The New York Times - USA (2020-06-29)

THE NEW YORK TIMES, MONDAY, JUNE 29, 2020 N B9

During a normal week, Jordan
Pavlin, the editorial director at
Knopf, seldom ate at her desk. De-
pending on the day, she might be
meeting with literary agents over
lunch, catching up with an author
over an after-work drink or hav-
ing a quick bite before a cocktail
party for a newly released title.
She still doesn’t eat at her desk.
Since her office closed because of
the coronavirus pandemic, lunch

is at her kitchen table, with her
three teenagers, every day. “I’m
driving them crazy,” she said.
You can read alone, you can
write alone, but publishing is a
very social business. Heavily con-
centrated in New York City, a lot of
the work was traditionally done
face to face — before the outbreak
forced most offices to close. So
while books are a good match for
this moment when people are
spending so much time at home,
book publishing, in many ways, is
not.
There is a certain intimacy to
the book business. For many au-
thors, turning in a manuscript is
like handing over a chunk of their
soul, and delicate conversations
about revisions are generally best
when you can look someone in the
eye. Editors and agents build rela-
tionships over the course of years,

learning each other’s tastes in

writers, themes and ideas. The

meandering conversations that

lead there just don’t work as well

on Zoom.

“I don’t necessarily need to take

Eric to lunch for him to think of me

for his next great novel,” Ms.

Pavlin said of Eric Simonoff, a lit-

erary agent she’s known for al-

most 30 years whose clients in-

clude Jonathan Lethem and

Jhumpa Lahiri. “But for the next

generation, it would be harder. To

create that bond without going for

drinks and spending the time and

saying the indiscreet things, all

the stuff you need to do early on in

your career to build lasting rela-

tionships.

“Of course, these are business

relationships,” she said. “But it’s a

business based on the stories you

love.”

Chelcee Johns, an assistant edi-

tor at 37 Ink, an imprint at Simon

& Schuster, is relatively early in

her career. Before everyone be-

gan working remotely, she had

been making an effort to meet

agents for lunch at least once a

week to build her connections and

get more manuscript submissions

coming in. As a young editor, she

said, it was also easier for her to

take advantage of the expertise

around the office when she could

pop by senior editors’ desks and

not have to compete with their

child-care obligations at home.

Now she’s trying to network from

a distance.

“The relationships are key, and

I have seen agents be open to a

Zoom coffee hangout. That’s what

I’ve been trying to do,” Ms. Johns

said. “I think two months in, peo-

ple started to realize, ‘Oh, we’re in

this,’ and everything picked back

up, whether it’s submissions from

agents or ‘OK, let’s get these

meetings back in the books.’ This

is our new normal for a lot longer

than we thought.”

Jacey Mitziga, an assistant at

the New York literary agency De-

Fiore and Company, was meeting

regularly with agents, editors and

other publishing employees

around her age, hoping that as

they climbed to more senior posi-

tions, they would grow together.

“We’re the next face in publish-

ing, and I’m thinking about who I

want to know and starting to build

those relationships now,” she said.

“But I would say that’s been a

challenge. I feel like it’s been on

pause.”

Some aspects of publishing are

well suited to remote work. With-

out her commute from Brooklyn

to Midtown Manhattan, Ms. Johns

said she finds more time to edit

during the workweek by sitting

down with manuscripts from

roughly 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. Indeed,

many editors already worked

from home one day a week so they

could focus on actual editing, a

part of the job that is often sub-

sumed by the meetings and inter-

ruptions of office life. Alvina Ling,

editor in chief of Little, Brown

Books for Young Readers, previ-

ously spent Mondays through

Thursdays at the office, punctuat-

ed by business lunches two or

three times a week at places like

Morrell Wine Bar in Rockefeller

Center.

“A lot of people from outside

think editors read and edit all day,

and that’s not the case,” she said.

On Fridays, Ms. Ling would set

up at her kitchen table for mara-

thon editing sessions. When she

started working from home in

mid-March, that much wasn’t

new, but she did have to make

some adjustments to her worksta-

tion. “I’ve switched sides of the ta-

ble on videoconferencing because

this one side has a little bit more of

an attractive backdrop,” she said.

“In the first couple of meetings

people said, ‘Oh, I see your bike!’ ”

Like many industries, publish-

ing is trying to figure out what

from this forced experiment in re-

mote work makes sense to keep.

Can companies be more flexible

about their staff working from

home? Do they have to keep rent-

ing so much office space? And did

that meeting really need to be a

meeting, or could it have just been

an email?

“I miss seeing authors and

agents,” Ms. Pavlin of Knopf said

in an email, “and I still believe

there are aspects of sitting togeth-

er over a meal that foster intimacy

and trust in ways that are genu-

inely essential to how we do busi-

ness in this particular industry, an

industry based on personal pas-

sions. But in retrospect, that

schedule seems unnecessarily

overstuffed.”

Publishing is also about manu-

facturing physical objects that are

beautiful, a process that relies on

people working together across

departments and with particular

tools on hand. Production and de-

sign teams are equipped with

high-end printers that are pre-

cisely calibrated to look like the

finished product, for example, and

light rooms with graphite gray

walls that create a consistent and

particular quality of light.

