Columbia's
Go-Go Grads
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (AUGUST 2003)
If
it’s August, it’s — yes — time to catch up with this
year’s crop of 100 stupendously accomplished Columbia
Publishing Course graduates. As in years past, we’ve
captured their collective chutzpah in the composite
biographical sketch below (all achievements are taken
from actual student biographies). Live dangerously and
see them for yourself at Columbia’s Career Day, to be
held August 4 at the Time Life Building in New York;
call (212) 854-8047 or email publishing@jrn.columbia.edu.
To her parents’ surprise, Ms. Student did not become
a bull-rider like her brother, but instead self-published
her first book at age seven using a recycled diary,
stickers, and Crayola markers. According to her town
librarian, she set a record for borrowing books at age
five, and at fifteen, she took that early love of reading
to The Associated Press where she became the AP’s youngest-ever
book reviewer. Having composed her college application
in rhyming verse, she entered Yale with a limited worldview
yet graduated with a thesis focusing on linguistic cross-dressing
in three of Shakespeare’s comedies. Ms. Student also
hopes to translate Shakespeare into Mandarin as part
of her Fulbright scholarship to Taiwan. As a senior,
she interned for a literary agency and was named Query
Guru and Goddess of Photocopying. Writing about collective
memory and the architectural landscapes of Paris and
studying Francophone literature over cappuccinos at
the Sorbonne fueled Ms. Student’s desire to embrace
a career in the alchemy of language and culture. While
working as a consultant and technical writer in the
drinking water industry, she pursued a freelance writing
career, studying creative writing under Ann Beattie;
her prose includes “So Not Kosher,” exploring the physiognomy
of her Ashkenazi nose. She has also illustrated a German
children’s book, which was exhibited in the WorldExpo2000
in Hannover. After leaving her job as a video game publicist
and interning at the Howard Stern Show, she wrote
one line of an episode of Family Law, a CBS series
cancelled last spring. Despite a vocal injury, she still
sings jingles and once auditioned for Star Search,
but now dedicates most of her free time to Ashtanga
yoga, metal smithing, and syncretism. Our munificent
student has also recently competed in a fundraising
Iron Chef tournament. Still donning sneakers in a world
of Manolos, she has mountaineered in the Grand Tetons
and was raised to appreciate a good horse.
©2003
Publishing Trends
