Beyond the Glass Ceiling | Women, Collaboration and how two women grew a successful publishing company from grass roots
October, 2014: Princeton, NJ: When Wild River Consulting & Publishing, LLC, owners Joy Stocke and Kim Nagy first met for coffee in 2005, neither could have predicted how their futures would merge. Fueled by a passionate conversation about literature and more important, the power of stories to heal and transform, Stocke and Nagy—writers, editors, dedicated entrepreneurs and busy mothers—felt an instant kinship over the impact stories can make in every sector—and the craft it takes to tell them well.
They believed strongly in a nearly unheard-of approach at the time—the power of collaboration—a force slowly picking up speed with the growth of the Internet.
Stocke, a literary journalist with a degree in Radio-Broadcast Journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was already a well-established author, community organizer of writers, and a founder of the Meridian Writers Collective reading series in Philadelphia (one of the first of its kind) and grass-roots publishing initiatives. In 2004, she brought her reputation for editorial direction and content curation to The Bucks County Writer literary magazine, situated in the heart of the “Genius belt”.
Fascinated with rapid technology developments (and possible cost-savings) Stocke was soon looking to bring the publication’s reputation and presence online to grow its demographic. She faced resistance. At the time, many publishers thumbed their noses at “online” magazines. But two years after Wild River Review (www.wildriverreview.com) launched its first issue in 2006, the Utne Reader named the website one of the “great” literary magazines, and praised its international literary flavor and “exceptionally interesting interviews”.
Groomed in the boardrooms of traditional publishers from London to New York City, Nagy came from the world of marketing and publicity management for houses such as Princeton University Press, Routledge UK and WW Norton. In 2003, shortly after the birth of her daughter, she left publishing to write as a work-at-home mom, focusing closely on content creation. But, Nagy never forgot her marketing and PR training, which relentlessly begged the question: “Who am I writing for?” for her clients. As passionate about promotion as she is about creation, Nagy stressed that without user-centric analysis and outreach, no creative or business initiative could ever connect with its core audience.
It was an approach the team at Wild River adopted and expanded as Stocke and Nagy rapidly grew their literary audience of creatives well beyond the mailing list of the Bucks County Writer to include international authors and journalists, publishers and TV-producers, academics and photographers, as well as non-profit leaders and entrepreneurs. In 2009, with a growing demand, Stocke and Nagy combined their talents under one roof to form Wild River Consulting & Publishing, LLC.
Once upon a time, in a land of endless fire, a woman’s sovereign form flew hard and fast through the sky, through the night, through the dawn, through the noon-day sun, through orange fields of licking heat with indomitable blue centers.
Durga was born with a quest of gigantic magnitude. To slay the most dangerous, the most undefeated, the most eruptive demon you can imagine. A water buffalo of immense size, strength, and indestructibility.
And a huge blind streak.
I hate to tell you about Durga’s enemy, whose name was Mahisasura.
You might at first be fooled because Mahisasura has a bottomless kind of craving for life that we sometimes sum up with “Carpe Diem!”. But hold up! It is the kind of life that enslaves rather than liberates you. The more you grab for, the more numb you become, the more immediate pleasure you experience and then crave AGAIN , the less you will feel.
And though we all might distance ourselves from this particular demon’s metaphorical indulgences, there is life-squashing poison in its never-enough, loops of craving that only leads to more craving and confusion.
Another related problem is that while we will likely be able to see Mahishisha in others (in great detail) –we will neglect to identify all the places where the nasty spirit has visited not just them but us.
The times when we lose sense of what we care about most and the bigger picture.
Enter Durga.
Durga is the reality of time riding by with her thousand choices. There’s a reason she strikes a pose atop her lusciously pawed tiger, a growling container for our basest selves, leaping through grassy meadows and clouds of stars faster than you just blinked. Durga’s the last chance, every minute, to ride atop rather than chase your primal tiger, to change your course by acknowledging where you might have taken –and where you still might take-the right action. The edge of each second and I’ll just say, you know it when you are in it. Hint: It sucks.
If Durga, had a tagline it would be one word. And my guess is that word will surprise you.
Durga is judgy. But before you get your back up, you really should thank her for it. She’s the kind of judgy not at all about how your living room hasn’t been vacuumed and a lot more about the kind of places where you are making dangerous choices that have nothing to do with living in accordance with your soul’s deepest hunger, which is what will matter to you at the end of your days.
“To know when to be generous and when firm—that is wisdom.”
― Edith Wharton
One Sunday afternoon in January, as the clouds turned violet-orange through 3pm windows., I arranged broccoli florets on the counter. A flood of peace came over me as I watched the light shift slowly upon my neighbor’s roof. I half sang, half chopped, immersed in getting-ready-for-the-week soup preparation to a soulful playlist queued up on Joni Mitchell. I sorted through piles of bills and mail on the other counter when all the vegetables were simmering.
From the living room, my daughter asked me if she could watch her favorite Netflix series before she did her homework. She pointed out that she had just chopped three bowls full of carrots and celery sticks and assured me that her room was “all good.” But, I knew her as well as I knew myself in the face of the delicious Netflix vortex. Are you kidding me? You’re really going to pull yourself away when you still have homework to do?
I will mommy.
No, not today. Homework first.
In that way that minor things become much bigger things, within a few minutes, our teeny tiny and yet, starkly contrasting points of view turned into a “I mean it” tussle over said TV/ homework/ electronics continuum that grew further ablaze into a minor household culture war, and she finally went to her desk in a sulk.
