Tom Wolfe, Toni Morrison or Sonny Mehta. And if you're lucky, after a few drinks, you might find out about a great opportunity at Random House or a high-profile editor who is looking for somebody just like you. You're all going to get jobs. An audible sigh fluttered through the room, as if we were a rapt infomercial audience listening to a diet guru unveil her latest product.
Publishing is all about parties.
For the last 51 years, the Radcliffe Publishing Course has taught the business of publishing, turning kids who love books into kids who love to sell books. In rigorous workshops that simulate real magazines and publishing houses, the students write profit and loss statements, churn out ad copy, learn the rudiments of subsidiary rights and discuss the importance of branding. A parade of industry players jet in from New York to deliver the message that precious aesthetes and literary elitism have no place in the big business of books. The cavalier hipster also waxed nostalgic about the old days of publishing, when a few smart, idiosyncratic men made the decisions, instead of the corporate suits who dominate the industry today. Leading the way into the bar, followed by scores of mostly female students, he bought a round of drinks.