Letter From Dubai

January 10, 2020  /  Susannah Breslin

Image via Lowe’s

Image via Lowe’s

Hi Susannah

At the onset thank you for writing the below blog. 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/susannahbreslin/2012/06/08/how-to-sell-yourself/#630bb2136843  

Let me give you a quick background of why I am writing to you - I am good at sales, having demonstrated over achievements of targets YoY, however my growth within my company has been limited. And when talking to one of my friend yesterday he had an interesting remark to make - Those who are good at selling to others are usually bad at selling themselves, and they do not realize it. 

That triggered my thinking, and I started reading, and first article I came across was your blog that left me stunned. 

Your #Tip1 and #Tip2 both were eye openers for me.

I do not follow either as prescribed in your blog.

This blew me away, and I was compelled to reach to you.

Thank you again ! I am based in Dubai. If you ever plan to visit Dubai , do let me know.

It will be an honor to meet you and host you in Dubai.

Your fan !

Like what I do? Support my work! Buy my digital short story: THE TUMOR.

tags / EMAIL, ADVICE, FORBES

The Pink Ghetto

January 03, 2020  /  Susannah Breslin

Joseph Pulitzer via Wikipedia

Joseph Pulitzer via Wikipedia

As I mentioned here previously, I was interviewed for an essay that appears in Sex and Journalism: Critical, Global Perspectives. Titled “‘In a Pink Ghetto’: How Female News Workers Define Sex Journalism” and written by Belinda Middleweek, the chapter seeks to define sex journalism and identify its practitioners. They are predominantly female and mostly freelancers. I was one of those interviewed for the piece, and it was interesting to read her insights. In her conclusion, she writes, quoting me (Interviewee 4): “‘When does the first sex journalist win a Pulitzer?’ (Interviewee 4). My answer? Never in this pink ghetto.” Middleweek isn’t launching a criticism here or looking down her nose at sex journalism and those who do it. She’s merely observing that between the gender of sex journalists and the ghettoization of sex journalism in the news landscape, it may be unlikely that one of its own could be given one of journalism’s highest honors. I, for one, disagree with Middleweek. Or, at least, I hold out hope that sex journalism will one day rise out of the pink ghetto in which it exists, and someday one of us will win a Pulitzer. The unknown is when.

Like what I do? Support my work! Buy my digital short story: THE TUMOR.

tags / JOURNALISM, WOMEN, SEX

2019: A Year in Review

December 22, 2019  /  Susannah Breslin

💋

13 Likes, 0 Comments - Susannah Breslin (@susannahbreslin) on Instagram: "💋"

Following on the heels of my decade in review post, I present my 2019 year in review:

  1. The Future of Journalism Is Female. I learned a lot as a fellow at U.C. Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program, but the most important part of that experience was the relationships I had with the graduate students at the School of Journalism. They are an amazing, diverse bunch, who are truly reinventing what journalism is. Their relationships to sources is different, they are no longer are interested in silo coverage or single-medium tracks, and they’re just really fucking bright. It was a delight, an inspiration, and an honor to get to know these people. The future of journalism is female.

  2. I Love LA. I don’t understand people who don’t love Los Angeles. Since returning to the city, I’ve tried to pin down my abiding affection for it. Where else can you make a living pretending to be Superman while standing on a star-covered sidewalk? In this city, there’s no difference between reality and fantasy. It’s all the same. The surrealism is everywhere, and it’s intoxicating.

  3. Write More Weird Shit. I wrote some strange stuff this year. An appreciation of a woman who kills. A stripped-down personal essay that mashed up nonfiction and fiction. And the most widely-read thing I wrote involved Kylie Jenner’s foray into Playboy, which isn’t exactly weird, but some things never change, and what never changes is the general audience’s interest in sex. I guess boobs are eternal. And good for digital engagement. Now and forever.

  4. Never Quit. I didn’t publish a lot of fiction this year, but I was delighted to learn last week that a short story I wrote years ago will be published in February 2020. The story, which is fiction, is called “Spike,” and it’s about a male porn star who has a penis problem. Or an erection problem, really. I submitted this story to over 14 publications, and it was finally accepted as the decade came to a close. I find it bizarre that more people didn’t want to publish a story about a guy’s relationship to his dick, but I guess editors aren’t as into the penis-for-hire genre as I am. Go figure. Speaking of which, “The Hardest Thing About Being a Male Porn Star” remains my all-time, most-viewed post on my Forbes blog with over 2.1M views.

  5. See It. I posted a lot of photos to my Instagram feed.

  6. I Am the Hunter S. Thompson of Sex. Or at least that’s what I told the researcher who interviewed me for this new book. I am “Interviewee 4” if you want to find out what it’s like to spend over 20 years digging through the bowels of this country’s perversions.

  7. Confess Your Sins. I did a uniquely revealing interview with my friend Valerie Baber for her podcast, “Sex & Society.” While I’ve spent years investigating other people’s sex lives, I rarely discuss my own. You can have a listen to what I’ve got to say about nudity, Playboy, and other illicit topics by clicking here. I was ambivalent about being more personally revealing, but Valerie did a great job of pushing me out of my comfort zone. I suppose that’s how we grow, right?

  8. The Dating Zone. I dated a fair amount this year. I’ve got a pretty sharp, strategic mind, but I don’t know if it’s possible to create a perfect strategy for dating. Maybe love is like an eel, and you spend a lot of your life trying to grasp the thing while it wriggles in your hands. Or maybe that’s not such a great metaphor. I have no idea what the answer is here, but someone said that at least I keep swinging at the ball hurtling towards me. Or maybe that’s not such a great metaphor either. Maybe love is a mystery. We’ll leave it at that.

