{"id":30,"date":"2012-05-15T07:54:29","date_gmt":"2012-05-15T11:54:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.katecooch.com\/blog\/?p=30"},"modified":"2012-05-15T07:54:29","modified_gmt":"2012-05-15T11:54:29","slug":"the-history-of-the-circuitous-writing-path-of-alex-haley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.katecooch.com\/blog\/2012\/05\/15\/the-history-of-the-circuitous-writing-path-of-alex-haley\/","title":{"rendered":"The History of … The Circuitous Writing Path of Alex Haley"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I guest blogged over at www.Shaynagier.com<\/a> the other day (5\/12\/12) about how Alex Haley, author of \u201cThe Autobiography of Malcolm X\u201d and \u201cRoots:\u00a0 The Saga of An American Family,\u201d came to be a writer.\u00a0 It all started for Haley with his writing of love letters to his shipmates\u2019 girlfriends!<\/p>\n

Alex Haley enlisted in the United States Coast Guard in 1939 at age 17 and served in the Pacific Theater during World War II.\u00a0 Haley passed many of his long shipboard deployments writing letters back home to his family.\u00a0 He also began helping friends write letters home and became known for his ability to craft love letters to waiting girlfriends.\u00a0 He was so good at it that his shipmates began paying him to write their letters.\u00a0 From this experience of being paid to write Haley thought he might be a good enough writer to make it his career.<\/p>\n

Haley tried for many years to get published.\u00a0 He attempted romance and adventure writing.\u00a0 He amassed years and years of rejection letters.\u00a0 During that time his writing ability within the Coast Guard was recognized when he was allowed to become a Coast Guard journalist.\u00a0 He eventually edited and wrote for the Coast Guard Magazines \u201cThe Helmsman,\u201d \u201cThe Outpost,\u201d and \u201cThe United States Coast Guard Magazine.\u201d\u00a0 He was made the first Chief Journalist in the Coast Guard.<\/p>\n

Haley was finally successful in 1950 about seven years after he began writing love letters for other sailors.\u00a0 He sold a story about the Coast Guard to \u201cThis Week\u201d magazine.\u00a0 Haley worked nine more years in the Coast Guard until his retirement in 1959 and sold several more sea stories while he was still serving.<\/p>\n

After leaving the Coast Guard Haley became a full time writer, barely eking out a living doing freelance work.\u00a0 He was so poor during these years that at one point he looked at his kitchen cupboard and he only had a couple of cans of sardines to eat and 18 cents in his pocket.<\/p>\n

Slowly, Haley began to build a career.\u00a0 He wrote articles and did interviews for \u201cPlayboy,\u201d \u201cReaders Digest\u201d and the \u201cNew York Times Magazine.\u201d\u00a0 His book, \u201cThe Autobiography of Malcolm X\u201d started out as a Playboy interview.\u00a0 When it came time to write his autobiography Malcolm X asked Haley to work on the project.\u00a0 <\/strong>Haley finally achieved fame and fortune with \u201cThe Autobiography of Malcolm X\u201d in 1965 and again with \u201cRoots:\u00a0 The Saga of an American Family\u201d in 1976. \u00a0Haley became a writer sideways through the Coast Guard and after many years of rejection and perseverance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I guest blogged over at www.Shaynagier.com the other day (5\/12\/12) about how Alex Haley, author of \u201cThe Autobiography of Malcolm X\u201d and \u201cRoots:\u00a0 The Saga of An American Family,\u201d came to be a writer.\u00a0 It all started for Haley with … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[20,24,22,21,23],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-people","tag-alex-haley","tag-biography-of-malcolm-x","tag-coast-guard","tag-roots","tag-writers"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p29EPY-u","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.katecooch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.katecooch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.katecooch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.katecooch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.katecooch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.katecooch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34,"href":"http:\/\/www.katecooch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions\/34"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.katecooch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.katecooch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.katecooch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}