Lisa Drew is a retired editor who held top editorial positions at Doubleday, William Morrow and Company, and Scribner. [1] Drew was an editor for Pulitzer Prize-winning Roots: The Saga of an American Family as well as numerous books by the Bush family. Other notable authors she edited include Helen Thomas, Nathan Miller, John E. Douglas, Bruce Henderson, Christine Brennan, and Geraldine Ferraro. At Scribner, Drew created her own imprint, A Lisa Drew Book.
Lisa Drew began her publishing career in the production department at Doubleday in 1961 where she rose to editor-in-chief by 1979. [2] At one point, Drew was an assistant to Kenneth McCormick who oversaw such authors as Leon Uris, Irving Stone, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. [3] [4] The first book that Drew acquired for Doubleday was Methods of Childbirth by Constance A. Bean and published in 1972 and still in publication as of 1999. [2] [5] Drew stated that this was one of the first books to cover the different options for childbirth for women. [2]
Drew described the changes to the publishing industry with regards to women editors in the early 1970s in an interview with Art Silverman. [6] She stated that it was "slow-going" for women. [6] Doubleday didn't promote women into editorial positions and she was only the fourth woman editor. [6] Around 1970 that began to change as women started to come in at the assistant editor level. [6] At the same time, Drew and other women editors at Doubleday were derisively referred to as "the brides of Doubleday." [6] Harriet Rubin noted that these "brides" were influencers. [7] Rubin said, "they shaped the cultural conversation through the books they edited. Editor is a formidable stealth position: An editor can launch twenty books a year into the culture, a writer maybe one every few years." [7]
Lisa Drew, along with Ken McCormick, was the editor for Alex Haley's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Roots: The Saga of an American Family. [8] Alex Haley first met with Lisa Drew and Ken McCormick about the book in 1964. [9] Drew thought that the project was exciting and that to her knowledge, "no black writer had ever traced his origins back through slavery." [9] Haley was signed to Doubleday with and an advance of $5,000. Drew later stated that it was soon apparent that the project was evolving into something much bigger than originally planned by Haley. [10] Haley's work on the book dragged on for several years and Drew protected Haley from Doubleday executives who wanted Haley to either write the book or return the book's advance. [11] At one point, Drew traveled to visit Haley in Jamaica in 1975 expecting to take back a finished manuscript and was surprised to find only 70% of the book done and another editor, Murray Fisher, who considered himself to be Alex Haley's personal editor, in residence and working on the book. [11] While Haley wrote on the porch, Drew read the manuscript inside the house. [11] Doubleday did not receive the book from Haley until 1976, ten years past its initial contracted due date. [12]
Haley credited Drew for coming up with the sub-title for the book, "The Saga of an American Family." [13]
When first released, Roots was labeled as non-fiction. Drew stated that she pushed for the non-fiction label and Ken McCormick stated that he considered the book fiction, but deferred to Drew on the matter. [14] Drew was afraid that "if we called this book fiction, although it had fictional elements in it, the people who are not sympathetic to the viewpoint of the book would use that as an excuse to say...this is fiction and it is all made up and it didn't happen that way. [14] Haley himself called the book, "faction," a mix of fiction and facts. Later Haley was accused of plagiarizing parts of the book from the book, the African by Harold Courlander. [15] While Haley ended up settling out-of-court with Courlander, Drew didn't believe he should have settled and said he should have paid a personal permission fee. [15]
Lisa Drew became a colleague and friend to Jackie Kennedy Onassis. [16] They met in 1978 while working as editors at Doubleday and remained friends until Onassis' death. [17]
Drew was promoted to executive director and editorial director of Doubleday General Books in 1979. [2]
Drew left Doubleday in 1985 to join William Morrow and Company as a vice-president and senior editor. [2]
Drew left William Morrow in 1992 to form her own imprint, A Lisa Drew Book, at Scribners which was then owned by Macmillan. [18] Lisa Drew Books began publishing books in 1993. [1] [2] Simon & Schuster purchased Macmillan/Scribners in 1994 and Lisa Drew Books continued as an imprint at Simon & Schuster. [1] [19]
Drew was the editor for many books by the Bush family including Barbara Bush and George H. W. Bush beginning with C. Fred's Story, a children's book about their pet Spaniel. [20] [21] [22] Barbara Bush described Drew in her memoir as a "bright, feisty, funny lady." [21] Bush described Drew in her Reflections memoir as having a very active red pencil and not being a tactful editor. "Lisa hates exclamation points. She is not crazy about the words "dearest," as in "dearest friends"; "greatest," as in "greatest children" or grandchildren; "best," as in "best friend." Lisa actually became a great friend and if she behaves, she will be in danger of becoming a great dearest best friend. [20]
Drew was the chairman of the Freedom to Read Committee of the Association of American Publishers in 1998 while Vice-President and Publisher for Scribner and Lisa Drew Books. [23]
Drew retired as publisher from the imprint Lisa Drew Books in 2006. [1]
Alexander Murray Palmer Haley was an American writer and the author of the 1976 book Roots: The Saga of an American Family. ABC adapted the book as a television miniseries of the same name and aired it in 1977 to a record-breaking audience of 130 million viewers. In the United States, the book and miniseries raised the public awareness of black American history and inspired a broad interest in genealogy and family history.
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by German media conglomerate Bertelsmann.
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Nan Talese is a retired American editor, and a veteran of the New York publishing industry. Talese was the senior vice president of Doubleday. From 1990 to 2020, Talese was the publisher and editorial director of her own imprint, Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, known for publishing notable authors such as Pat Conroy, Ian McEwan, and Peter Ackroyd.
Transworld Publishers Ltd. is a British publishing house in Ealing, London that is a division of Penguin Random House, one of the world's largest mass media groups. It was established in 1950 as the British division of American company Bantam Books. It publishes fiction and non fiction titles by various best-selling authors including Val Wood under several different imprints. Hardbacks are either published under the Doubleday or the Bantam Press imprint, whereas paperbacks are published under the Black Swan, Bantam or Corgi imprint.
Moonwalk is a 1988 autobiography written by American recording artist Michael Jackson. The book was first published by Doubleday on February 1, 1988, five months after the release of Jackson's 1987 Bad album, and named after Jackson's signature dance move, the moonwalk. The book contains a foreword by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. It reached number one on the New York Times Best Seller list. The book was reissued by Doubleday on October 13, 2009, following Jackson's death on June 25, 2009.
Jean Edna Karl was an American book editor who specialized in children's and science fiction titles. She founded and led the children's division and young adult and science fiction imprints at Atheneum Books, where she oversaw or edited books that won two Caldecott Medals and five Newbery Medals. One of the Newberys went to the new writer E. L. Konigsburg in 1968 for From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.
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