Comments on: “Accurate, but unsystematic”: a writer’s education

By: laurastanfill

laurastanfill — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 15:58:58 +0000

The specialist/generalist divide is really interesting. That’s perhaps why I love community newspapers–everyone has to cover whatever lands on the desk. Olmstead did a little of everything but kept coming back to the land. The biography I read was A Clearing in the Distance by Witold Rybczynski, who looked at how Olmstead’s visions shaped America’s public spaces.

By: Eric

Eric — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 01:15:08 +0000

Ha. I’m going to change my business card to “serial specialist.”

By: nevalalee

nevalalee — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 19:01:43 +0000

@Laura: That’s a good example! I don’t know much about Olmstead, but he sounds fascinating…

@Eric: I agree that we need more good generalist reporters—it’s always fascinating to watch a trusted voice engage a wide range of subjects. That said, it’s also true that the best generalists are really just serial specialists. (Being a generalist all the time doesn’t often lead to much, except in Trivial Pursuit.)

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 16:43:39 +0000

Very interesting, Alec. It often seems that one of the major trends in nonfiction, especially with the decline in newspapers, is away from the generalist reporter and more toward the specialist/academic with a good editor. That’s a worrying trend for a generalist reporter, and it makes it easy to think with nostalgia of the opportunities for broadly educated people like Olmsted. (Or his contemporary, the optometrist-writer-sportsman Conan Doyle!)

By: laurastanfill

laurastanfill — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 14:29:31 +0000

Well said! I just read a biography of Frederick Law Olmstead, the landscape architect, and his life illustrates your point perfectly. His early years were a mess, trotting from one school to the next, but he became well-versed in many things and developed his own point of view, which led him to revolutionizing parks in America.