CORRECTION APPENDED

The road from a Harvard creative writing class to a debut novel may seem formidable, but not for Bridget J. “Bridie” Clark ’99. After spending years working behind the scenes as an editor, last month she put her own title on the shelves. [CORRECTION APPENDED]

Clark’s novel, “Because She Can,” is loosely based on her own experiences in the surprisingly colorful publishing industry.

“It was the classic ‘write what you know’ situation,” says Clark. “After graduation, I went straight into publishing, and from there I jumped straight into this book.

“There was definitely no shortage of material to draw from; crazy, over-the-top egos were pretty common along the way.”

Not only did Clark have ample sources to draw upon, but also ample training. Her first exposure to the writer’s life came from a creative writing class she stumbled upon at Harvard.

“That class was probably one of the most intimidating I’d ever taken,” Clark remembers. “Reading and writing that much in college, then doing the same thing in the publishing industry, was good training for writing a book myself.”

The published result came as no surprise to former blockmate Alexandra R. Wilkis ’99. “It was always pretty clear to me she wanted to be a writer,” Wilkis says. “Her love of reading and writing made it an easy decision...Very often, whenever I’d write something, I’d run it by her to get the extra vote of confidence.”

Wilkis wasn’t the only one; Laura B. Zuckerman ’99 recalls asking Clark to edit an art history paper.

Clark, a member of the Crimson Key Society and the Hasty Pudding Club, founded an after-school tutoring program with Wilkis, and Clark taught the language arts. She began to adopt a literary bent, concentrating in English.

As an intern at Warner Books in her junior year, her experiences piqued her interest in publishing, and the very next year she found herself working as an assistant at Vanity Fair, forgoing more conventional career possibilities such as law school and advertising.

“There were so many moments where I saw myself doing something else,” Clark says. “For a writer, the only prerequisite is experience.”

From Vanity Fair, Clark worked her way up in the industry, landing jobs at publishing houses such as Simon & Schuster and writing for periodicals such as New York Magazine. Her latest job was at ReganBooks, working for Judith Regan, once hailed by the Daily Telegraph as “the angriest woman in the media” and who recently made headlines after being fired following her attempt to publish O.J. Simpson’s book “If I Did It.”

“The learning curve at ReganBooks was incredibly steep,” Clark says. “It was a stressful job, definitely, but also an incredible education...Judith was very demanding and very driven, for both good and bad. It was a long 10 months.”

Clark took those 10 months in stride as just the latest challenge in her career. And working under one of the industry’s most terrifying bosses provided inspiration for Clark’s own novel, though she insists it is purely a work of fiction.

“Because She Can” is a Devil-Wears-Prada-esque novel chronicling one young woman’s tumultuous trip through the most trying stage of her career, and Clark includes juicy details of the industry’s inner workings. The juiciest is Clark’s villainess, head editor Vivian Grant, who, like Regan—according to the New York Daily News—is reported to have had an affair with a public official.

Clark wrote the first draft of “Because She Can” within three months of leaving her position at ReganBooks.

“A demanding workplace makes you more determined to work on your own,” she says. “Besides, it seemed like a good moment to take the plunge, in the back of my head. I could always find another desk job of whatever I wrote didn’t sell, and I really liked the idea of a job I could do in my pajamas.”

Clark says she sought to write a “quarter-life crisis” novel aimed at the so-called chick-lit set. She says her novel is a story about a stage that is all too frequently ignored: the years after college and before middle age.

“Writing on the other side of that journey, when you’re 28, 29, has been a great experience,” she says. “I feel now like what I felt like when I graduated from college. There are things that interest me, but I’m not sure how they’re going to take form.”

Clark will appear at the Harvard Coop tonight for a public book signing at 7 p.m.

CORRECTION

The March 8, 2007 news article "Grad Dips Her Pen Into the Publishing Business" incorrectly identified the subject of the story as Bridget J. “Bridie” Clark. In fact, her name is Bridie J. Clark.