Memoir installment #10

In which I hightail it out of Seattle

In March of 1988, roughly nine months after I arrived in Seattle, I heard about a new publication set to launch back in New York called 7 Days that was looking for editorial assistants. 7 Days was going to be a city weekly. It was bankrolled by Leonard Stern, one of the richest men in New York City and the then-owner of the Village Voice. It was envisioned as an uptown version of a smart alternative newspaper, which sounded cool. I gathered the clippings I’d accumulated over the months of my internship, and overnighted them to New York, and a few days later—on my birthday, as it happens—I received word that the editor of the 7 Days lifestyle section wanted me to come to New York for an interview and would even pay for my flight if I found a cheap one.  

All I’d ever wanted was to work in publishing—I had probably chosen Seattle at least in part because I thought it would be an easier city in which to get my first break in than New York. But it was becoming increasingly clear to me that my future was not with the rollerbladers, the weekend hikers, the Starbucks addicts of the Pacific Northwest. So a job back in New York—where most of my friends had settled, post-graduation, and where I pretty much knew I’d end up eventually—felt exactly right.