Ira Silverberg

Last updated
Ira Silverberg
Born1963 (age 6162)
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)Literary agent, editor

Ira Silverberg is an American literary agent and editor. For several decades, he has worked in publishing houses like Grove Press, Serpent's Tail, and Simon & Schuster as well as literary agencies like Donadio & Olson and Sterling Lord Literistic. Additionally, he served as the Director of Literary Programs at the National Endowment for the Arts from 2011 to 2013.

Contents

Silverberg is currently a member of the adjunct faculty of the MFA Writing Program at Columbia University. He has also taught at The New School as a visiting faculty member and served on various boards and panels for artistic, literary, and cultural organizations in New York City. Additionally, he is the co-founder of Ira Silverberg Communications, a marketing and public relations firm.

Early life and education

Silverberg was born and raised in The Bronx of New York City where he grew up in "a very traditional middle class, Jewish, Bronx family." [1] In high school, Silverberg began heading to nightclubs in downtown New York; he also worked at Charivari Sport, an Upper West Side clothing store founded by the Weiser family. One night in 1979, at Hurrah, he met Haoui Montaug, after which a brief relationship and long friendship ensued. Montaug was one of many friends and lovers Silverberg lost to AIDS. [2]

After graduating from the Bronx High School of Science in 1980, Silverberg attended a six-year BA/JD program at the CUNY Urban Legal Studies Center. [3] [4] While in college, Silverberg met James Grauerholz, a friend and assistant of William Burroughs, at a bar in the East Village of Manhattan. They then began a romantic relationship, during which Grauerholz convinced Silverberg to move to Kansas where the two lived and wrote with Burroughs along with other Beat Generation poets. [5]

From 1982 to 1984, Silverberg attended the University of Kansas from 1982 to 1984. Afterward, he returned to New York and attended Hunter College. [4]  He then dropped out, 18 credits short of a degree, at the age of 22. [6] [1]

Career

In 1984, while at Hunter College, Silverberg began his career as a part-time editorial and publicity assistant at The Overlook Press after first meeting founder Peter Mayer at the 25th anniversary party for Jack Kerouac's On the Road in Boulder, Colorado in 1982; he had attended the party as the guest of Grauerholz and Burroughs. [4]

Through the 1980s, Silverberg also worked as a doorman at the nightclub The Limelight. Both there and Danceteria, he promoted events beginning in 1984; among them were book launches for Burroughs, artist David Hockney, and writers Brad Gooch and Dennis Cooper, the latter of whom became his client later on. [6]

In the nineties, Silverberg co-founded High Risk Books, an American imprint of Serpent's Tail. [1] There, he published locally-originated books like the fiction collection, Disorderly Conduct: The VLS Fiction Reader, edited by The Village Voice editor M. Mark. [7] In 1994, Silverberg and Amy Scholder went on to co-edit an anthology, titled High Risk: An Anthology of Forbidden Writings, during the AIDS crisis and the culture wars of the time. The anthology featured writings from over 20 authors including Burroughs, Kathy Acker, Dennis Cooper, Essex Hemphill, Mary Gaitskill, Lynne Tillman, Terence Sellers, Bob Flanagan, Cookie Mueller, and others. [8] Silverberg also worked as Grove Press' editor-in-chief at the time. [9]

In the 2000s, Silverberg started working as a literary agent at Donadio & Olson before moving to Sterling Lord Literistic in 2008 where he worked until 2011. [10] At both agencies, he additionally worked as a foreign rights director. [11] His clients have included Adam Haslett, Christopher Sorrentino, Erica Kennedy, Wayne Koestenbaum, David Wojnarowicz, Neil Strauss, and Rene Steinke. [3] [1]

In 2011, Silverberg was appointed as the Director of Literature Programs for the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, D.C. Two years later, he left his role there, after which Amy Stoll assumed his position. [3] Silverberg then returned to New York to work as a Strategic Advisor at Open Road Media and as a Senior Editor at Simon and Schuster. [12] In 2013, Silverberg received the Michele Karlsberg Leadership Award from the Publishing Triangle. [13] [14]

