Meta Given 

Biography

by Danette Bishop Mondou

Here's a little history as to why I wrote a biography.  In 2011, my mother and I were talking about Meta Given.  We were musing about who was she and did she do more than write my mother's favorite Cookbook.

I started this blog - I called it something obscure - because It was more about her cookbook the Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking she wrote and published in 1947 when she was 59 years old. (She is one person who proved that you are never too old and never to late to accomplish your goals.)

I could not find much about her initially.  There were some articles about people asking about her recipes and published articles about her recipes.  There was this great blog by Sandy's Chatter who wrote about Meta Given.  There was speculation on her blog about Meta Given also.  She had a little bit of information - but mostly that which was her own experience and the cookbook. Not much else. Then one of Sandy's fans provided a website about an article that Jane Nickerson wrote in the 1970s which led to a 1980s article.

Note: Jane Nickerson was an early New York Times Food Editor in the 1940s-1950s.  Jane had retired from the New York Times and ended up in Florida.  In the 1970s both Meta Given and Jane were in Florida.  They came together at a contest.

From there Jane decided to interview Meta Given which was great for me, as it confirmed my belief that Meta Given had a full life of various careers and experiences  in her lifetime. 

From this article I was able to learn about Meta Given from Meta Given's own word as relayed by Jane Nickerson.  This article opened up a flood gate of information about Meta Given that I was able to figure out - which allowed me to find information through google books, google newspapers, newspapers.com and so much more.

At first I was only going to do a bio piece in my blog, but my mother was not sure if I could actually publish a public article about Meta Given without permission.

So I did not publish the bio piece I had done.  Instead, by 2013 I decided to write her biography.  Within a year Wikipedia had a short article about Meta Given, that was not out there prior to my research.  I was very worried that someone would beat me to writing her biography - after all there are people scouring the internet for great material. While many people may not think this information is all that interesting - however I believed that the 70 million baby boomers had grown up on cookbook authors just like Meta Given.  There were about 4 million copies of Meta Given's cookbooks and brochures or booklets sold by Meta Given.

July 13, 2013 - I started Researching my book about Meta Given.  The research was slow until I found the Sandy's Chatter blog.  Her articles gave me all kinds of information about her life - the most important thing was the web site that house the article by Jane Nickerson of the 1970s interview.  Meta Given had been interviewed many times over the years - lucky for me. While I was researching Meta Given's life story, I also researched the following subjects:

How to write a biography - good luck finding anything on the internet in 2013

Copyright law - great stuff including a free class at MIT

Copyrights that Meta Given owned - Stanford University did a great project

Meta Given's Transcript from U of Chicago - Thanks for helping me obtain

Newspapers.com - While I have purchased an annual subscription to this newspaper website since 2013 - it has been worth every penny I paid for the subscription.

google books and google newspapers - thank for providing the information you did about Meta Given - including the Peterson Teachers - school documentation

On and on I can go gushing about the internet's assistance in helping me research Meta Given's life story.  Herstory would not have been possible without the use of the internet at the time I was writing this book.  I worked full-time as a Database Administrator for a helicopter company in the Hartford, CT area.  (That's a whole other story.)

I figured I put in about 25 hours a week for 5 years to research, write and rewrite this book.  That's a lot for a part-time job that was not actually going to pay me anything but a project that I fully funded.  Including the payment of website subscriptions. Computers, keyboards, headsets, books that I could not find in libraries and of course books, booklets, etc. that Meta Given had written.  I own about 10 of Meta Given's books, booklets, etc.  

I just sold a copy of Meta Given's Cookbook written in 1947,(PUBLSHED date) with a copy of her biography..  I am trying to off load some of these books, as I don't need them any more.  I have two favorite books with 2 copies of each - the rest I will either give away with a copy of her book or at talks that I will be giving in the future.

When I first started my research of Meta Given on the internet and especially on newspapers.com, there was very little but over time that number increased.  I noticed today that there are about 14,868 article in Newspapers.com.  When I started it was under 9,000. I realize that not all articles are about her - but most are and there are about 500 that are the wrote wording or given or meta (like meta data) then her numbers have still rose over the years.

I was 57 years old when I started this adventure (another case for your are never too old and it is never too late.)   I found myself publishing the book at the age of 62.  I remember when I decided I was publishing in August of 2018.  There seemed to be a race to the end.  I have to say I should have sent the book to the editor again.  I did re-edit the book, but there were still problems - not sure why some things - but I was able to fix the paperback and kindle - the hardcover is what it is - but I look at other books - some very famous with errors - so I feel I am in good company.

If you are thinking of writing a book or blog - my recommendation to you is just do it.

Here are a few hints:

1. Research every day you can

2. keep a journal or write everyday - by the way you can use an app that converts words to text.

3. research should include how to write, how to research, any laws or rules that my have something to do with your subject.

4. I know they tell you do an outline - I just couldn't do that - but I recommend do what works for you

5. Some people write until they reach a designated goal - that writing 10000 words a day or something ridiculous like that.  - for me some days I only wrote about 50 words and other days I wrote 10 or more pages.

6. document and save all your research - try to find some kind of organization that works for you

7. Fiction is different than non-fiction. I found that my non-fiction book kind of wrote itself.  Many times after research, I could write for hours as I recalled what I had researched.

People have to do what works for them regarding writing their own book - but don't be intimidated and never give up. Find someone who will help - by reading your work, to talk about the subject 

One of the things I loved most about the process was learning about new things. New things about Meta Given, copyright law, how to write a biography and the one thing that I learned was write everyday.  While I may not have followed that advice about writing everyday and the number of words written each day - I wrote a book.  You can say anything you want - I wrote a book!

A quote my mother said to me for years was "if you write a page a day for a year, after 365 days you will have enough for a book."  I did that for a year and while I had enough for a book - she left out the part that you need to know your research, you have to edit, re-edit until you practically have the thing memorized.

14868 - number of articles.

14967 - number of articles as of 8/29/2021 and counting