AvantGuild Member of the Week: John D. Smith
Age: 42
Location: Washington, DC
What are you working on now?
I am working on drafts of quite a few essays and stories, and I have plenty of ideas on deck. I have also been pitching an essay on how my wife’s and my dog has become our sommelier; we don’t give her wine, but how she sniffs the cork tells us a great deal. I am also promoting my new collection of poems, Settling for Beauty.
What has been your most difficult project of late and how did you deal with its challenges?
I am still working on a very challenging personal essay on how treatment for depression has affected my writing. Unlike many other writers, I am not accustomed to working in a frankly autobiographical mode, and I am trying to find a tone that doesn’t bog down in self-absorption or take refuge in clinical detachment or wisecracking.
What’s the most helpful thing you’ve learned about freelancing?
You don’t have to do everything. Find out what you’re good at, and what you find interesting, and don’t bother with other areas unless you really need the money. In my case that means no shelter, no fashion, and no service journalism. This leaves me with plenty of options. I feel like I am just warming up in environmental writing and humor, and I am looking forward to taking on food and travel.
What’s been the worst advice you’ve ever received about writing?
I can’t think of a particular incident, but at different times I have been exposed to the same dream-killing comments and attitudes that most other writers have heard. These include: i) Don’t; ii) It’s impossible to get published [though it can be damnably hard]; iii) There’s no money in that; iv) That’s something for other people.
Join Baratunde Thurston (left), The Onion’s Director of Digital and author of How to Be Black, for an entertaining look at creative social media campaigns in our 
