nan talese is's senior president of doubleday and nan a. talese doubleday books. she has worked at simon & schuster, houghton mifflin before becoming part of the random house pool. she has published some of the most distinguished and popular authors of our time. 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