A Word on Words; 3714; Morgan Entrekin

fb liz from nashville studio way celebrating offers literature and ideas for more than three decades this is word on words with johnson john seago welcome once again the word on words i guess today as morgan entrekin is the president and publisher grove alive throughout his impressive careers of publisher he has published are edited books ranging from kurt vonnegut hear word of bret easton ellis' less than zero to charlie wilson's war to charles frazier is called mom he's the two thousand and eight recipient of the

new atlantic independent booksellers association legacy award morgan entrekin welcome to world war ii thank you happy to be here in iceland ahmad barrett by early education which they shoot through one vulnerability of big man and now you're in new york where you're posing else give raises some of the best of american literature from here lei well here i'll write you know i mean i grew up loving to read my late father of a trick and avoid losing his lawyer for liane and my mother jane intricate were active in the arts and were avid readers know my daddy gone to vanderbilt law school is from george originally came up with an undergraduate i met my mother married her but he

bends went to washington after from federal law school and work and just before we move back in at four he was getting on all business you need bora library and the state from a feminine thompson and so his idea was use that account or his great old books and alma then and then sell them as a ritual helps support the family well he got busy his lawyer stay very busy for business for years so we have this great library ineradicable over house i grew up with books all around me all the time i i don't think that you grow up aspiring to be a publisher i don't really think i knew much are so much about her books came from but time i then went to the undergraduate at stanford university it was down i did it was i think i was in for some of the sixties and i grew up here in the messages are so many unknowns gone there and civil rights and the vietnam or and california surf was a interesting kind of it back and then i had a great time at stanford at stanford at the time our group of writers along from the south shook candor from west virginia ray carver who was from oregon

arbor thoughts action ashley and was a john so they are and are they were kind of mystified by the publishing world in new york and they all encouraged me to go back in and get some experience working in publishing it at the time and some aspirations to write i quickly decided that writing wasn't for me was that while what what what what are wondering interesting was that you know i think that there is a kind of fault that many editors and publish you frustrated writers i don't think that's true of the millions of voters are frustrated writers alamos i say well and one is dead dr rowe who worked as an editor for war in the sixties in the hoboken daytona come one of our most distinguished novelist but tom i i i think that if you really want your area not gonna be a great editor publisher but tom and what i learned when i when i was doing some writing i went to antioch college have no writing seminar in dublin ireland that i was in the summer of nineteen seventy four and i thought was gonna be great it going to the right for six or eight hours a day

and i got embarrassed or to do it and after about six seven weeks ago the crazy it was so lonely and so solitary and i think that that's one of the things that that people don't realize is that writing is a very solitary occupation army going for six or eight hours a day makes stuff opulent inside your head and i think it's why i like so many of the novelist little unhinged after a while but it didn't soothe my personality at all and what i found i went from stanford to record publishing course all which was a week of course in publishing had been gone for thirty years since nineteen forties and it was a fantastic exposure had you decided by that time and maybe that's the direction you wanted that you know honestly i went to college from seventy three seventy seven as undergraduate my eye i can say that was between the hippies and the yuppies me when i entered the upper class and what the reason why i left the underclass and were yuppies and we didn't really make the decision as undergraduate to do with the rest of our lives at that

time i mean you kind of settle more open ended and just get educated and then move to the next stage i think that it in the back of my mind i thought about going to grad school poorly of law ought to foreman my dad arm that the course that i attended in the summer of seventy seven at harvard are it gave me a great exposure to all aspects of publishing at professionals from boston from new york to maine centers of publishing it in america common speak to you and either moved to new york in the fall and started working on an and the new ever since you know and a couple three years ago i can't remember exactly but hyatt found was one of the judging panel for an award robert knievel go scott turow one dot org and at dinner after you for the orange sediment on that you know you and i said how and

he said that goes way way back in and somebody interrupted and an ever but it there is always doubt in my mind the new morgan entrekin know how he was at stanford and was a seventy four he was jones follow and scotland decided to go to law school called one l and then became a very very successful attorney in chicago are in the da's office i believe it the antidote to the presumed innocence but now only he and we we knew each other from stanford and was he lying there and nobody was already focusing on longer know don't know as a jones fellow which is why most prestigious fellowship you can get as a young writer he was you know working to try to produce fiction and be a novelist and i didn't have to ask him why he made the decision to go to law school that probably had to do a little of that because it's it's it's of strategic out of iraq for the insurgents after starting it at that time and tougher now it's infinitely we can talk about that as we as we go along and when carter was was your classmate know ray carver was a job so also and that was what was interesting is is you know wayne