At home, Dave Caplan, the cre-

ative director at Little, Brown

Books for Young Readers, nudges

Legos out of the way and spreads

illustrations under a skylight in

his sons’ bedroom. It’s not quite

the light rooms and fancy printers

he’s used to, but it does give him

both natural light and a big

enough surface to see all the

pages in a New York City apart-

ment.

Like so many parents, Mr. Cap-

lan is balancing working from

home with taking care of his sons,

Silas, 8, and Sebastian, 6. So he

has set up an “office” in a closet in

their bedroom. “It’s all of nine

square feet, but it’s all mine,” he

said.

But he has found some unique

advantages to this arrangement:

a built-in focus group.

“Every night after dinner, I’ll be

working, and my son pops in and

says, ‘What can I help you with to-

day?’ ” Mr. Caplan said of Silas. “I

show him what I’m working on,

different versions of covers. Ev-

erybody’s an art director.”

Business of Books

Was Not Created

For Remote Work

By ELIZABETH A. HARRIS

Chelcee Johns, an assistant editor at 37 Ink, outside her Brooklyn apartment. Before the lockdown, she had been

meeting agents for lunch to build her connections. “This is our new normal for a lot longer than we thought,” she said.

DEMETRIUS FREEMAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

You can read alone,

but publishing is a

very social business.

Planning to escape to the great
outdoors for a socially distant
summer? There are a few apps
you may want to download before
you go. After all, the tools below
won’t just help you travel from
here to there, they’ll help you get
off the beaten paths in national
parks, learn about road and trail
closures, discover nearby pre-
serves and beaches, find scenic
rest stops, satisfy cravings for
takeaway food and keep you up-
to-date on the latest travel and
health information.
To be sure, there are many prac-
tical apps for outdoor adventure
and road tripping, like Waze (for
navigation), GasBuddy (for find-
ing affordable gas stations) and
Flush (for locating public bath-
rooms). And planning and book-
ing apps, like TripAdvisor Hotels
& Vacation, have been updated
with notices and guidance about
travel amid Covid-19. But the fol-
lowing apps may prove to be par-
ticularly useful by helping trav-
elers stay socially distant yet still
savor the timeless pleasures of
summer — hiking, biking, camp-
ing and dinners under the stars in
wide open spaces.

Discovering the Outdoors

Wondering what lies just around
the bend? Roadtrippers uses your
location to show you beaches,
parks, lakes, nature preserves,
farms, botanical gardens, public
art, monuments, vacation photo-
ops, camping and R.V. spots, to
name but a few. You can easily
search for attractions near you, or
along a route you set, then navi-
gate there with turn-by-turn driv-
ing directions.
Roadtrippers is especially
handy because you can filter for
the types of places you want to
see, outdoor activities and desti-
nations. Tap an attraction for
more information and photos, and
select “add to trip” to include in
your itinerary, which you can save
and export to a PDF if you like.
The app also has inspirational
travel guides, like “Classic USA
Road Trips.” And you can choose
from nearby itineraries such as
“The Coolest Attractions and
Stops Along I-80,” so you can be-
gin to feel as if you’re on vacation
long before you reach your desti-
nation. Cost: free; $29.99 a year to
upgrade to Roadtrippers Plus,
which has features such as offline
maps, live traffic information, itin-
eraries with numerous way points
and no advertisements.
For those with a yen for oddities
— an outdoor bathtub in West Vir-
ginia’s Berkeley Springs State
Park, said to have been used by
George Washington; a memorial
stone in Hampton, N.H., for a
woman accused of witchcraft in
the 1600s; the Jell-O Museum in
Le Roy, N. Y., where the jiggly des-
sert was invented — there’s the
Roadside America app, which dis-

plays (occasionally dubious) at-

tractions (i.e., a 22-foot so-called

“evil clown” sign in Middletown,

N. J.) by city, route and theme

such as “ghost towns,” “railroad”

and “freaky hoo-ha.” Cost: $2.99

for one region, such as the North-

east; $6.99 to unlock the remain-

ing regions.

Making Pit Stops

Need to fill the tank? Craving

pizza? Want to stretch your legs

somewhere scenic? For years, the

Iexit Interstate Exit Guide app

has helped travelers see what’s

coming up at major exits, be it

food, coffee, lodging, attractions

or gas (nowadays, prices are in-

cluded so you can pick the cheap-

est station). Allow the app to ac-

cess your location, or search by

state and highway. Cost: Free;

$1.99 for the ad-free version.

On the Allset app you’ll find

restaurants and coffee shops with

banners that say “no-contact

pickup” (meaning that they have

a dedicated contactless pickup

area inside) and “curbside

pickup” (your order will be

brought to your car), enabling you

to swing by for burgers, Indian,

even a glass of sangria (to be en-

joyed once you’ve exited the car, of

course). Cost: Free.

Yes, you know Google Maps of-

fers navigation. But you may not

have noticed that the app has add-

ed “Takeout” to its home screen,

which means you can now tap to

find participating restaurants.

