Learning from the best
Oh, hi friends!
If you want to be a good writer, you need a good editor.
And if you want to be a great writer, you needed Sir Harry Evans.
We learn so much from the people around us. Everything, really. Twelve years ago, when I started working at The Daily Beast, the job that taught me everything and gifted me my closest friends, I met Harry and never wrote a sentence the same way again.
Of course, Harry was a titan of journalism, but he was also married to our boss, Tina Brown, so you’d expect some stern, gruff guy you’d be terrified to ride the elevator with (actually, that was Barry Diller), not a twinkly-eyed fast-talking gentleman who wanted to talk headline structure.
Craft, craft, craft. That was the key.
He was delighted to teach young reporters the best, clearest way to explain their thoughts. He caught typos and sent them to our homepage email. Because he was always right and always kind, we’d jump to fix them right away, embarrassed we didn’t catch them sooner. He was always cornered at parties. Who wouldn’t want to talk to Harry? He remembered names.
One thing I admired most was his monstrous energy. He published his last book only two years ago. I always thought: This is the life of someone who adores his work. This is a life to envy.
People come into our lives in so many ways: at jobs, through friends, chance meetings. They can go just as suddenly.
But some people leave behind an indefinable aura. You can only be glad that for a brief time you got to sit near the glow.
Today I’ll try to love my work the way Harry loved his. I hope you're equally inspired.
Read more about the greatest editor of his generation, Sir Harold Evans: June 28, 1928-September 23, 2020.
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Thanks, as always, for reading.
Love, Kara