carver now is a giant racial sure i think considered you know i mean it's in the same breath with chekhov among european critics around the world and and elsewhere told all of the schools of universities and arm he couldn't get published you know he was going to set up a cell and i mean he did done a small chapel called when the salmon moved and then finally i think was in seventy five war hero gave him a contract for a book called either we please be quiet please yeah i think that as we please be quiet sisters but that was one of the things that those guys around stanford at the time weren't were saying as they said go back and learn about new approach if it was partially would know somebody in europe ocean dump it was a it was a mystery to them and again the check and one on the pub was successfully skype have a great career right you know one of her endure hours so you're in an

eight week program and then you're back on the dignity of our fallen here in la we program and it's got to be something there that you know inoculate it seems to me there was something about it suggested in the world it was as though i didn't know i was i think that the way that i feel very blessed and what you wear that fly critters it's something i love to do and it's been a really fulfilling an interesting yesterday two years now thirty two but if it's it's a profession that keep your mind alive all the time and you know look there's a publisher i used to do a sample of a professional built on you know i know a lot about i mean i don't know a little bit about a whole lot of things and i published books on business on history biography on some science fiction that takes a home runs the whole gamut a lot of writers from all over the world and i just got the inkling of that twenty two out of a quite understood what was going to be our i moved to new york and started to work at the publishing house

and a trail after a couple of years on i've had some exciting experiences i worked with kurt vonnegut as you mentioned as a very young ended their arm but i was barely making a living that you get paid like a professor and i remember saying that my father and mother came up for dinner i understand that it is against the law school this is going to get a real job that he literally said to know more and i don't think that you have your you be willing to compromise away that you need compromise in the business world and he said you really enjoying what you do and you seem to have some taliban that i said think of an interesting life you're going to have over the next four years and what a wonderful thing for our is so what great advice on me how many mothers would say that i have absolutely no idea almost anyone would say been as close if the option were put to the farley what happened was what was about him that made him no i had to go in another action to be you

know i knew me well and darren i've been a i can't come a little bit of a firebrand was more apparent attending yeah that's true o r r and it's a wonderful institution another honor serve on as a trusted there and i think you know i i look back at my years there you know it was a very tumultuous time here you're here and though the civil rights movement in the vietnam war and an armed although it was coming to ahead of you know of different points of view etc ad to be thirteen to eighteen years old at that time and attending the you know conservative boys' school and bought a mother who i think of as a political activists is that there weren't sure if she was actually when voters are also very active in the arts trio your book about my mother and father with of the museum with the symphony and they were they were not of doctrinaire liberals and anyway they were just very

open minded of people who they loved arts and they love their creativity they curse it but they're not just mild my mother father my my whole family here my grandmother was a wonderful painter and so and my grandfather great reader interested in the arts a guy it was the whole environment here that that brought me up that way that i really cherish and i left tennessee i consider my home and i consider myself financially and always was even though your life in new york was eventful bradley really colorful but it but your butt but like you mentioned gone into an homage to nominate i have to ask you about vonnegut no you are and through watch as

you know i think that there's a everyone who was an avid reader has a lot more to really they read at exactly the right moment in their life or they carry with them for their entire life and that for me was kurt vonnegut reading his early novels signs of titans cat's cradle god bless you mr rosewater are empty through sawgrass far as i was becoming an intelligent reader and in my early teenage years and he had a huge impact on the air and what was amazing was i want to work and i'll court press my first job was as a reader i had to come in and read manuscripts all day and offer two paragraphs of summery and and then say yes no or maybe and i said to the guy harvey energy fails and when i said what good is maybe but tom i then i i also met della court was a man name see more once he was called siam as alma who was one of the great publishers editors of the twentieth century in america he published tillie olsen katherine porter kurt vonnegut jim harrison barry

