SPI Day One: Passion, Power Editors, and Russian Poetry

Zinczenko and Leive at NYU’s Summer Publishing Institute

I’d wager there’s at least one kid in every city who dreams of making it big in New York. While a fair few aspire to Broadway stardom, our kind imagines something slightly more bookish, although undoubtedly as enchanting.

Our kind is the readers, the writers, and the would-be editors and publishers. We grew up checking out too many books from the library, using our allowances at Barnes & Noble, staying up way past midnight to read the new Harry Potter book, and just generally spending hours (possibly days) with our faces buried in text. While for some, this process may have manifested itself in a less-pronounced fashion, 116 of us applied and were accepted to the Summer Publishing Institute at NYU’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies. At SPI, as we call it, we’ve now found ourselves eagerly immersed in one of the most intense summers of our lives. 

Spotlight on Marie Claire and Good Housekeeping

Students visit Good Housekeeping and talk with Editor-in-Chief Rosemary Ellis, (third from right, back row)

The skies were grey and rainy, but the mood inside the Hearst Tower was upbeat and optimistic as a lucky group of NYU Master of Science in Publishing students visited the dramatic, eco-friendly building. The message from two of Hearst’s powerful editors-in-chief was simple: Take risks, and don’t be afraid to do what you love.

During the visit, students toured the Hearst Tower, got a behind-the-scenes look at the Good Housekeeping Research Institute laboratories, and capped it off with chats with Rosemary Ellis, Editor-in-Chief of Good Housekeeping, and Joanna Coles, Editor-in-Chief of Marie Claire.   Students learned that the future is indeed looking bright for two of America’s leading women’s magazines.