This is Writing It, the podcast about academics and writing. I'm Rachel Gordon. Here we aim to make the process of writing and publishing a bit more transparent and a bit less overwhelming. Through conversations with editors and academics at all stages, from full professors to graduate students, independent scholars, and postdocs, we share stories, lessons, and helpful habits from our writing lives. So today we're really happy to be speaking with Jack Davis, who is a professor of history here at the University of Florida and the Rothman Family Chair in the Humanities, specializing in environmental history and sustainability studies. He's the author, editor of 10 books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Gulf, The Making of an American Sea, published by Norton in 2017. His latest book, The Bald Eagle, The Improbable Journey of America's Bird, 
was a New York Times book review editor's choice, described as a, quote, rollicking, poetic, wise new book, which is a wonderful description for a book. You've worked with a few different presses and editors, Jack, and I noticed the past two were with Norton. And so I wonder if you could tell us about, it looks like in the history of the books, there was a transition made in those last two books. What what changed in your writing or what the audience that you wanted to reach that also ended up translating into a change of publisher. Yes, you're exactly right. There is a shift there beginning with the Gulf of Mexico book, which was published in 2017. I had my previous book, the book prior to that one was a biography of Marjorie Stoneman Douglas and titled in Everglades Providence, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas and the 
American Environmental Century. And that was published by the University of Georgia Press. They had had and still have a environmental history series there. And so that's one thing that attracted me to Georgia. But I had actually tried to sell that book to a trade press. I'd hoped to sell the Margie Stoneman Douglas book to a trade press. That was published in 2009. So this is 2006, 2007. I'm shopping around for a literary agent book. And queried with some 25 of them, only one responded. And she said, I really love what you're doing here, but Marjorie Stoneman Douglas is too regional. It won't sell to a trade press. And so I had this aspiration to go broader than an academic audience some years ago. 
And so when I began writing the Gulf of Mexico book, I tried again. and queried with some two dozen literary agents. One responded. It happened to be the same one that responded to the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas book. I had forgotten. She reminded me when she responded to my email. And I love the story. I hope I'm not being too excessive here. And then so I had an interview scheduled with her. And a friend of mine was able to talk his agent into it. interviewing me as well as a favor to him. And I interviewed with both of them. My friend's agent at the end of the interview said to me, and again, we're talking about the Gulf book, the one that won the Pulitzer Prize. 
She said, why can't somebody just go to Wikipedia if they want to know something about the Gulf of Mexico? And I didn't care for her anyway. And during the interview, she was abrupt and she didn't seem like somebody who would be I'd like to work with. And I had interviewed with the other agent who was my current agent previous to that. And I really liked her. And when I hung up with the one who, you know, the Wikipedia agent will say, I was actually happy with the way that interview went. And so, yes, you know, I'm an academic and, you know, we can choose to write for an academic audience or for a popular audience, particularly if you're a historian, because history lends itself to a popular audience. 
And, you know, I was just tired of writing books that ended up on a cold steel shelf of a library. And, you know, I like to say you do the $20 bill test and you go in the library, you pull your book off the shelf and turn a page 100, put your $20 bill in there and you come back 10 years later and you retrieve your $20 bill without interest in a couple of ways. Writing academic books for an academic audience is very important. My colleagues here at UF are just the best at that. They are outstanding scholars and what they're doing is extremely important. I just do something a little different in reaching for that broader audience. I'm sure many listeners will find it encouraging that there was one agent who was interested and second time around it was kind of the same one that you ended up having the sort of second date 
with through the interview and then it, all you need is one, as they say. That's, you know, that's, that's exactly right. All you, all you need is one. And I, you know, I recommend just persevering. You just have to stick to it. There, there are a lot of rejections in this business, particularly when you go with it, try to go with the trade press or go for that larger audience and just endure and, and, and, and keep trying as I did. And you know, something will eventually happen. You know, there was a, sizable gap in years. I mean, from probably 2007 to 2014, I think, is when I signed a contract with my literary agent. But it paid off, you know, the wait. 