hannah allam tom o'brian jayne anne phillips on and on and i had the privilege of working with him as a young editor at re reading their scripture him giving and giving him reports and i didn't work for really for months and he came in and he worked in boston for most of the time a book and in iraq once a mother became an eleven and go down to my desk and said would you read this an airline an editorial memo and i thought sure you know and he'd asked me that before but the taliban it's a job or becker wow so this pretty interesting of being asked to give an opinion about this giant of american letters in and so i did isn't enough reform simmons good form i went back to get i worked hard on it for a week or two the dissidents in my memo to say warms and in boston and in here from amman we could to invite violations of the new york office and i said sam what did you think of my my notes on the set or a lot of the sentiment on the current i went oh my god i know i was wide enough for kurt i

would've been so intimidated and as it turned out her arm you agree with a lot of my comrades made a lot of changes the book came out got rave reviews went to number one on the best seller list and ways that really help make my career because he then would go around town saying oh there's this point editor will hit it big and helped me an order how confident were you at that point about what you were doing then and i know if i read it i was talking my wife last night as i know as a parent or two data and and mostly i was so young when i was doing this and i look at the young kids who work for me and i think to myself i was twenty three years old and ten kurt was in his mid late fifties i don't know it but i think that the success that i had with kurt gave me great confidence to work with other riders and what i found over my career is the writers were the easiest to work with are the wires were the best writers the good writers writers who are struggle they're not quite as good they're the ones the four parts with your fight i find that

a writer who knows these kids was confident enough they welcome a close critical reading they love it and they like honest and i always present any editing comments and under any editorial work that i'm doing as their suggestions because you know in our medium the writer gets the final cut they make the final choice arm and so i yeah i mean i don't want to work two more books weaker we did play or another we get to that i do it emily palm sunday which was a cover loosely stitched autobiography of speeches and letters and some of his journal entry staff and dom we have a great working relationship and then you know he had his wife jo were great friends of mine for and i'm in jail still isn't passed away a bit of a good long life and i i always enjoyed cnn you know and then he was a treasure to have to have a martha of tissue on urban lucky that that i had that relationship the love you justin in yemen i'm talking with morgan entrekin the

president and publisher of grove atlantic inc about his life in publishing and great books have come from your decision to move into into editing and then to go into publishing at what point do you decide to be an aide as you say new york was a good life for young man you were part of the social saying it wasn't and fast and furious and issued intersected with an awful lot of other young people of your age part of maybe the same culture and does that help you didn't go home

every night and barry itself in the manuscript on which you were that servicers work as i think back on what i know about it and whenever obama doesn't need to interact with an awful lot of people around in publishing beyond you know and the music was a big party at the fashion and all of that and it was i think that in fact i i know i'd probably screwed a little close to the line of making myself and frivolous and you get a little bit too much of a social life and my life but at the time i also i still was working hard and producing books and i think that it you know it was i was doing it for the fun of it i was doing it because it was interesting you know i edited an underground magazine that was published out of a old club called the mud club run by got from macon georgia and this is in the late seventies and the music and art scene we did well the first feature is

on a giant slum on earth for sure david salinger and eighties in the magazine and his cousin went on to become famous painters you know and everybody was just coming of age at the same time david byrne from talking heads jerry harrington and kristen debbie harry from blondie mean everybody was a kid i mean nobody's famous yet they were all just doing their work i think of that in your drawers that kind of person that ambitious person was to work and korea feels and then won the business world too and i buy a lot of the people in the literary world can't stop just to the literary world i moved around into law in a lot of different circles and i think that in which my life i think it helped me as a publisher in that i was in touch with a lot of different communities and of different activities and i admire as we're you know open to a lot of different things i mean we think of it this way but i ended up not working a lot of people were frightened out needed information i was trying to promote something or you know or it had helped me a lot in and then my career on so i had a great

point for the syrians in the industry i begin to grow and you know you're in it and a publisher that you want your own and you and your own thing your own house your own you won control of what you do and more than that level again this is so so little of hindsight it seems like a simple decision but i worked at dell court for about four a half years and then on seymour wives left arm i was offered a job at simon schuster i went over there i was a senior editor probably fifteen or twenty years younger than the next senior editor on our core looks like bret easton ellis' less than zero i acquired richard ford sports for the revenue that being published with my pal you're just done vintage farm says the gondolas year and talk about anything and i ride and you know it it what became clear to me was that the way this