  9. Agents of Change. Back in October, I visited the LA offices of CAA which is where some of the Hollywood universe’s most powerful agents do their business. The rather dramatic building was designed by I. M. Pei and is known as “The Death Star.” Most of the people in the lobby were men who were dressed in black. After I went upstairs to talk to a film and TV agent and then came back downstairs, I went outside. There was an art installation with walls that read DOUBT, JUDGMENT, and RESENTMENT. There was a place where you could write your obstacle in white ink on a black card, so I wrote the word FEAR on the piece of paper, and then … what did I do with it? Stuck it in a slit in the top of a box, maybe. That’s my goal for 2020. Write the fear away. Anxiety is a writer’s gasoline. Prose is a fucking bonfire.

  10. Find the Beauty. Without a doubt, the most beautiful thing I saw this year was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I was in New York City for the Russell Sage Foundation’s Social Science Summer Institute for Journalists, and one day I made a pilgrimage up to the Met. I wanted to see the “Camp” exhibit. There’s one massive room in the show that’s darkly-lit but lined with big colorfully-lit boxes featuring mannequins in some of the most glorious clothes ever made. I was delighted to see Viktor & Rolf’s I love you wedding dress from the fall 2005 collection, which you can see at the 34-minute mark here. It was such a beautiful creation that being in the same room with it, rather than being separated from it by some screen or some photo or some magazine, made me cry. According to George Saunders, “There’s something that happens in the moment of creation of a good sentence, or a good swath of sentences, that feels like the dropping away of self. Somebody else shows up and that person is better than the normal, everyday you. I’m guessing that the various approaches to writing are ultimately all about getting to that moment, that moment of spontaneity and self-negation.” Get lost when you can.

[Image from my Instagram feed]

2010-2019: A Decade in Review

December 21, 2019  /  Susannah Breslin

#selfie

46 Likes, 5 Comments - Susannah Breslin (@susannahbreslin) on Instagram: "#selfie"

In the spirit of decade-in-review lists, I thought I’d look back at mine:

  1. Move or Die. I moved a lot during this decade. I lived in Austin, Texas; Chicago, Illinois; Naples, Florida; and Los Angeles, California. Austin was hot, Chicago was cold, Naples was humid, and Los Angeles was — well, the other day, a guy told me there are two seasons in L.A.: summer and not summer. I liked living in those various places. You get to see the full point of view. I live in L.A. now and forever.

  2. If All Else Fails: Retreat. I did a bunch of seminars, and residencies, and that sort of thing in this decade. I don’t think I’d done much of that before. That included THREAD at Yale (loved the train ride there and the Yale campus) in New Haven, Connecticut; the Logan Nonfiction Fellowship (amazing experience and made some of my great friends there) in Rensselaerville, New York; a Noepe Center retreat on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts (not a great experience, but the island was cool); I was the Lawrence Grauman Jr. Post-graduate Fellow at the Investigative Reporting Program at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley in Berkeley, California (didn’t think I’d score that but you don’t get every fellowship you never apply for); and the Social Science Summer Institute for Journalists at the Russell Sage Foundation in New York, New York (nothing says summertime like the UES, the Met, and a Philip Johnson building). All of these experiences were interesting for different reasons. Please keep applying, even if you get rejected. I didn’t expect to get most of these opportunities. They bring you into new worlds.

  3. Work It. I did a lot of work things during this decade. I was a journalist, and a fiction writer, and an editor, and a copywriter, and I did readings and talks, I wrote TV shows, and I was a mentor. For whatever reason, this piece I wrote for Billfold, “Blood Sacrifice,” is a standout in my head, probably partly because it’s so weird. I’m proud of what I did as the editor of Forbes Vices. And I liked helping develop the voice of Pepto-Bismol on Facebook. I was also delighted to self-publish “The Tumor,” which you should buy. If you want a career as a writer, you might want to diversify. That’s what I did. I wasn’t precious. If it involved words, I did it.

  4. Hitched, Unhitched. I got married, and I got divorced.

  5. When the Call Comes from Inside the House. In 2011, I was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer. I spent a year and a half undergoing treatment: a lumpectomy, chemotherapy, radiation, and a gene-targeting IV drug for my specific type of breast cancer. I’ve been NED (No Evidence of Disease) ever since. I’ve tried to describe what the experience was like, and sometimes I compare it to the line in the movie where the guy on the phone says that the call is coming from inside the house. Most challenges come from outside the house. Your boss sucks, or your partner leaves, or you don’t get some thing you want. When cancer calls, it’s already set up inside the house that’s you. That is very hard. I am glad cancer is no longer calling me from inside the house, and I hope that it never does again. There’s no lesson here — other than people don’t know why they get cancer a lot of the time, and when you survive it, it usually just means the drugs worked. It’s neither more nor less dramatic than that.

  6. Queen of Vice. More recently, I’ve been a strategic consultant for vice companies. As the editor of Forbes Vices, I learned a lot about vice. And, man, it sure does sell. I shot guns, sampled THC, drank well, ate better, watched porn get made, and generally had a good time. If you’re interested in hiring me as a consultant, email me at susannahbreslin @ gmail dot com. Sometimes, I’ve said vice is all the things that we like to do that aren’t necessarily good for us. They sure are fun.

  7. The Cowgirl Is Back. In 2002, I started one of the internet’s first sex blogs. It was called The Reverse Cowgirl. Obviously, that’s a double entendre, but it was also a reference to my days horseback riding. Now I’m riding again, and jumping again. Which I love. There’s some confidence building, and there’s some athleticism, and there’s a recognition that when you’re on top of a 1,500-pound horse that’s sailing through the air, you’re not exactly in control. Which is the point of life, I guess. To let go and hang on for dear life.

[Selfie from my Instagram feed]