And I just, I was just determined. Yeah. You mentioned a term there, an interview with the agent, which isn't something we heard about before, but it sounds like that is just kind of the let's meet converse. And it's probably often over the phone or Zoom these days or something. But Is what was that conversation like? Tell me more about your work or. Yeah. And this is 2014. So it was over the phone. In fact, I was on the road on a research trip. I think it was in Louisiana. I parked in my car talking to her. And, you know, she had a copy of my proposal. She also had a copy of a chapter I had written. Both of these agents did. They both really loved the chapter I sent. 
And so send your best chapter. And make sure it's polished. You don't want to send anything with any sort of typos or grammatical errors, even formatting errors. It's all really – I mean because that's the first impression. And you want to make a good first impression obviously. And we just talked a little bit more about the proposal and what – about an audience. Audience is always important. Who do you envision – as your readership. So you and the agent, you want to see if you're on the same page, if you have the same sort of ideas. And she also, as I recall, suggested we do this or that to tweak the proposal. And we spent, I think, the next three or four months sending the proposal back and forth. 
My agent is very good at getting a proposal in shape to submit because that represents her too. Mm-hmm. And she's very good at getting a proposal in shape to submit to all these editors in, you know, with the trade presses in New York and with whom she's had a relationship for for many, many years. And so that the proposal does take a lot of work and you have to put a lot of effort into it. I think my proposal, my last proposal for my last book, The American Coast, was 37 pages. Hmm. And so the proposal includes a summary, an intro, what I call a preamble, a section that's called about the book, and then chapter summaries. And that's where it can get lengthy with the chapter summaries. 
And typically you have to submit with a nonfiction book, typically you have to also submit a completed chapter. and which I did for the golf, for the bald eagle in the, in this last book, latest book, the book I'm working on now, I did not have to submit a chapter because I know who I am. My press knows who I am by this point. And, but if you're, you know, if this is your first time and working with an agent and going for a trade press, you will need a book chapter. We've heard from other folks who've gone this trade route that that chapter, that sample chapter for the agent was, might be actually a kind of best of chapter. It might not be a chapter that will actually or is likely to appear in the book, but really kind of highlights and exciting story points along the way that you manage to weave together nicely. 
That's exactly right. And what the chapter does show is what you should give your agent and also the editors who review your proposal and chapters. an idea of the structure, the narrative structure of the book. The chapter that I used was the only one chapter I had written at the time. And it happened to fall in the middle of the book. It doesn't have to be the first chapter. It doesn't have to be the introduction. It turned out to be chapter 12. But it was the first thing I wrote for the book because the character, if you will... that I was using as my narrative device to talk about barrier islands around the Gulf of Mexico and the ecology of barrier islands, uh, was somebody I was familiar with and from a previous book and somebody who I knew would show me how to write the book. 
If that, if that makes any sense. And Walter Anderson, who was an artist, uh, from the Mississippi coast lived, uh, in early and mid-20th century, died in 1965. A fascinating character, individual, somebody who I knew readers would find fascinating. And he did. He showed me how to write this book. And the structure, the narrative structure that evolved out of that chapter became the narrative structure for the larger book. When you say he showed you how to write the book, what do you mean by that? Yeah. You know how fiction writers often say that the characters they create was show them how to get to the end of the book, what direction to take the story. I, I like to sit back a little bit and I, I want the history to show me how it wants to be written. 