I watched her walk away, feeling deeply bummed that my soup-making, belt-out-loud in the kitchen session had been stopped in its tracks. NOT ENJOYING my hands-on-the-hips-mom role in the current play.
I went back to the kitchen to stare out the window no longer in sun-glowing awe but instead in blank agitation punctuated with self doubt (oh for god’s sake, should I just have let her?) that led me three times (ok, four!) to the bottom of the stairs and once to my daughter’s door.
C’mon, I want to talk, honey! I knocked harder than I wanted. Leave me alone, she intoned flatly.
When my daughter came back downstairs an hour later, we began one of our couch talks, the exact kind I’d been nagging for the entire preceding 45 minutes. But now she was ready.
I was stuck mommy, she explained later. (Boy, did I ever get it.)
Then, even more quietly…..she added.
“Well, I actually like that you are strict…sometimes. ”
I was too surprised to speak –and took it in
Then, quietly:“Even when I don’t like what you are saying. It’s that it makes me feel safe.”
I dared not utter a word. I just kissed the top of her head in the exact place where I still smell her baby scent–and I grabbed my journal. Because when I get clarity-candles handed to me in the soon to be descending dark, I like to store them safely for the next power outage.
And, ok, you might be wondering. You call that strict? Making sure your kid does their homework? I hear you. But what happens to you when dealing with extreme resistance and thrust in the role, only, because you (so very inconveniently) know in your center of centers better? Me? I don’t like it so much.
It’s a burden. It’s a drag. It’s the need to say something hard imperfectly, or, harder still, enter the tiger growling domain of power struggles. But it’s also–very importantly–an act of deep deep caring. A messy old verb.
May I add. The whole idea of “good” vs. ‘bad” parent is the wrong staircase and (over-simplistically) squishes out the much more “what the hell do I do now?” slippery middle perch. A staircase I know well. But the main thing I always do is summed up in three words as–or more– powerful than I love you.
I keep trying.
I acknowledge that there will be struggle–and a greater good derived from that struggle. So, knowing that hypocrisy flashlights will be shined brightly in my eyes for years to come–and that I gotta try to face (ugh) and own them all for my girl to learn that imperfection, while it isn’t “perfect,” stings your eyes and glares some hard mojo upon your raw humanity, is usually eventually okay and normal.
But, beyond parenting, I don’t think I’m alone when I say that setting limits, naming them and then, harder still, holding them, can be an intense strain…uncomfortable…confusing…paralyzing….achingly vulnerable and unknowing.
And, so we come with our flying carpets, me, anyway, with my head deeply bowed in necessary humility, at Durga’s sky-lined doorstep, the Hindu goddess of boundaries with her three sweet-inner-gaze-opening eyes and thousand love-weapon-laden (each one of which will completely blow your mind) arms.
Stay tuned to learn why a simple (honest) smile from Durga exerts more force than a Mock-Five aircraft.
“No matter how much you’re gunning for truth, the human ego is also a stealthy low crawling bastard and for pretty much everybody, getting used to who you are is a lifelong spiritual struggle. “The Art of Memoir, Mary Karr
“Above all, don’t lie to yourself.” Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Art of Memoir, Mary Karr’s how-to on memoir writing, should have come with a warning label.
As soon as I got a whiff of Karr’s no-nonsense loosely-organized, at times stream of consciousness, smack-down on memoir that the Washington Post called a “hodgepodge of a book,” I wanted to read it in one sitting.
When I finished, I circled right back to all of my underlined phrases, reread where I scribbled in the margins, all of which made me want to turn off my phone, hide in my office and write. Inspired by her pages, one of my tough-love self-prompts in the shape of an orange-sticky note read: “What would you write if you weren’t afraid,” which a Jesuit priest once asked Karr.
From there, new paragraphs looped in my mind while I was trying to get to sleep– sitting in traffic–helping my daughter with her homework–cooking breakfast. All becoming scattered piles of notes right next to my morning oatmeal and in growing stacks of paper on my office floor.
Despite mixed reviews, including two rather bracing New York Times reviews (Gregory Cowles and Janet Maslin) the latter of which warned away general-interest readers (And I will concede. This is a book most of all for hungry writers), The Art of Memoir fully delivered the attention-carrying quality that Karr herself calculates at 100% for any writer —a full bodied, crafted (“high-voltage”) voice.
“A great voice renders the dullest event remarkable,” notes Karr. Yes, and something else too–a truly great voice strums chords of the most highly desirable variety in me–the kind that wakes my ass up. And naturally makes me want to clear my throat, get up and sing, too.
In Carr’s case, a salty-tough, but warmly-timbered voice humbled with mea culpa that owns the complicated human being inside. So, the rest of us can nod our heads as we flip pages, quietly admit our own screw ups and inconsistencies, or wonder at our lack of experience in other places, and trail behind her cobble-stoned, toe-stubbed path to expanded perception.
And, that is the potent rocket-fuel that first brought me to my knees in the church I call writing.
"Kimberly’s writing is like a breeze filled with ancient fragrances – like incense in Carl Jung’s study. Yet, her work also strikes me as an emerging kind of feminism – rooted in primordial wisdom and myth not trapped in a modern battle with frenzied materialism – though Kimberly is clearly armed and dangerous." – Michael Carroll, author of Awake at Work, The Mindful Leader and Fearless at Work
