On Writing, Editing, Publishing, and Breaking the Glass of Expectations
Jane Friedman transformed a major company, and started a new venture that revolutionized digital publishing. Victoria Wilson is an acclaimed editor and publisher, and has written a major cultural biography, with the concluding volume now in progress. Join NYBF to hear these leading voices in American publishing discuss their experience, expertise, adventures, and vision of what lies ahead in books, business, and life.
Jane Friedman is a leading publishing executive, consultant and innovator, who has worked with such internationally bestselling authors as John le Carré, Julia Child, Michael Crichton, John Updike, Joseph Heller, Toni Morrison, and Dennis Lehane. At Random House she has been Executive Vice President of Random House Inc., Executive Vice President at the Knopf Publishing Group, Publisher of Vintage Books, and Founder and President of Random House, Audio Publishing. She served as the first female global CEO of a major publishing enterprise at HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide (NewsCorp) from 1997–2008. In 2009, Friedman co-founded Open Road Integrated Media with Jeffrey Sharp, a company that transformed digital publishing by creating ebooks from legendary authors including William Styron, Alice Walker, and James Jones. For her work with Open Road, Friedman was named one of Fortune Magazine’s most powerful women entrepreneurs.
Victoria Wilson is Vice President, Executive Editor at Alfred A Knopf, Publishers. Among the many authors she has worked with: Walter Abish, Alice Adams, Diane Ravitch, Laurel Ulrich, Susan Cheever, Mary Beth Norton, Amy Klobuchar, Laurie Colwin, Diane Johnson, William Gass, Peter Bogdanovich, Lorrie Moore, Anne Rice, Arthur Laurents, Sarah Chayes, Philippe Sands, Jill Ciment, George Stevens, Christopher Plummer, Helen Simpson, David Steinberg, Lisa Alther, Meryle Secrest, Suzanne Simard, Ruth Gruber, Jane Alexander, Richard Mason, Jacques d’ Amboise, Erin Brockovitch, Amy McGrath and Annalena McAfee. Wilson has served on the board of PEN, Poets & Writers; was Vice President of the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures; and was appointed by President Clinton to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. Her acclaimed biography, A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940, was published by Simon & Schuster. She is at work on the concluding volume of the Stanwyck biography.
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