Gary L. Fisketjon, Class of 1976

Not many fiction editors become public figures. But then there is you. At a young age you revolutionized the publishing of fiction by creating the Vintage Contemporaries series, which combined classic writers with newcomers, including your classmate Jay McInerney, and published them first in paperback, thus launching what has become the trade book industry. The result was wide expansion in the readership of new fiction. You went on to discover, nurture, and champion many of the great writers of our time . . . including Cormac McCarthy, Raymond Carver, Richard Ford, Annie Dillard, Haruki Murakami, and our favorite son Jim Shepard . . . so many, it has been said, that it is easier to name the ones that you haven’t. They universally praise your ability to read closely (at an attentive five pages per hour), comment wisely, and argue confidently while always in the end letting the author decide. You became the second-ever recipient of the Maxwell E. Perkins Award, at the presentation of which Richard Ford cited what he called your “truly profound editorial genius.” At the same time, you have managed, somewhat implausibly, to make book editing cool, appearing on so many social pages in your Western clothes and boots, as if a character yourself from a book. In recognition of your distinguished achievement in publishing, Williams College is proud to honor you with its Bicentennial Medal.