Silverberg has since become affiliated with many artistic, literary, and cultural institutions in New York City including BOMB Magazine and the Member's Council of PEN American Center. He has additionally served as a judge for the Gregory Kolovakos Award for AIDS writing, as well as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts Literature Program and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund. Moreover, he has acted as an editorial advisor to the Portable Lower East Side, has been a visiting faculty member at The New School, and currently teaches at the MFA Writing Program at Columbia University. [15] He is also the founder of Ira Silverberg Communications, a marketing and public relations firm. [16]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William S. Burroughs</span> American writer and visual artist (1914–1997)

William Seward Burroughs II was an American writer and visual artist. He is widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular culture and literature. Burroughs wrote 18 novels and novellas, six collections of short stories, and four collections of essays. Five books of his interviews and correspondences have also been published. He was initially briefly known by the pen name William Lee. He also collaborated on projects and recordings with numerous performers and musicians, made many appearances in films, and created and exhibited thousands of visual artworks, including his celebrated "shotgun art".

<i>Naked Lunch</i> (film) 1991 film by David Cronenberg

Naked Lunch is a 1991 surrealist science fiction drama film written and directed by David Cronenberg and starring Peter Weller, Judy Davis, Ian Holm, and Roy Scheider. It is an adaptation of William S. Burroughs's 1959 novel Naked Lunch, and an international co-production of Canada, Britain, and Japan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joan Vollmer</span> Member of the Beat Generation cultural movement

Joan Vollmer was an influential participant in the early Beat Generation circle. While a student at Barnard College, she became the roommate of Edie Parker. Their apartment became a gathering place for the Beats during the 1940s, where Vollmer was often at the center of marathon, all-night discussions. In 1946, she began a relationship with William S. Burroughs, later becoming his common-law wife. In 1951, Burroughs killed Vollmer. He claimed, and shortly thereafter denied, the killing was a drunken attempt at playing William Tell.

<i>Queer</i> (novel) Novel by William S. Burroughs

Queer is a 1985 novella by American author William S. Burroughs. It is partially a sequel to his 1953 novella Junkie.

James Grauerholz is a writer and editor. He is the bibliographer and literary executor of the estate of William S. Burroughs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Schulman</span> American writer (born 1958)

Sarah Miriam Schulman is an American novelist, playwright, nonfiction writer, screenwriter, gay activist, and AIDS historian. She holds an endowed chair in nonfiction at Northwestern University and is a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities. She is a recipient of the Bill Whitehead Award and the Lambda Literary Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Los Alamos Ranch School</span> School in the United States

Los Alamos Ranch School was a private ranch school for boys in the northeast corner of Sandoval County, New Mexico, U.S., founded in 1917 near San Ildefonso Pueblo. During World War II, the school was bought and converted into the secret nuclear research campus for Project Y, which later became the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The surrounding location has developed into the town of Los Alamos.

<i>And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks</i> 1945 novel by Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs

And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks is a novel by Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. It was written in 1945, a full decade before the two authors became famous as leading figures of the Beat Generation, and remained unpublished in complete form until 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Hibbert</span> British actor

Edward Hibbert is an American-born British actor and literary agent. He played Gil Chesterton in the TV series Frasier, later reprising the role in 2024. He also voiced Zazu in several installments in The Lion King franchise, replacing Rowan Atkinson who voiced Zazu in the first movie.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ira Cohen</span> American poet

Ira Cohen was an American poet, publisher, photographer and filmmaker.

Serpent's Tail is London-based independent publishing firm founded in 1986 by Pete Ayrton. It specialises in publishing work in translation, particularly European crime fiction. In January 2007, it was bought by a British publisher Profile Books.

<i>Words of Advice: William S. Burroughs on the Road</i> 2007 Danish film

Words of Advice: William S. Burroughs on the Road, is a 2007 documentary about William S. Burroughs directed by Lars Movin and Steen Møller Rasmussen and produced in Denmark. The documentary is based on never-before-seen footage from his visit to Denmark in October 1983, and from his later years in Lawrence, Kansas.

