was hired as features editor of Boston

        magazine for two primary reasons: to bring in big-name writers and help win writing awards. The magazine regularly garnered awards for design and overall excellence, but had not won one for writing in a few years. I met both objectives by convincing National Book Award finalist Andre Dubus III (House of Sand and Fog) to profile an Iraq War veteran—a serious topic about which he produced a worthy piece, but things didn’t start out so rosy.

     Samantha Power and John Updike had already turned me down. Writers of that caliber have no cause to work for a local magazine, albeit a prestigious one. I was getting desperate by the time I managed to get Andre on the phone and, fittingly perhaps, he said no but didn’t close the door entirely. We agreed to speak again.

     The magazine’s headquarters were in a grand old building in the Back Bay, across from Symphony Hall. The editors all worked in cubicles on an elevated platform in a two-story open space, so it was as though we were onstage, and my cubicle was just feet from my boss’s. I was, therefore, on full display as I wrangled with Andre that second go-round.

     He resumed his efforts to maneuver out of the assignment. I then blurted out, “I’m gonna lose my job if you don’t do this story!”—hardly a realistic threat, but Andre then committed a fatal error: he laughed. I knew then that I had him. He later did a second story for the magazine, on a felon turned artist.

     Funny thing about great writers: Not only are they easier to edit than lesser writers—and maybe that stands to reason—but they’re more open to editing. Maybe that makes sense too. Certainly Andre was, and that doesn’t mean that he took all my suggestions. He didn’t. I prefer writers who don’t. Editing is a complex ballet, an exchange dependent on the careful consideration of ideas and language. No one is always right, but when a writer and editor work well together—and I think he’d agree that we did—they listen to one another and work through issues that arise.

     I also recruited Robin Cook and Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. at Boston and previously convinced Quincy Troupe (The Pursuit of Happyness) and actor/comedian Franklyn Ajaye (Car Wash) to write for Emerge magazine.