My first job was as an intern for McGraw Hill Publishing Co., then located at the famous light blue skyscraper designed by Raymond Hood in the 1930s (which is now mostly vacant). For six months, I shuttled around the company's 30-odd magazines, ending up at the biggest and best of them, Business Week, where I became a staff writer, covering whatever interested me. After I wrote an article about the book business, paperback division, I was lured away by New American Library, publishers of Signet and Mentor paperback books, and appointed Director of Public Relations. A few years later, I became an account executive at a public relations agency. My chief account was Carter-Wallace Drugs, which had just brought a sensational new pharmaceutical product to market: Miltown, the world's first tranquilizer. I think I still have some in an old bottle someplace.

Public relations was lucrative (a variation of "lucre," often modified by the word "filthy"), but journalism kept calling to me. I gave up singing the praises of Miltown and became associate editor of Chain Store Magazine, a Lebhar-Friedman publication. A few years later, I became an editor at the Research Institute of America, a Kiplinger-like publisher of business newsletters. I spent five years as editor-in-chief of Tomorrow magazine, which explored developing technologies. I also wrote for several other RIA newsletters, including the flagship publication, the Research Institute Report, which covered Washington, Wall Street and other information centers of interest to business and industry. At the same time, I began writing magazine articles, freelance. By the mid-1970s, I was ready to give up my regular job for a freelance career. Since 1974, I've been on my own.

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