By Brian Feinblum, Chief Marketing Officer
In a recent Q&A with industry professional Clay Smith, who is the Editor in Chief of Kirkus Reviews, Smith reveals his path to his current position, the future of the book review magazine, how the publishing industry is affected by changes in technology, and more:
MEDIA CONNECT: Clay, what road did you take to rise to editor in chief of Kirkus?
Clay Smith: My first journalism job was at the Austin Chronicle, the alt weekly in Austin, and I immediately gravitated to the books department there. An alt weekly is a great place to start in journalism. I found the editors there really receptive to writing for them, even if I didn’t directly work for them. I eventually became a senior editor there, leaving in 2002 to attend NYU’s Cultural Reporting and Criticism graduate program. My timing was all off when I graduated, and I realized that I had only interviewed people who wanted to be interviewed by me: writers, musicians, filmmakers. So I did a six–month investigative journalism fellowship at the Dallas Observer and interviewed some people who didn’t really want me poking around. I’m very glad I did it, but I’d rather stick with covering writers. At the end of that fellowship, I began working seasonally for Sundance Film Festival, interviewing their filmmakers for their website, which is also when the Texas Book Festival called me, because their literary director position was open. I was the literary director of that festival from 2005-2012, doing freelance journalism when I could, and I joined Kirkus as features editor in November of 2012.
