“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.
Oh, wait, you wanted to actually know who I am? Growing up in the wind and sun of the Oklahoma Panhandle, I finished at Oklahoma State University taking a terrific job I’d created at Stan Clark Companies. What happens when you get that technology publishing opportunity you can’t turn down? You move to San Francisco! It was an exciting time to be there as the Internet and WWW came into being along with the first tech/web boom. 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! And while tech was taking off, I moved to traditional book publishing because it was always something I’d wanted to do, starting as a development editor and working my way up to acquisitions and later senior editor for Simon and Schuster, Ziff-Davis Press, and Macmillan USA. After nearly 10 years in the Bay area, and every experience in video and audio conferencing, online education, trade shows, events, print buying, PR, magazine writing, web development, content design, book editing, interactive media, and author management (as well as food, wine, and sailboat racing), I transferred to Macmillan’s trade book division in the great midwest. While there, I moved into the New York-based Macmillan General Reference heading non-lexicography and reference book acquisitions for Webster’s New World. Reference books and foreign language texts don’t sound fun, but I loved it! Later, I moved over to Pearson with my boss forming the new Alpha Books trade group. While a senior acquisitions editor at Alpha, I acquired an estimated 250 Complete Idiot Guides become a solid generalist, able to gain a working knowledge in nearly any topic with a few days notice!
Post-Alpha, two senior publishing colleagues and I started a hybrid publisher where I had the great pleasure of working closely with a large number of authors who chose to self-publish and whose manuscripts need structural and content work. I thought I was a good editor until we mentored and guided so many new authors through the publishing process.
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. In 2014, my father died so I took a crash course in trusts, estates, and farm and ranch management. I co-own our family farm in Texas with my sister growing wheat and cotton. As a woman in agriculture, look for an upcoming project with another friend of mine who also inherited her family farm.
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 serve on several boards including the Indianapolis Arts Center and as a national director for the Chaine des Rotisseurs. (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.
What’s next? It’s time to find out!
Want to see my resume or see if I can a connection? Contact me!
