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
gather italian mainly nearly poet published slow starter though work
I was nearly 40 when I published my first book. I was a slow starter - or rather, I was slow to gather my work together, though I had published translations, mainly of the Italian poet Montale, by then.
anywhere house rent study work
I can write anywhere that's quiet. I have a study in my apartment, but I often work in the kitchen of a house that we rent in the country.
afraid faith hard listen work
Be patient, work hard and consistently, have faith in your writing, and don't be afraid to listen to constructive criticism.
far positions print sell work
A publisher - and I write as one - does far more than print and sell a book. It selects, nurtures, positions and promotes the writer's work.
authors books both bounce deal dealing foreign foreigners people talking time visit work
I deal with the authors I work with, agents, and other departments of the company, talking about both the books that I'm working on and everyone else's. Then there's dealing with foreign publishers: foreigners visit all the time. People want to bounce things off the publisher, and a lot of it is encouragement.
mythology time worked
If you've worked in a company for a long time, there's a mythology that you know by heart, you don't need to look it up to evoke. It's there in your blood, as it were.
work
An e-book distributor is not a publisher, but rather a purveyor of work that has already been created.
books finding helping publishers work writers
I think publishers need to be the ones that publish the books and control that process: finding writers, helping them with their work, finding readers. I think writers need that.
endlessly
I feel that there is not an endlessly expandable universe of fiction readers.
background convincing form history interests needs reads terms
A translation needs to read convincingly. There's no limit to what can go into it in terms of background research, feeling, or your own interests in form and history. But what should come out is something that reads as convincing English-language text.
claiming deal feels huge life until
Claiming your life for yourself feels like a huge deal until you do it.
agent agents amount best determine figured good money rather
I think that a really good agent should be able to get the right publisher, which the agent has already figured out, get as much money as she can from that publisher, and make a deal, rather than have the amount of money determine the sale. That's what the best agents do.
authors great published time
A lot of great authors are published before their time. That's not wrong; it's just the way it works.
published
John Updike's first published book was a collection of poems.