Jonathan Galassi
Jonathan Galassi
Jonathan Galassi born 1949 in Seattle, Washington, is the President and Publisher of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, one of the eight major publishers in New York. He began his publishing career at Houghton Mifflin in Boston, moved to Random House in New York, and finally, to Farrar, Straus & Giroux. He joined FSG as executive editor in 1985, after being fired from Random House. Two years later, he was named editor-in-chief, and is now President and Publisher...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPublisher
CountryUnited States of America
What the beautiful-writing writers are most attached to is almost always superfluous.
analyse dig evoke poetry state trying
Poetry is really about your mental state or intellectual, and where you are, and you're trying to evoke that, explain it to yourself, whatever, you're trying to dig into it, analyse yourself.
art mainstream neither particular poetry serious
Poetry is not mainstream, but then neither is serious fiction, really. But I don't think there's a lot to worry about in this particular 'problem'. Why does art have to be mainstream to be significant?
endlessly gets life poems renewable whatever
Poems are endlessly renewable resources. Whatever you bring to them, at whatever stage of life, gets mirrored back, refracted, reread in new ways.
author decide intense noticed younger
One thing I have noticed is that when you're a younger editor, you're more intense about it. As you go along, you relax a little. More and more, I feel that the book is the author's. You give the author your thoughts, and it's up to him or her to decide what to do.
charge hardcover less means revenue
The price of an e-book is a lot less than the price that we're charging for a hardcover book. It's about the same as we charge for a paperback. And that means a different revenue stream.
anymore bookstore business buy culture experience happened music online reluctant stores vibrant
The thing that happened with the music business, there are no stores anymore where you can buy music. It's all an online business now, and that's, you know - the bookstore culture is a very vibrant part of the American experience that we're very reluctant to see go away.
work
An e-book distributor is not a publisher, but rather a purveyor of work that has already been created.
elizabeth particular personally rate
Elizabeth Bishop in particular had a big impact on me personally as well as artistically. Her insistence on clarity is something I rate very highly.
Editing is more by-the-hip. You look at a text and ask yourself how it can be improved.
died europeans
Eugenio Montale - born in Genoa in 1896, died in Milan, 1981 - is one of the twentieth-century Europeans who has spoken most meaningfully to American and British poets.
came poetry psyche
I've always used poetry to explain myself to myself. These things just sat in my psyche and then came out.
poetry
I've always loved the poetry in 'Pale Fire.' I think it's wonderful.
certainly involved publishing seemed talent turn
I wanted to be involved with literature. I certainly wasn't going to be able to write for a living, and I didn't have enough confidence in my talent to think that I should be just doing that. Publishing seemed like fun to me - to be involved with writers. And it did turn out to be.