Several of the students shared their creative blurbs with Amy and the group. The challenge in writing a blurb, she said, is to “come up with new and fresh ways to describe your senses.”Īmy described the kinds of blurbs she writes at Yankee Magazine and passed around samples of locally-sourced cheese and biscuits - a common subject for her writing at the New England publication - and asked the students to write a blurb to describe their senses after tasting a sample. A blurb is a short, descriptive paragraph used to describe or critique food.
“And you need to learn how to write a ‘blurb,’” Amy added, introducing the group’s writing exercise for the evening.
An entrepreneurial bent and an established social media presence also are important tools in a food writer’s “Swiss Army knife,” she said. Theater training is helpful in gaining confidence in front of a camera, she noted. They should be able to cook, write for print and the web, style food, and appear at ease on camera. After landing an editorial assistant job at Boston Magazine, she seized the opportunity to shadow the publication’s restaurant critic and discovered, “This is what I really want to do.”įood writers need many tools to be able to support themselves financially she said.
Helping her college professors with research papers led her to identify writing as a strength, and then she took the advice of a publishing professional to enroll in Columbia University’s respected summer publishing course. In high school and college, Amy said, she enjoyed learning in all subject areas, and writing for a regional general interest publication allows her to continue to pursue her varied interests.Īmy’s career as a food writer and editor started with a focus on writing, she explained. “I didn’t think of myself as a writer when I was at Loomis,” she said but noted that the practice of writing across the Loomis curriculum set her in good stead in both her advanced study and her professional writing career. Amy Traverso ’89, cookbook author and senior food editor at Yankee Magazine, returned to the Island on Thursday, January 9, to share her professional writing experiences with students at a “Dinner and a Draft” event organized by Loomis Chaffee Writing Initiatives.Īmy shared a meal with a dozen student writing enthusiasts - many of whom are involved in student publications and other on-campus writing initiatives - and several faculty members, including Jessica Hsieh ’09, English teacher and faculty advisor to The Log Karen Parsons, Loomis Chaffee archivist and history teacher and Kate Saxton, English teacher and director of Writing Initiatives.Īfter dinner, Amy led the group in a writing exercise.