Join in the discussion and post your questions and comments for author Bruce De Silva

Welcome, readers, to my interview with author, journalist, and investigative reporter Bruce DeSilva. I am honored to have the opportunity to interview Bruce and discuss his many careers and his new crime novel Rogue Island. Please feel free to join in the discussion and ask Bruce questions too. I am honored to interview Bruce and hope that everyone will join in the discussion. Please post your questions and comments on Reviewers Roundup and I will copy and paste them on the other sites for other readers. Fran
Interview with author Bruce DeSilva
Fran Lewis

Mondays Questions
1. Fran: As a journalist for 40 years what kind of training did you provide for the wire service’s reporters to enhance their reporting and writing skills?
Bruce:
For the first 20 years, I was a reporter. I learned my trade by covering small-town news, but before long I was specializing in investigative stories and magazine-length narratives, first at The Providence Journal and then at The Hartford Courant. For the last 20 years, I was a senior editor and writing coach, first at The Courant and then at The Associated Press. In those roles, I was often asked to work with writers who “needed help.” I always declined. In journalism, you see, most editors spend the most of their time with the worst writers, struggling to make bad copy good enough to publish. That leaves editors with little time for the best people—the ones who, with sufficient attention, will write the stories that distinguish a news organization. I chose to spend my time with the most talented writers. I encouraged them to abandon the stiff, overly formal language most news stories are written in and to discover their natural, conversational voices as writers. I taught them to forsake the old-fashioned inverted-pyramid structure they learned in journalism schools and to become storytellers instead. I taught them to gather the details that turn stick figures into real characters and turn place names into settings for their stories. I taught them to use fewer quotes (the words news sources say to reporters) and to use more dialogue (the words people say to one another.) Over the years, stories I edited won virtually every major journalism prize including The Polk Award (twice), The Livingston (twice), the ASNE, and the Batten Medal. I also edited two Pulitzer finalists and helped edit a Pulitzer winner.
2. Fran: What were some of the stories that you covered as an investigative reporter? Was it difficult to present a fair and objective account of the events?
Bruce: Journalists should always be fair, of course; but they are not—and should not be—objective about everything. Journalists are against political corruption, organized crime, the victimization of the helpless, and the looting of the public treasury. The best journalists don’t just write about those things. They crusade against them. The dozens of investigative stories I wrote over the years exposed, among other things, massive voter fraud in a mayoralty election in Providence; the looting of Medicaid by nursing home owners; corruption in the Section-8 low income housing construction program; physical and sexual abuse in a state-run institution for homeless kids; and horrible conditions—including needless deaths—in a state institution for the retarded. My many investigations also led to the indictment or firing of exactly 100 people (I once added it up).
3. Fran: What difficulties do you encounter when editing articles of other reporters? The most important part of any script, book or article is the editing which many authors have difficulty doing themselves. Many publishing companies offer these services; and even with their top-notch editors, books often have both grammar and spelling errors. How can a new author or seasoned one avoid this pitfall?
Bruce: As an editor, I was always more interested in bigger questions: Do we have the whole story or only part of it? Is the story organized properly? Can we tell a story instead of write a tedious report? Is the piece written tightly and in a voice that talks conversationally to readers? Is it well focused, and does everything in it pertain to its central point? Does it begin and end in the right places? And so on. That’s what real editing is all about. What you are asking about is copy editing, which requires a completely different set of skills. I was never very good at it. Every time I try to copy edit a story, I find myself caught up in the larger questions and start missing misspellings and typos. The only way I can find such small (but important) mistakes is to read a story backwards. I am also a firm believer in spell-check.
4. Fran: Which authors’ books have you reviewed? As a reviewer I give an honest and fair review to every author whose book I am asked to review. I even give them the courtesy of reading the review before posting it. The one thing that I really find unprofessional is when an author rewrites a paragraph or insists on a shorter review. My reviews are detailed and thorough and I never give anything away. You can tell that I read the book and sometimes more than once. Has an author ever changed your review? Do you send the author the review beforehand? I am thinking of stopping that practice and just posting the reviews. What is your opinion?
Bruce: I’ve written hundreds of reviews for the AP and a few for The New York Times book review section. Usually I review crime novels, most recently the latest book by Walter Mosley. Only occasionally do I review other fiction, most recently the latest mainstream novel by Howard Frank Mosher. I rarely write negative reviews. There are two reasons for this. First, if I’m not enjoying a book after a few chapters, I toss it aside and read something else. I wouldn’t feel right reviewing a book that I haven’t finished. Second, I’m not much interested in telling people what they shouldn’t read. I’d rather advise them on what they should read. I have never shown a review to an author in advance. Doing so would be a violation of policy at the AP, but I wouldn’t do it anyway. Authors should let the work speak for itself.
5. Fran: Besides writing Rogue Island what other projects you are working on?
Bruce: I recently finished a draft of the sequel, tentatively titled “Cliff Walk,” and I am now working through my agent’s suggestions for revisions. I’ve also sketched plans for the third and fourth books in the series, which features an investigative reporter at a dying newspaper in Providence, R.I., a claustrophobic little city with a rich history of corruption. I’m also editing the next collection by my wife, Patricia Smith, an award-winning poet.