Google Maps can also locate

nearby grocery stores, parks,

A.T.M.s, gas stations and parking

lots, making it an essential road

tripper’s companion. (It can even

be helpful when striving for social

distance. Tap on a New York City

subway station, for example, and

you’ll see information about serv-

ice modifications because of

Covid-19, and be able to check out

how busy that particular station is

at different times.) Cost: Free.

Listen to narrated audio tours

— thoughtful stories of history,

wildlife, geology, people and

points of interest — as you drive

through national parks and other

stirring landscapes (like Inter-

state 15 between Los Angeles and

southern Utah) with the Just

Ahead: Audio Travel Guides app,

which uses your smartphone’s

GPS. No internet connection is re-

quired, and you can play the

stories manually as well. The

guide to Great Smoky Mountains

National Park, for instance, takes

passengers from the park’s low-

lands to its peaks, past mountain

vistas, wildflowers and waterfalls,

offering pointers about hiking

various trails, less-visited areas

and the most likely places to spot

wildlife. There are more than a

dozen guides so far (to parks such

as Badlands, Capitol Reef, Death

Valley, Yosemite and Zion), with

more on the way. Cost: You can lis-

ten to free samples before pur-

chasing a guide (up to $19.99

each); a one-year pass to access

all guides is $29.99.

There are official National Park

Service apps for a number of

parks, each with their own fea-

tures and notices, like alerts about

Covid-19-phased reopenings. The

NPS Yellowstone National Park

app, for instance, has self-guided

audio walking tours, things to do,

cultural history, a detailed park

map and updated geyser predic-

tions. The best way to find the var-

ious apps is to search your app

store by park name or “National

Park Service.” Cost: Free. Tip:

For up-to-the-minute information

about trail closures and parking

availability, it’s generally a good

idea to follow a particular park’s

Twitter updates.

Choosing the Best Hike

With more than 100,000 trails for

hiking, running and biking, All-

Trails makes it a breeze for trav-

elers around the world to discover

nearby trails and sort them by fea-

tures such as length, difficulty, ele-

vation, attractions (waterfalls,

caves, wildlife), dog-friendliness

and trail traffic. There are photos

and reviews from fellow app users

(“Very challenging on the knees,

but worth the effort”), and helpful

information like weather, UV in-

dexes, and sunrise and sunset

times. You can track where you

go, record your route on a map,

and share the details with friends

and family. Cost: Free. (Note:

Beachgoers who regularly walk,

run and swim might like the inter-

active and eye-pleasing Tide alert

(NOAA)-USA app, which has tide

charts, sunrise and sunset times,

and a moon phase calendar. Cost:

Free.)

National parks lovers may want

to try the National Park Trail

Guide app, a user-friendly col-

lection of thousands of trails

through some of the nation’s most

breathtaking places — Acadia,

Badlands, Mount Rainier, Zion —

with no cell signal required. Cost:

Free.

GPS Tracks is a favorite of out-

door enthusiasts who want to

track their routes, navigate to way

points, share their location, and

see and save maps of precisely

where they’ve been. Cost: $3.99;

more features through in-app sub-

scriptions, from $19.99.

Staying Safe

The Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention mobile app has

broad information about Covid-19,

as well as a link to a “Travel in the

U.S.” page that addresses the risks

of traveling now (be it the risks to

different people, or the different

risks of various types of trans-

portation); provides questions to

ask yourself if you’re considering

traveling; touches on state and lo-

cal travel restrictions; offers guid-

ance for protecting yourself and

others, as well as tips for cleaning

and disinfecting your lodgings;

and answers frequently asked

questions about the safety of

camping, and of traveling to visit

family and friends. Cost: Free.

Citymapper has updated times,

maps and advisories, including

those about Covid-19, for trans-

portation in major cities. For in-

stance, in New York, a recent alert

pointed out that face masks are re-

quired, that the state was advising

people to use public transporta-

tion only when essential and that

there were reduced services (de-

tails about subway lines, trains,

buses and ferries are included).

Cost: Free.

Reserving R.V.s and Campsites

Whether it’s a camper van, motor

home or pop-up trailer, if you’re

thinking about renting an R.V.,

consider the Outdoorsy app. A

peer-to-peer marketplace, it en-

ables you to search by location

and filter results by things like ve-

hicle type and size, as well as

kitchen features (oven, mi-

crowave, dining table); amenities,

including bike racks and washer/

dryers; and entertainment op-

tions like televisions and Wi-Fi.

Cost: Free.

Once you’ve got a recreational

vehicle, the question becomes:

Where will you go? RV Parks &

Campgrounds makes planning

(or winging it) easy by showing

you nearby R.V. parks and camp-

grounds, including photos, re-

views and amenities (water, elec-

tric, Wi-Fi, pool, pets allowed),

along with grocery stores, sports

shops and places to fuel up. Cost:

Free.

You may also want to check out

the Recreation.gov app, where

you can search and see availabil-

ity for tent camping, R.V. camping

and cabins. Cost: Free.

Apps for a Socially Distant Outdoor Getaway, From Routes to Trails to Lodging

By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM

JOANNE KIM

VIRUS FALLOUT