So as I'm starting to write about, and I, so everybody has to find their own process. My process in a lot of nonfiction writers will have very detailed outlines for each chapter. So when they sit down to write, it's almost like filling in the blanks. And they're following the directions of a traffic cop, if you will. I have very loose outlines. And so as I sit down and write, I know where I want to start, but I'm not sure where I'm going. I know where I want to start, and I have an idea where I want to end, but I'm not sure how I'm going to get to that end. And so as I'm writing about Walter Anderson and his experiences with barrier islands, I – 
he's showing me things I didn't realize before. And he's generating ideas for me as I'm writing that, uh, are, are new. And, and so I, so I allow myself to follow these ideas, uh, to take a turn, uh, left or right or, or wherever. And that I think it will be of interest of importance, uh, first and foremost, but also of interest to my readers. And I, I, I am always thinking of every word I put down on the page. I'm thinking of my readers. I'm thinking of my audience. Okay, are they going to understand this word? Will they like this word? Will they be bored if I use this word again? Will I sound too repetitive to them? And so will they like Walter Anderson? 
And what can I do with Walter Anderson to make him even more appealing? And so I... That chapter just seemed to – I don't really have any memory of writing that chapter because it seemed to take over. This sounds perhaps cliche, but he just – I felt as – I sort of felt the spirit of Walter Anderson, if you will. I mean, first of all, his ecological sensibilities are very much like my own. And I appreciate it. He kept these island logs. And his writing is beautiful. And so I had that. And so he was just inspirational himself. Marjorie Stoneman Douglas was the same way. I really came to appreciate her as a writer, as a thinker, as a individual with a wonderful sense of humor, somebody who was wicked smart. 
And so as I was writing the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas biography, I was hearing her voice. And she could be very critical. And she had died recently. I started writing the book in 2010 or 11 or something like that. No, before that. She died in 1998. And I started writing the book in something like 2005. And I'm glad she wasn't around because I would have been too intimidated to write that biography. Your writing process sounds pretty creative. I'm wondering if this was a new way of writing for you or had you always approached your writing your book writing, even the academic books before in this, it seems almost like a very immersive, you know, follow the characters in the story. That's a really astute observation because I began to, my first book, which was on race relations in Natchez, Mississippi, I had those very detailed outlines and I stuck with them. 
I was, but even as I was writing that book, I wanted to, I wasn't happy with the traditional academic history narrative. And I remember writing, going out to dinner as a graduate student, going out to dinner with Drew Faust, great historian, went on to become president of Harvard. And Bertrand White Brown, who was here at UF, finished his career. Both of them outstanding Southern historians, wonderful writers. And I remember sitting in the backseat of the car as we're going to dinner, saying to them, you know, I'm not really happy with the traditional dissertation narrative. I want to tweak it a bit. And Bert's driving. He looks in the mirror and Drew is in the backseat. She turns around and looks at me. He looks in the mirror and she turns around and looks at me at the same time. 
And both of them said, do it. And so that really gave me license, if you will, permission. So I fiddled with the narrative. I don't need to go into details here, but I did a couple of different things with my dissertation narrative. But again, I had those detailed chapter outlines because I'm I'm a graduate student. I'm nervous. I'm scared. I've got to follow the accepted formula. Once I had published that book and gotten tenure, I was working on the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas book. That's when I started transitioning. I still had some pretty detailed outlines, but I allowed myself greater latitude to go in different directions as I was writing if I need to. I like surprises. I like not knowing exactly where I'm headed. 
And the surprises just, they become really... They're obviously exciting and motivating. And I think we all like surprises. And when I end up in a place that I had not expected, it feels like I've really accomplished something or it's rewarding. Yeah. And that fits with the thinking about your reader in terms of satisfying that desire for surprise and sometimes suspense when you're reading a book. Yeah. Some of our guests have talked about how reading has helped them learn to write that way more or has been part of their process of transitioning to writing for a broader audience. Were there other authors or books that were kind of teaching you or maybe subconsciously you had as models? How did you know how to write this way? 
Two recommendations I have for people who are aspiring writers are, One, get your butt in the seat. You got to sit down. You have to start writing. You don't say, oh, I want to do this. Do it and just start writing. And the other thing is read. And don't stop reading. Read, read, read, read, read. And read good writing. Read writing that you like. Read the kind of writing that you emulate. You want to equal. And you can look for it in all sorts. All sort of places. I like reading the New Yorker. I like the New Yorker style of writing nonfiction. And I like journalism nonfiction as well. And so I read that. And I like a lot of the classics. I like to – and what I often do is if I'm – people talk about writer's block. 
