Chronicle: Future Booksellers of America
The brilliant and ambitious Marcela Landres – editor, educator, writer, Latino authors' advocate, and really cool person – contacted me a few weeks ago to invite me to speak to her publishing class at City College. Since she was basically offering me a chance to talk about the stuff I talk about anyway, to a group of young people who might actually be interested, of course I jumped at the chance. As she described it, "The class I'm teaching is the introductory class, offering an overview of the book industry with the objective of helping the students identify what kind of position they’d be suited for, e.g. editor, agent, bookseller, etc. The mission of the publishing program overall is twofold--to launch careers for their graduates, and to increase diversity within publishing." I'd never been to the City College campus on 138th Street – it's really pretty impressive. Marcela had described the building as "labyrinthine," so I arrived early to find my