High Risk Books was a book publisher, founded in New York City in 1993 as an imprint of Serpent's Tail Press of London. It was started by Ira Silverberg and Amy Scholder who was then an editor at City Lights Books in San Francisco. Its titles were designed by Rex Ray.

<i>William S. Burroughs: A Man Within</i> 2010 American film

William S. Burroughs: A Man Within is a 2010 independent American documentary film directed by Yony Leyser about William S. Burroughs, featuring previously unreleased footage and interviews with his friends and colleagues.

Terence Sellers (1952–2016), also known as Mistress Angel Stern, was a New York-based writer and dominatrix involved in the New York Downtown Arts Scene. Her papers have been collected by New York University's Fales Library Downtown Collection.

<i>Call Me Burroughs</i> 1965 studio album by William S. Burroughs

Call Me Burroughs is a spoken word album by Beat Generation author William S. Burroughs, which was released on LP by The English Bookshop, Paris, in June 1965, and then issued in the United States by ESP-Disk, New York, in 1966. Rhino Word Beat reissued the album on Compact Disc in 1995, the company's first ever reissue.

<i>Burroughs</i> (film) 1983 American film

Burroughs is a 1983 documentary film directed by Howard Brookner about the Beat Generation writer William S. Burroughs.

Candida Donadio was an American literary agent. She represented many writers, including Mario Puzo, John Cheever, Philip Roth and Cormac McCarthy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amy Scholder</span> American editor and filmmaker

Amy Scholder is an American literary editor and documentary filmmaker known for publishing works by marginalized and especially LGBTQ writers, artists, musicians, and activists.

Joseph Edward "Jed" Mattes (1952–2003) was an American literary agent and advocate for LGBT rights.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Ira Silverberg: Opinions from a Literary Life". Lambda Literary. 2011-09-21.
  2. Charney, Noah. "The NEA's new literature director." Poets & Writers Magazine, vol. 40, no. 4, July-Aug. 2012, p. 21. Gale Academic OneFile. Accessed 29 Feb. 2024.
  3. 1 2 3 "Ira Silverberg leaves the National Endowment for the Arts". Los Angeles Times. 2013-06-17. Retrieved 2021-08-04.
  4. 1 2 3 Witt, Emily (2011-12-08). "Hi Ho Silverberg! Lit Agent Books it to Washington, Leaves Publishing Bereft". Observer. Retrieved 2024-02-29.
  5. "Hi Ho Silverberg! Lit Agent Books it to Washington, Leaves Publishing Bereft". Observer. 2011-12-08. Retrieved 2025-01-02.
  6. 1 2 Mifflin, Margot (1994-03-13). "A Literary Miner". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2024-02-29.
  7. Schambelan, Elizabeth (2007). "He is Curious (Yellow)". Bookforum. Retrieved 2024-02-29.
  8. "Ira Silverberg and Amy Scholder". BOMB Magazine. Retrieved 2025-01-02.
  9. "Silverberg to Join Open Road". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 2025-01-02.
  10. "Literary Agent Ira Silverberg Will Move to Sterling Lord Literistic in 2008". Observer. 2007-12-12. Retrieved 2021-08-04.
  11. Morgan, Spencer (2008-09-09). "Literary Agent Ira Silverberg—Still Gay, Ladies!—Stirs Up Baby Batter For Lit Lasses". Observer. Retrieved 2024-02-29.
  12. Abrams, Dennis (2016-04-07). "Another Publishers Lunch: Chow Down With Ira Silverberg". Publishing Perspectives. Retrieved 2025-01-02.
  13. "The Michele Karlsberg Leadership Award". The Publishing Triangle . Retrieved 2024-05-22.
  14. Bookey, Seth J. (2013-05-08). "Going for the Silver – Gay City News". Gay City News . Archived from the original on 2022-02-05. Retrieved 2024-05-22.
  15. "Ira Silverberg". PEN America. Retrieved 2025-01-02.
  16. "You Should Know: Ira Silverberg". Guest of a Guest. Retrieved 2025-01-02.