If I'm stuck and I just can't seem to move on, I pick up Willa Cather, for instance, and I'll read a few passages or I'll pick up Edward Abbey, you know, his Desert Solitaire, one of my favorite writers. Burt Wyatt Brown was just a beautiful writer. And so, you know, or I'll open up a New Yorker article and read it. Or I have fiction, too. And as I'm writing, I see a word and I like to... how somebody used it, and I'll jot it down. I'll give you an example. So you know Cynthia Barnett, who's a wonderful journalism faculty member here and fantastic environmental writer. She's my writing partner. I read everything she writes, and she reads everything I write. We never write together. 
But whether it's a book or a blurb, we'll share it with each other, and we trust each other's opinion. Cynthia's been indispensable to me as a writer. And I can remember I was reading a Lauren Groff article, another Gainesvilleian, and my neighbor in the duck pond. And she used the word gamble, G-A-M-B-O-L. Yes, I like that one. And actually in an article for a short story she'd written for the New Yorker about the duck pond, as a matter of fact. I think that was the title of the duck pond. I highly recommend it. Anybody can look it up. It's fiction, but let me tell you, it's not all that fiction. Anyway, I said, I'm going to find a place. I love that word. 
I'm going to find a place for it in the Gulf. I emailed Cynthia. I said, here's your challenge. We're both going to find a place for Gamble in our book. She was writing Rain, her book on the cultural and natural history of rain at the time. I can't remember whether she got it in the book, but I found a place for it in my prologue and the epilogue. So there's plenty of space between the two. Yeah, because unfortunately, I sometimes fall in love with words too much that they start showing up a little too often. Yeah, you have to be careful of that. As I said earlier, you don't want to be repetitive. So nice that you guys are partners that way. And in terms of exchanging work, has that been years-long? 
long that you've exchanged? We started when she was writing rain and I was writing the golf. So sometime the early 2010s, I think probably. And it's been, I, it's been a very fruitful relationship for, I would argue for both of us. And, uh, I mean, that's another thing. If you, a good writing partner such as I have in, in Cynthia is, is also important. Yeah. I noticed that it looked like you had a couple, um, writing fellowships and maybe had spent some time at McDowell. Is that right? Yes, I spent a month there. So this is something that, you know, not all academics think is something an academic can do. How and when did that come about? So, you know, because I was exploring a broader audience and creative nonfiction, you know, I like to say that my work is scholarly, but also readable, meaning readable for a 
I made friends with a number of nonfiction writers who are not academics. I was aware of McDowell, which is the oldest writer slash artist. It used to be called a colony. They've dropped the colony from the name. A retreat, if you will, in the country. I also have a second home in New Hampshire, 13 miles away from McDowell. I was quite aware of it. I'd been on the campus and during their annual award ceremony and walked around and said, oh, I really want to do this. And so I spent a month there. And coincidentally, my studio was the same studio that Jill Cement, who's on our creative writing faculty, the same studio that she was in. And because everybody who is occupies the studio, signs their name on this plaque. 
And so you go through their names. And there was Jill, several years, had been there several years before I. And then Lauren Groff has been to McDowell. So is that the type of thing you apply for and there's a cohort every year? Yeah, you apply for it. It's competitive. At McDowell, you can go any time of year. So there's not... So you overlap with others. So there's not – they don't accept individual cohorts. They accept individuals. Some people go for a week. Some people go for two weeks. I was able to go for a month. And what's wonderful about it is you're surrounded by so many creative people who are not necessarily writers. They're composers. They're artists of all sorts of mediums. There are playwrights, screenwriters. 
