![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/The-Pick-up-Artist.jpg\")
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by Karol Nielsen<\/span><\/p>\n After graduating from the Columbia School of Journalism, I became the managing editor of a Bronx newspaper and my graduate school classmate became a stringer for The New York Times. I wanted to be a stringer, too. I gave him almost everything I had ever published and he recommended me for the job.<\/p>\n I became a Metro Section stringer and I covered a fire, a numbers bust, a gang fight, a gun standoff at Penn Station, the death of a homeless man across from a hospital, and other stories. My reporting appeared in the Times and I always bought a copy of the paper.<\/p>\n Once, a tall, burly man with a baseball cap and thick beard approached me at the newsstand near my Upper West Side apartment.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you want to be an actress?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, a writer,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n He shrugged and wrote his name and number in my newly purchased New York Times\u2014James Toback, writer \u201cBugsy\u201d and director \u201cThe Pick-up Artist.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCall me if you change your mind,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Turns out, he was accused of being a sexual predator who used to target women in my old neighborhood. Luckily, I moved across town and became a writer and never called.<\/p>\n ###<\/p>\n Karol Nielsen is the author of the memoirs<\/span> Walking A&P and Black Elephants<\/span><\/i> and three poetry chapbooks. Her first memoir was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Her full-length poetry collection was a finalist for the Colorado Prize for Poetry. Her poem \u201cThis New Manhattan\u201d was a finalist for the Ruth Stone Poetry Prize.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Pick-up Artist by Karol Nielsen After graduating from the Columbia School of Journalism, I became the managing editor of a Bronx newspaper and my graduate school classmate became a stringer for The New York Times. I wanted to be a stringer, too. I gave him almost everything I had ever published and he recommended…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10201,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[463,436],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poems-about-life","category-poems-about-women"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t