This reviewer has been in the book/publishing business for over 25 years. During this stretch, it has always been a joy to spend time with authors who share details about their publishing journey. Readers can have that opportunity now with Gail Godwin and her latest work, PUBLISHING. With 14 novels and two story collections under her belt (including five New York Times bestsellers), and as a three-time finalist for the National Book Award, she knows of what she writes.

PUBLISHING is a very personal story that begins with Godwin’s early life as a writer. She is raised by a writer, her mother, who sells love stories to magazines and pens plays. They make up and tell stories to each other, sharing the creative experience together. She also gains early insight into the creative struggle by reading her mother’s writing about rejections.

Godwin goes on to tell of her first meeting with publishing scouts from Alfred A. Knopf in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in 1958 when they come to campus to find writers. Windy Peaks (five typewritten pages) is what she presents to the husband-and-wife editorial team, and she waits while the representatives read the pages. Ultimately, she is told “this isn’t quite right for us” --- familiar words to every writer seeking publication, then and now. Her descriptions of this encounter and what they reveal about a writer’s early journey should be required reading for every writer and publishing professional.

"PUBLISHING is an intimate record of a writer’s struggle to publish her work, maintain and develop important contacts and relationships, and sustain a career in the book business. It invokes moments of revelation and a deeper understanding of a writer’s life."

Next, Godwin recalls her studies at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop with Kurt Vonnegut and Robert Coover in the late 1960s. Her classmates include John Irving, who becomes a friend. While working toward her PhD, she sends 48 pages to the young John Hawkins, a literary agent, which marks the beginning of a 50-year agent/author relationship. 

In late 1968, Godwin is offered a contract and an advance on a novel. She calls her mother, who comments, “I know what this means, believe me, and you know that I know what it means.” This is a powerful moment for Godwin, the satisfaction that comes from having someone who understands how significant such an accomplishment is. As she is going to meet with the editor who bought the book, she hears that he died of an apparent heart attack the day before. As she says, what a way to begin in publishing! Her editor is dead, and although she has just passed her comprehensives for her PhD, she has no teaching job or savings. Despite the setback, her first novel, THE PERFECTIONISTS, goes on to be published in 1970.

No one ever said it would be easy, but Godwin has been continuously published for 45 years. And does she have stories to tell. There are numerous vignettes and anecdotes about meetings with editors, publishers and going on author tours. She comments on being reviewed and virtually every aspect of an author’s journey. Her stories are not just her personal experiences, they are a lively history of publishing itself. 

Godwin also refers to the upheavals that the industry is currently going through, what she calls a publishing dance card. With whom is the author going to enter into a dance? Who will be his or her editor and publishing partner? According to Godwin, in recent years, the industry has been in an intermission. When the music starts up again and the dancers return to the dance floor, how many will show up? Who will be left on the dance floor? There are now observers who look more like outsiders who may not understand or even know the steps. Will their presence change the nature and style of the dance among the author, editor and publisher?

PUBLISHING is an intimate record of a writer’s struggle to publish her work, maintain and develop important contacts and relationships, and sustain a career in the book business. It invokes moments of revelation and a deeper understanding of a writer’s life. When such an established and respected author shares her celebratory moments and setbacks, professional upheaval and life passages, the story gives meaning to and renews the creative spirit in us all.