among them, margaret atwood, ian mcewan, thomas -- barry underwood, valerie martin and pat conroy. nan talese. [applause] >> i do apologize for being late. the amtrak engine decided it wanted to put on the brakes and he did it by itself. i had a terrible time getting it going but here i am. as marie said, i have a very long career beginning really learning publishing at random house at a time that publishing -- i think were often referred to as the golden years but roger straus on for our strauss, charles scribner and knopf owned alfred knopf so it wasn't a joke. in fact you had enough money to go into the whole thing to begin with. but i started and my interest has always been serious fiction and nonfiction. so that is what i publish through the 60s and in the 70s i was at simon & schuster, where i first began to publish being mcewan and margaret atwood, barry unsworth and i commissioned schindler's list at that point. tom conneely always submitted to books to be published at the same time and one was perfectly wonderful and the other was i thought a clinker. i made an offer on on