“Tell me what you eat and I’ll tell you who you are.” Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
What is a connector? Malcolm Gladwell describes connectors as people who want to share what they know, bring together people with common interests, and help make everyone more successful. Tom Peters (and Seth Godin, I suspect) call us “evangelists.” Either way, some people are driven to connect people with ideas for business, leadership, food, wine and travel. Who am I? I’m a student, a creator, a leader, a publisher, an entrepreneur, a writer, a wine lover, an artist, and a traveler. Come to think of it, we’re all travelers. Welcome to the journey.
Who am I? Growing up in the wind and sun of the Oklahoma Panhandle, I finished at Oklahoma State University and took a job I’d created at Stan Clark Companies a their first national director of PR. And then, the unthinkable, an opportunity came along I couldn’t turn down — in San Francisco. It was an exciting time to live there during the birth of the Internet and WWW. We were living in the future excited about what was to come speaking a language of video conferencing, distance learning, bandwidth, and tech IPOs like Yahoo! But publishing was my first love. While tech took off, I moved to traditional book publishing starting as a development editor at Ziff-Davis Press, then moving into acquisitions, then into a senior editor role. I spent nearly a decade with Simon and Schuster/Macmillan USA, then Pearson and Penguin USA. I acquired and created projects for Macmillian Computer Publishing, Macmillan General Reference, Webster’s New World where I ran the non-dictionary foreign language list), and Alpha (where I acquired 200+ Complete Idiot’s Guides. I restarted the cooking line and also specialized in golf, leadership, personal finance, health and diet, religion, music, and a large number of other topics and titles.
Post-Alpha, I co-founded a hybrid publisher and worked ith a large number of authors who chose to self-publish and whose manuscripts need structural and content work. In 2008, I was honored to join an international scholarly society for nursing where I worked with the best team I’ve ever had in publishing. Together, we overhauled the book publishing program, showcased the academic journals, optimized costs, increased revenues, and partnered closely with a terrific sales team.
But life intervenes. In 2014, my father died so I took a crash course in trusts, estates, and farm and ranch management. I now co-manage our family farm in Texas with my sister growing wheat and cotton. As a woman in agriculture, I’ve got *thoughts* on the barriers the industry puts up for new, talented people.
Now living in Indianapolis and after 25 years in the publishing world, I work with clients directly on publishing projects, manuscript development, and business consulting. (More at LinkedIn.) I’ve had the privileged to ghost write, develop, and concept some terrific books over the past few years and meet many more authors I’m looking forward to working with! As a food and wine writer, occasional columnist, and essayist, I also have had fun writing for a variety of magazines, blogs, and websites. I’ve even edited a few cookbooks and taken on recipe development/testing from time to time.
I serve on several boards as a director the Indianapolis Arts Center and the Chaine des Rotisseurs Etas-Unis. (I’ve also done turns on the boards for iMoca and Indianapolis Opera.) I learn from these experiences every day, and over time will pass a few ideas along to you, too. I travel every chance I get!
Want to see my resume or see if I can a connection? Contact me!