Poets, fiction writers, nonfiction writers. And so typically you spend your day in your studio and everybody at 5 o'clock or 5.30, I can't remember exactly what time, they meet for dinner in this big hall. Let me tell you, the food is really good, which is important. They feed you. You go in for breakfast. They bring a picnic basket to your studio for lunch. And the studios are in the woods. Mm-hmm. And so one studio typically cannot see another studio. But then you get together for dinner and you interact with the other folks there. And what we did when I was there, and I think this is pretty true all the time, is after dinner, one or two people would talk about their work or even present their work. 
I read a few paragraphs that I had written, and you get feedback. from others. But then you also, you hear from others and you get ideas. Yeah. And, and the expectations of you during your time. There, there really are no expectations, but I'm the type of person who does, when I get a sabbatical, I don't want to squander. That's, that is a real privilege. I don't want to squander that time. And I get a lot accomplished. And I, in that month I was at McDowell, I wrote a chapter. Great. And yeah. Hmm. So maybe we can pause at one of what must have been one of the most wonderful moments in your life when you got the Pulitzer. How expected, unexpected? Most of us just don't know how that comes to be, whether the news is, you know, how out of the blue it seems at the time. 
It was totally unexpected. It was never on my radar. I didn't even know when they were announcing the Pulitzers. And The book had won Kirkus Prize in the fall of 2017. Book was published in March 2017. Won the Kirkus Prize in fall 2017. And then it was a finalist for the National Book Critics Award. And that was in January. And my editor and I were saying at dinner that night of the award ceremony, well, the book's had a great run. So I figured that's it. I'd moved on to The Bald Eagle. And again, the Pulitzer was not on my radar. And it was announced on April 16th. I was in my office on campus in a meeting with a graduate student. I was teaching a seminar, a graduate seminar this semester that emphasized writing. 
And I was engaged with this graduate student, reading him the Riot Act for his sloppy writing all semester. And my cell phone dinged. And then it rang and my office phone is ringing and neither one will stop. And it's getting annoying because I'm having a good time. And finally, I just said, you know, I better check and make sure there's no emergency. So I picked up my phone, looked at my text. And the first text was from my editor saying I'd won the Pulitzer. And I stood up and I said, holy S. And then I I had no capacity for speech after that. And so I didn't know how to tell the graduate student. He's looking at me like, what's going on? What's going on? 
So I had to slide the phone across the desk to him to read a text. Then his eyes bugged out. And I know what he was thinking. Meeting's over. And I immediately called my editor and he said, you know, he said, the press is going to be calling. I said, well, I got meetings with graduate students. He said, cancel them. And so I asked the graduate student to let the others know and they were perfectly happy. And so it was a complete surprise. I wonder how that changed writing after. I mean, I can't help but assume that that gave you even more confidence, although the book had been very successful before then anyway. But how did that change writing for you to win the Pulitzer? 
Well, I think one thing that, you know, at least I was struck with, and I'm sure a lot of people experience is, you know, imposter syndrome. And then that begins to shift to, okay, well, now I've got to start writing like a Pulitzer Prize winner. And how do you do that? So, and apparently my formula, my previous formula had been, existing formula had been successful. And so I really just stuck with that. And, you know, when I was writing the Bald Eagle book, I was worried that I didn't want – you know how baseball pitchers get to yips or fall into a slump. And I was just worried. God, I hope this doesn't happen to me as a writer. Is this writing up to par with the golf? 
And I just tried to ensure that I was the same writer that I had been before. And sometimes you have your doubts. You think, well, no, I'm not. I don't sound the same. Right. Have I lost my voice, right? I don't sound like I did in The Golfer. Oh, my God, where did that sentence come from in The Golfer? That's so beautiful. You know, how did I, where did that come from? Why don't I have any of those sentences like that in The Bald Eagle? And so, you know, there are emotional ups and downs that followed. But also there was, I should say, immediately after the award, I was in so much demand that I had a bout of depression through the summer. 
