What was it like writing for the J. Peterman Catalog?
AB: Being hired to do copy for the J. Peterman Catalog was a joy and my great good fortune. The creator of the catalogue and its voice, the creative director and the head writer was Don Staley, an advertising genius. He hired me after giving me a caftan from Java and 100 words, due the next day. I faxed the copy to him within an hour. The work was fun, creative, lucrative and demanded that I use all my sensesyou can’t ask for more. I learned a great deal from Don Staley, one of the few mentors I ever managed to pick up and it was a terrible day when Jon Peterman, the nominal head of the company, drove it into bankruptcy. Currently, he’s revived it, and I get to see my old copy re-circulating. BDB: What would you say to those desperate writers whose vocabularies are filled with “if only’s”: if only I had an MBA, if only I had a better platform, if only… AB: I think the only meaningful “if only” is about the writing. “If only” I had spent more time on that ending. “If only” I had done
