Jeff Spevak, Writer

Or, I’ll be your typewriter zombie.

As culture continues its inexorable downward slide, the value of the well-written word escalates: A clever turn of phrase can find a place in your heart: And it beats forever.  I’ve spent four decades telling the stories of people, bands, cities and essential home furnishings such as the Ottoman, with grace and humor. I can do that for you. Here’s how:

You: The Interview. A page-turning story about you. A few pages, anyway. I’ll assemble this journalistic treatment with the help of telephone interviews with you and your friends. Put “You: The Interview” to use any way you like: For your resume, your web site, your wedding, your retirement, your obituary. We’ll negotiate a price, depending on what you want. This is not simply the nuts and bolts of where you were born, but words that capture who you are. In this example, notice how I show, rather then tell, the story of this husband and wife musician couple:

You: The Interview

Your Town. In the summer of 2009, a comedian named Mike Polk placed two videos on YouTube that mocked his home town of Cleveland. Cleveland’s response? It fought back with “Positively Cleveland,” a video contest that asked the city’s residents to produce theirt own videos highlighting their favorite aspects of the city.  Similarly, “Your Town” is a chance to fight back against unfair Internet appraisals of your community written by someone who’s never even seen your airport. I can create a well-written, funny, informative, journalistic look at your city. I’ll find the unique and charming, walking right past the Hard Rock Café and straight into the voodoo shop. This isn’t a bland public-relations piece (“Scottsdale is a shopper’s paradise, with five malls….”). It’s a literate, attention-getting, journalistic portrait meant to intrigue readers about the possibilities of your city.  Use it on your web site, in a brochure or as a speech at the annual state of the city address.  We’ll negotiate a price, depending on what you want. Time has passed – Jacobs Field has a new name and The Flats is no longer a relevant entertainment district - but this story that I wrote a few years ago on Cleveland should give you an idea of what I have in mind:

Your Town

Questions and Answers with Jeff

Q: Lots of people write real pretty. Why bother?

A: From the composer Alec Wider, Letters I Never Mailed: “I believe we are living in an age without style, virtue, dignity or honor. And worse than that, one in which the new is equated with the excellent…. I believe that a creator’s obligation is to filter and reflect and present in an orderly, disciplined fashion his own being. I do not believe he should attempt to reflect his time, which, by the way, may be better reflected aurally by opening a window in any large city.”