And it was very stressful for a while. And then you get past that. And then you get back to writing the Bald Eagle book, or I did. And there's that new stress. I cannot be the same writer that I was before. Anxiety. Yeah, that does sound very normal. It sounds like you have a great relationship with your editor. You really trust in him. Was he someone who's been able to sort of reassure you or let you know if the writing was at the standard that that you both sort of expected from yourself. Yeah. My editor is Bob Wilde, who's a veteran editor, is very well known in literary circles. He was Edward Abbey's last editor. He was E.O. Wilson's editor in his last few books. 
And as I mentioned before, we started chatting here for the podcast that he's now Paul McCartney's editor and he's Jill Lepore's editor. So he's, you know, he's a great one to be with. And Yeah, he will let me know if something's not right, which writers should appreciate those kind of criticisms. But he also doesn't hold back compliments either. So he can be discouraging, he can be encouraging. And I think that you need both. I think that you need somebody who keeps your feet on the ground, but you also need somebody who's able to encourage you to keep moving ahead. Bob likes baseball metaphors. He likes baseball. So there are a number of baseball metaphors in my book, which I always have fun with. 
We talked a little bit about your finding your agent, which sounded like it came from really your persistent cold call queries. How did you end up working with Bob? So my agent knew Bob, had worked with him before, and she sent a proposal to a number of of editors with trade presses. And we had offers from, I don't know, half a dozen, I think. The best offer we got was from W.W. Norton, from Bob. He liked the book. He saw potential in the book from the very beginning. And he loved the chapter on Walter Anderson and Barrier Islands. He and I talked on the phone, too. So there was a phone interview with him. And I've been with him since. Mm-hmm. When you say it was a good offer, I don't actually know. 
Is that all about money? Are there other things that the author of Trade Press is thinking about when you're weighing offers from presses? Well, publicity, public relations, advertising. And as it turned out, I had a really wonderful publicist at W.W. Norton who was also – so when the trade presses consider a book proposal, everybody – reads the proposal you know marketing people publicists and other editors and so you want a publicist who's enthusiastic about your book and the public she's now left and gone to another press sadly but i got to work with her on two books and i think her replacement is seems really wonderful too and so uh that's that's important as well because you don't you don't want your book to do all this work and then even if you get a nice advance you don't want it to just die on the vine 
You know, and get lost. And I have a friend of mine who's a novelist. And his editor, he's published three books with Doubleday. And his editor is Dan Brown's editor. And he had the unfortunate circumstance of his book being published at the same time as one of Dan Brown's books. And so he just kind of got lost in the shuffle. Yeah, yeah. So does that mean the publicity person was either... explaining to you or in the offer, it was clear what they would be willing to do or what they plan to do for your book. It wasn't in the, um, the contract or the offer, but it's, you, you have a conversation, uh, with the publicist and, or it's having a conversation with publicist is, is important. 
So, you know, I knew that she was enthusiastic about the book and wanted to get behind it. And, you know, we talked about things that she would do to promote it. And so that, that's, yes, that's, those are two things you're really looking for. I mean, whether you're going with an academic press or a trade press, you want an editor that, you know, you can work, you can work with and, and then you want a publicist, you know, you can work with. So it's, I guess these past two books, you probably did a lot more publicity and book promotion kind of events. How has that been? And, and have you organized any of these or because, I assume with the trade press, their publicist is doing more work, but maybe you've also taken the initiative. 
