Berry says that although she had become interested in publishing during her undergraduate years, going to work for Doubleday was not part of any master plan.

Berry’s publishing career would take her from Doubleday to the magazine world, where she helped launch the American version of The Economist, worked for Newsweek and evaluated prospective magazines for the German conglomerate Gruner Jahr to purchase.

“Book publishing is slow and you are working on titles that aren’t going to come out until the following year. The rhythm is very different if you are working for a weekly magazine,” says Berry.

Later on in life, she changed jobs again, working at Scholastic as the director of marketing for a national reading program used by elementary school teachers to teach children how to read.

“It was one of the classic stories of ‘what else is there to do?’” she says.

In 1989, Berry attended what she refers to as a “Harvard-Yalish” party in New York City. At this party, she met her future husband, David Berry—a young Securities Analyst who had graduated from Yale and received a graduate degree at the London School of Economics. The two started dating soon after.

The Harvard-Yale rivalry proved no match for true love and the two were married in 1991. One year later they saw the birth of their first child, a son named Nile.

In 1994, Berry had her second son Reed, and decided to cut back to part-time work at Scholastic. Two years later, Alex, her third son, came along. For the next five years, Berry continued to balance her part-time work at Scholastic with her motherhood responsibilities.

But then Sept. 11 happened and it changed her life forever.

A NEW LIFE

Berry says she has never watched the video of the two planes crashing into the World Trade Center towers.

“I never saw either of the planes of going into the buildings, and on that day I kept expecting him [David] to come home,” Berry said.

But once Berry came to terms with the fact that she would not see her husband and the father of her three sons again, she began to focus on a new way of life.

Berry immediately quit her job at Scholastic and focused on raising her sons as a single mother.

“I had three kids, and it was triage at home so going back to work has never been something that I question,” Berry says.