately, tightly, convey your observations and thoughts and offer clean copy. You have to respect the deadline and the length limit. Small paper publishers do not have the staff to edit what you write. Usually with freelance pieces, I don’t accept them if there are significant changes needed or name questions. If the writer has to make a major change there is a major chance of a mistake great . If I have to make a lot of changes and think I’d be sending the piece back more than once, I don’t think it is worth my time. Newspapers are the first draft of history and people in the community care about preserving the stories and the memories. People do historical research by looking in the papers. They find out how people understand their community, how people interact with it and make decisions about it.

People sometimes write for free but we usually pay something — it is important to us to pay.

Here are some pieces that have interested me: Political writings from people I don’t know that tell me how people think about voting, whether they are planning to vote, and what is deciding factor for them. The story is voting from some angle — what are Latinos considering about the election, for instance. The writer has to have an angle and know what story she is telling. Kids and homecoming week could be a fun little feature because it tells the community what is going on with kids in the community, what they are doing.

About pitching ideas — find something interesting in everything — that’s the trick, find some angle for color to make that story come alive, versus blah blah blah blah.

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You can tell that the life of a small town local newspaper publisher is just as harried, or more so, than the life of those that work at bigger papers with more staff. Before you approach a paper editor with a column idea or a feature idea, be sure you’ve done your homework and thought through how your writing serves the community’s interest. Is there a book review page for work by local writers, for instance? If not, maybe you can propose something like that for a column. What books is the local bookstore selling the most? To what do the proprietors and customers attribute this? Is the local bookstore taking on ebook sales now that digital publishing is growing faster than print publishing? What are the proprietor’s thoughts about the shift? What are local writers and local readers thinking?

Observe your community, write lists of what you wonder about concerning the community. Turn those observations and questions into stories — and maybe see if you have time to answer phones or write thank you notes to subscribers. You will learn more about the community and about the role of journalism in it, as Kasia says. Then you’ll be able to think of many stories to cover and perhaps you’ll have the editor’s ear in that email or phone call.