So I get a lot of invitations. I don't have to take the initiative. I get a lot of invitations because it's easy to find me. I'm at University of Florida. And so they Google me and Jack Davis University of Florida, and they get my email and I get invitations all the time. And I deal with those directly. And when the book is launched, you do a book tour that the press and the publicist organizes. And you do it together, you know. And, yeah, I've been very busy. Since the Gulf of Mexico book came out, I've given well over 200 public talks. And I just returned from the Mississippi Book Festival. And on my way back home, I stopped in Seaside for a photo shoot because I'm going to talk there for the – 
for the Florida house, not the legislative house, but I don't know if you're from where the Florida house in DC, it's, it's a nonprofit organization that promotes Florida. Oh, wonderful. Okay. And, and then, you know, what is it next week? I'm giving a talk in St. Pete and, you know, so, and all of those came directly to me. And, um, so it's a combination of both. So your, what you do as a writer, I guess has really shifted since these last two books. in terms of being in demand, the book being out there more, so there's more invitations coming to you, and just that more of your time might be spent out there talking to readers about your book. Yeah. One thing that the press, my press, Norton likes about me is I'm a hard worker when it comes to promoting the book and giving talks, and they appreciate that. 
It's also good for the University of Florida. I mean, Dean Richardson appreciates that. He's really encouraged that, and I meet the Gator Nation, you know, whether I'm talking in Seattle or Boston, Austin, or, you know, or, of course, in Florida. And that's always wonderful. I mean, I've had people do selfies in which we're doing the Gator trick. Right, of course. And I meet a lot of parents, you know, Gator parents. And so that's nice. Yeah. Yeah. And that is a nice thing about being in a big R1 is that it does feel like there's a good amount of support for our research and scholarship getting out there. And, you know, so it's okay to be spending time on these. Yeah. You know, the college in my department could not be more supportive than they've been. 
Listeners might feel a little confusion at thinking, okay, so this book at first, you One agent was really excited, and then suddenly there's half a dozen presses interested, and then there's a Pulitzer. I know many people have said their agent has really helped them kind of writing a better book proposal that then helps the book more. How would you explain what happened in between here that explains this transformation? You mean between the book proposal and the submission of the proposal? Yeah, and when you first reached out to agents to – to what the presses were then considering? I think that the agent is another set of eyes when she or he is looking at the proposal and another set of eyes that can offer suggestions, certainly with regard to clarity, but what might be missing or what might be excessive. 
And I, you know, I don't think that, for instance, this last proposal that I, we wrapped up this summer, Lisa, my agent really helped me get the introduction together. You know, this was a, this is going to be a big story that, you know, the environmental history of the American coast, the Atlantic and the Pacific coast. And, and so it's, Something's really hard to organize initially. And so she helped me organize my thoughts, but also organize the book, try to help me envision what it will look like. You know, I don't want it to be a giant book. I want to keep it to around 400 pages. So she helped me keep the proposal tight. And of course, my chapter summary is tight as well. 
And as far as the Gulf, it's something very, very similar. And the structure of the proposal as well. Yeah. So, I mean, we ask people what they feel like they're getting from their agent. It sounds like you really, you have an agent who's very helpful in reading and editing and tightening. Yes. Yes, that's exactly right. And some agents will read chapters as you're writing them. And my agent would do that, but I've never asked her to do that. really do depend upon, they want a very active agent or an agent that's very active during the writing process. A question that we're asking all guests is, what is something you wish you had known about writing or publishing earlier in your academic career? That's a good question. 
I would say that there's not this impenetrable wall between the academic and the world of the trade press. There's not this impenetrable wall between New York City and the rest of the world. And so, yeah, sure, be intimidated by it. But don't think that you can't surmount it. But also the other thing that I wish I had known is that, you know, most of the editors of the trade presses are in New York. And they're very regional centric. You know, Northeasterners are just generally. And, you know, I divide my time between the Northeast and here up. And my family, part of my family is from the Northeast. And so I have a lot of experience. I went to graduate school up there. And Northeasterners tend to know Europe better than they do the American South. 
So I wish I'd known how regional-centric they are and how important. And this is something I realized after the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas book was rejected by agents. And she was labeled regional. And so with the Gulf of Mexico book, I said, okay. Okay. Nobody is going to see the Gulf of Mexico as regional. So the subtitle of the book is The Making of an American Sea. And that was – I chose that subtitle because I wanted to debunk the idea that the Gulf is regional. No, it's an American. It has both ecological and historical connections to the rest of the country. And I made that clear up front. So I wish I had known that sort of thing when I was writing the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas book. 
