Welcome once again to Shoe Diaries! Okay, it's been a few weeks since my last "Shoe Story" but come on...give a newly back-in-the-working-world girl a break!
You may have forgotten. Why am I doing stories about shoes??
Well, I believe there's something about a pair of shoes that changes your whole mood. Your whole outlook. Let's face it, Cinderella's story would never have worked if she had a glass hat, or a glass handbag. She needed a pair of beautiful shoes in order for her transformation to be complete.
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To read the full intro to the series, just click here, and then submit your own story!...)
And in honor of my new job and being back in the office-world working force (
Blogging for "Fashion Police at E! Television!!!!) I give you my latest entry in my Shoe Stories series..."Working Girl."
"Working Girl"
I bought these shoes almost 20 years ago.
I KNOW! They're totally back in style, right??!!! (Don't say 'no'...I can't hear you).
Back in 1992 I was working at William Morris Agency in NYC as an assistant since 1989 and this was the year I was promoted to Agent in the Literary Department. I didn't get all of the fanfare the other agents got when they were promoted. A huge mass company-wide e-mail. Pats on the back from higher-ups. Invitations to lunch at Michael's. Nope.
Mine was a quiet promotion - like one of those marriages that happens behind a trailer at the end of a shot gun because you're an embarrassment. The heads of my department didn't even send out an e-mail.
I will always believe that the reason my rise at the agency wasn't publicized was because they didn't believe in what I was doing. I had created their Children's Book/Entertainment department and they were VERY skeptical. They didn't believe books for kids made worthwhile money and they certainly didn't believe kids movies could do any kind of serious business. But I did. And I was so happy doing what I was doing.
I signed some amazing clients, lots of talented writers and illustrators whose names might not ring a bell, but also some who might; Dav Pilkey (Captain Underpants...yes...I sold that series); Cynthia Rylant ("Missing May"); Betty and Michael Paraskevas ("Maggie and the Ferocious Beast"), Paul Zindel ("Pardon Me You're Stepping on My Eyeball"); I even had the honor of working Bill Cosby on his Little Bill book series. I TOTALLY AND THOROUGHLY BELIEVED in what I was doing SO MUCH. But they didn't. I was shoved in an small office near the conference room on the second floor - the LAST stop for any important agency business; the FIRST stop for the agents who suddenly liked me because they wanted me to sell their celebrity client's wives crappy children's book idea, "Little Christmas Tree that Could." They'd smile, dump the thoughtless manuscript on my desk and run out of my office before another real agent saw them talking to me.
William Morris sucked.
Anyway, I was so incredibly proud of myself for becoming an agent I went out and bought myself my first REALLY nice pair of shoes. These shoes. Black Gucci stacked heels with cap toe and silver buckle. And I felt SO smart, savvy and SUCCESSFUL when I wore them. I was like a Literary Princess.
WMA (sorry...WME now) let me go in 1997 saying that the kids entertainment business would never be lucrative. I still have nightmares about that place.
But I still have my shoes. My first "I'm a real Literary Agent" shoes.
And every time I wear them I am reminded that I was the ONLY ONE one at that talent agency who believed that entertainment for children could have an impact - and I was right!
Ironically, my first children's book
"On My Way to the Bath" - illustrated by one of my long-time clients and friends, Michael Paraskevas - will be published by Walker Books on May 22nd.
Needless to say...I am TOTALLY wearing these shoes to my first book signing.
These Gucci pumps
