The Interview
Sylvia K. Burack
By John Koch, Boston Globe
Did you ever want to be a writer yourself?
Not really, but I love editing, and because of that, I got quite good at it. I really think there is very little in the world that doesn't need editing, including a 10-word telegram.
Has your workday changed much over the years?
In one way. In the last five years or so, I have been coming in exceptionally early, between 7:30 and 8, but I've been leaving earlier, at 3. But I don't go to lunch, because lunch is the biggest waste of time I know anything about.
What's the hardest part of the job now?
Trying to keep up with everything new in the publishing business, like Web sites, with a staff the size of mine, down to four [from a maximum of six]. We're all generalists. I even take my own mail and run it through the meter. I've never had a secretary. [Burack also oversees Plays magazine, which is being sold, too.]
How have you gotten so many fine and famous authors to write for you?
And for very little money - we pay everybody $100 per article. When you talk about Stephen King and Mary Higgins Clark, who are making millions, they do it because they have a sense of wanting to help people who are at a point where they once were. I try to appeal to that. Mostly, I make them know that I care a lot about them and their work. The key to this business is that I'm a good letter writer. I like writing letters, and they're personal. I know everything that's going on in their families. I love my writers. Bill Tapply, Jane Yolen, Julia Alvarez - there are so many.
Ever fail to land a writer you wanted?
Danielle Steel - she has her 49th novel coming out. I went to see her in California. She lives in an absolute palace, big enough so there is a French stagecoach in the foyer. She's had a lot of tragedy in her life, but she's serious about her writing. I saw her, brought her some New England maple syrup, and yet I have not been able to get her to write.
How would you characterize yourself as an editor?
Tough. I've been very traditionally trained in the English language. I went to a good college [Smith], and I learned a lot, and I still believe that some fundamental rules need to apply. I still don't use "different than," no matter what. Everything is half wrong on TV and radio, and that's what people pick up.
Does the magazine lean toward a particular genre?
It's not a bias, but the people who write for us most readily are, curiously enough, mystery writers. They are wonderful people to work with, and I think it's because they don't think they are writing the Great American Novel. They're writing a book to entertain people. Poets are the most difficult, but they earn the least money.
What's your advice to aspiring writers?
A lot of people have found encouragement in writers' groups, including Joyce Carol Oates, who wrote an article for us on that subject. Hortense Calisher is one of my favorite writers in the world, with the finest command of language of almost anyone I ever read. I have quoted the title story in In the Absence of Angels innumerable times. She writes: "For in the absence of angels and arbiters from a world of light, men and women must take their place." The sin is not to try.
What will you do when The Writer moves west?
First, I'm going to write an article, which is called "What Am I Going to Do Monday Morning?" I've not had that question in almost my whole life. I began working when I was 14, as a page in the public library in Hartford. I've always worked, and having to go to college in the Depression, we always had two or three jobs. My job in Hartford paid 15 cents an hour while I was in high school. I worked 20 hours a week: I needed the $3.
What might you find to do Monday mornings?
I want to deal with something that uses my experience but doesn't demand it, as is the case now. I thought I might do some work over at the library in Brookline, which is where I live, or at the Museum of Fine Arts, where I was on the first Ladies Committee. I feel very strongly about libraries. [The Brookline High School facility is named the Sylvia K. Burack Library.]
What do you read just for pleasure?
I love mysteries. Elizabeth George is first-rate, and I like Reginald Hill, and Peter Lovsey - very nice man. I like a little humor in my mysteries, but I don't like violence, which is why I can't stand Carl Hiassen.
What books would you take to a desert island?
I might take someone as old as Willa Cather and Sherwood Anderson. They're writers: They're not out there to titillate and shock. And I would take Dorothy Sayers - when I was in college, she was the big rage. I like Dickens, to tell you the truth. There is a lot of trash on the market.
You give the impression you're going to live forever.
Absolutely. I'm too stubborn to die. I don't get tired.
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