So I would have consciously written a proposal that didn't sound remotely regional, that Marjorie Stoneman Douglas is an American writer. She's American environmentalist. She's not just a Florida writer, Florida environmentalist. And so I wish I had known that. far away from us, was there a turning point for you when you decided, okay, but I'm going to go for that, or, you know, but I can do that, or how did your attitude towards feeling it might be attainable, when did that shift? I don't think I ever thought that I can do that, but I always was determined to go for it. And, you know, even after the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas book was, you know, ignored by some two dozen agents, I, with the Gulf of Mexico, I was just, I said, I'm just going to go for it. 
This is what I want to, I want to do. And I, I'm, I was determined, you know, maybe I got lucky. I'm sure it's, that's what it was. I got, I got lucky in this case. And some, you know, as you said earlier, it just requires one. And I got lucky with just one and it was the right one. And who, you know, placed a book with the right publisher. Yeah. You just go for it. Yeah. I mean, and I've, I've heard that story from other successful writers that it was rejected by 30 plus agents and it was only one actually who was interested. So I think more often than not, that's actually how it begins. There are a lot of classics for which that has happened. 
Another question we've been asking our guests is if there is a writing practice or habit that's been working for you. So my writing habit is to write every day. And I like to write in the morning. And as I mentioned earlier, you have to find your own process. And that may take some time. Some writers like to write at night. Some writers like to write in front of a blank wall. Jonathan Franzen, he rents an apartment and he puts his desk up against a blank wall. I have a big plate glass window in my study at home that looks out over a pollinator garden. That's what I like. And that works for me. And as I mentioned earlier, loose outlines. I essentially take if I work on one chapter at a time. 
And I will research and write the chapter at the same time. And I will take post-its and write down what I want to cover in this chapter on these post-its. And then put them on a file cabinet next to me in the order which I think that I will write about each of these ideas or subjects. But the post-its allow me to shift things around. Mm-hmm. And, uh, and so that, that, that process naps, you know, naps, I, I, I'm a typically a two morning writer. I get up in the wee hours. I'll write for a couple hours. Then I'll go back to bed for what I call a second, second sleep. And then I'll get up again and I'll have a second morning in which, in which I write. 
Yeah. Yeah. And what makes for a good writing day? In terms of length? Or what makes you feel this was a good writing day? Is that length? Is it output? Sometimes it is length and sometimes it's wrestling with a new idea and taking, you know, and really getting it down on paper. Being able to articulate what I want to say is a good day. And, you know, there are a lot of little things that can give me, oh, a word you've you discovered or you use in a way that you'd never used before and you really like, or a particular sentence you may have spent hours trying to write. So there are a number of ways that you can find accomplishments in your writing day. 
Or, you know, oh, wow, I finished a paragraph today. I wrote a whole paragraph. Wow. But again, it's your process. It's your individual process you find. I mean, some people... Graham Greene, his goal was 500 words a day and minimum of 500 a day. And I know a lot of writers that have those word goals. I don't. I have no idea how many words I'm writing each day, but I'm writing. And also walks. Walks work really well for me when you can't find the words or figure out how to articulate a sentence. And I walk with a little notebook so I can jot down. It's really remarkable. I ideas that come to you as you're walking, whether you're trying to write a sentence or just sort out an idea. 
Agreed. Well, thank you so much, Jack, for talking with us about this. I feel like we talked about a lot of the joys of the writing part of the academic life, and it's been a lot of fun. Yeah, it's been great fun for me, too. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Thanks for listening to Writing It, the podcast about academics and writing, sponsored by the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Florida. Visit our podcast description to find out how to contact us and send us your questions about academic writing and publishing. Follow us on social media at writingitpod and subscribe to us so you never miss an episode.