Tasha Does Tulsa.

Last week a group of Tulsa-area bloggers gathered at the offices of This Land Press for Tulsa Blogger Meetup Food Writing Edition. We ate, we drank, we talked shop. And then we all put on pink, glittery boas and sang songs from RENT.

Our harmonies were spectacular.

OK, so what we actually did was powwow around Mark Brown, food writer at ArgentFork.com and managing editor at This Land Press. He talked to us about what he does, how he got started with food writing and how he approaches the online world with his craft.

Some notes:

• About Mark: he takes a multimedia approach to food writing. Argent Fork is a print-only food journal that publishes four times annually; he also regularly publishes to a blog at ArgentFork.com. He talked at the blogger meetup about the making of one of his most recent posts, about the time his son got braces – about how detail is rendered by a threat and danger, about the process of writing in situ vs. writing later from notes.
• Writing for the market vs. writing as art. Write what you want to write, Mark said. Readers can always scroll to the recipe. But often what they’re looking for is something more, a point of connection, a story.
• Writing for readers vs. writing as personal expression. Once Mark went all esoteric in an article he wrote while on staff at the local daily newspaper. The topic? Mustard. He thinks maybe three people read it. Mark’s advice: You have to write for you. And when you do, eventually, the audience comes.
• Group discussion: personal journaling vs. online publishing; learning the technical side of blogging vs. hiring help; how exactly blogging is defined in the first place.

See? That’s what so great about these meetups. There’s lots of room for questions, discussion and debate, and the players involved have a huge range of experience and expertise. I see new connections happen at each and every one of these meetups. They result in a stronger local blogging community. That’s pretty exciting, if you ask me.

Thanks goes to Mark for speaking, to This Land Press for putting a roof over our heads and to all of you who took a break from your busy schedules to join the conversation. You rule.

While I have you: Mark your calendars for the December Tulsa Blogger Meetup:

Tulsa Blogger Meetup, Blog PR Edition
When: Dec. 8, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Tulsa Press Club, 415 S. Boston Avenue

Our speaker will be Mandy Vavrinak, a Tulsa PR pro who focuses on social media and the integration of new and traditional tactics. Learn more about Mandy at MandyVavrinak.com; you can also follow her on Twitter.

I’ll have more details coming on what’s for dinner, so stay tuned.

What were your take-aways from this month’s meetup? What do you hope to discuss at the December meetup?

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