was developing was that you had to pass you could either become an editor institute working with the riders in the books and so what a tenured professor but it's about the analogy i would like or you could go into a more corporate side the management side and become the publisher and in charge of the business in decision making i wanted to do both and my mama was seymour larson some of the old time publishers and amin ordered to do that i knew about was would have to go a mile and once again it was my late great wonderful dad who i came down to tennessee on my butt off a three year contract to simon schuster that was filing a premiere with decent wages and they said whoa this contract perfectly fine to side but we will be done in three years and i said well really like to do is to have my own thing and i was twenty nine and he said youre not married on a mortgage he said how much money would take starts up that i named the number and he said double that go back to your keys she carries a money there are up raise money down here that's what i did and so well my own view of the following us on personal judgment well area once

again his backing is will it all possible you know and my mom's to an idea i created a company called morgan entrekin books i wanted a partnership with mort zuckerman and the press bought the magazine in a book company in eighty two harry evans the great british newspaper man america tina brown had moved to new york as tina taken over that vanity fair and he was writing the book company and i made a deal to do ten or twelve books a year with a mortgage and books and it turned out that more monosyllable companies so i'll bring you know a friend and called ivory from chattanooga tennessee to buy the company and very fist john my great pal from roundhouse cameras editorial director and blow that enterprise started in at six we published her first book the first book i published was called republican party reptile by pj o'rourke armed within about four years out we had won the national book award was the book

called the house of morgan was a rancher now and then in ninety one and i've always said that this happened because my dad passed away in may of nineteen ninety nineteen ninety one i had my first number one bestseller parliament horsepower my friend peter weir arm and the whole thing worked out on that on its surface draw up and down but that made it all work we'll be back again next week to talk about the phillies wonderful books on that wonderful offers pj o'rourke was a find and i think offensive find of yours my guess is he would say that in the end in a moment so be back to talk to next week in some depth about about the actual nuts and both rick and from the grind of making a book work for a meatier and dumps and what it takes in terms of deciding him for but

just a just as you want as a publisher yeah it seems to me that there are there are there are too few and bookends the publisher has to think about first obviously want on one side is the author and the other is the reader what goes on in the head of a book publisher thinking about those two bookends and the decision's a gap that have to be made that phil and everything between bunks have you ever got it and on the other hand has what your players gonna have an influence with the other vulcan it out with analysis and that's the whole game there but you know i think that one of the things and become a publishing i do i am which is

in a pre series pushing for a publishing whenever i have tried to do a book purely for commercial purposes almost inevitably it has failed and what i've learned over the years is that i need to trust my instincts about what i like and what i'm interested in and to try it and you see i have some ah a sense of the marketplace haven't done this for thirty odd years and when i'm making of a financial decision of what i'm going to pay for a book and then the subsequent decisions about the printing and marketing budgets center i've got to gauge the markets somewhat are i think getting late though cliches that the publisher is the eternal optimist because there you have to be if you don't believe in the book that no western believe in the book but ultimately i know i feel like my duties too to the author to the writer and try to help them articulate what they're trying to say as well as possible and if i can do that and then put out into the world it's not find its way or not and i've had very very fine books have failed and i've

had books that i didn't think were quite so fine that have succeeded wildly and you know over the years i think that that what i've realized is all i can do is just recognize talent and what i think is an interesting topic in the terms of history journalism or may contribute to a conversation no doubt though current events are political issues etcetera and then now me and do the best job possible and then hope that the book gods smile on it so i would say i probably spend more time working on it saut with the author and the text that i do worry about the end result of the ricky roma have to think about it and have to hope it wouldn't find readers for our books but i i feel like that i work in the business in a corner of the business were quality does win out over time you know that we published writer for ten years and irish writer named anne enright with no success whatsoever i mean nice reviews no sales and then ob i we had her third novel fourth book we're going to do an aborted last year with you know serve realizing that

it was going to be a tough fight she had a winning the booker prize and we sold four hundred thousand copies you never know we run out of compton you know you have our frontline thank you for being here we will be back next week with more than an hour