MICHIGAN AVENUE, 1951
The adventures of an innocent in the advertising wars.
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
College was next, and I graduated
from a great school...
Just as my pile of rejection
slips was getting discouragingly high, I discovered advertising. Discovered I could write advertising copy,
get paid pretty well for it, and spend my time doing what I really wanted to
do: write. Writing ads let me have all
of the satisfaction, some of the money, and little of the constant rejection. So what if writing advertising was only a
temporary stop along the way to the stories and books I hoped eventually to
write? The ones that would ultimately
make me moderate famous, moderately rich, and thoroughly satisfied in the
process? (Like Hemingway and Fitzgerald
and Wolfe and all the other great writers whose books I’d been devouring since
I was a kid.)
Yes, writing advertising might be
just a way station in my life, but when I got my first job writing for the
Sears catalog., I found it could be...and was...a very satisfying way station. Maybe even more important, it kept me eating
and enjoying a roof over my head while my short stories were being constantly
rejected and I began my first novel. And
it got me where I wanted to go next: working for a major advertising agency on
So, here I was,
the newest cub copywriter in the
I even had my own “garret” in
Yep, I had things just about the
way I wanted them, and Wally Gordon was on his way. I was 27, remember. An enthusiastic, impatient 27.
And I had a plan.
Sure I did----
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
One man’s memoir about a decade
in
-- The Great American Novel that never got written--
-- A young writer’s introduction to big-agency advertising--
-- Ads and commercials and clients and bosses--
-- Hits and misses and triumphs and catastrophies--
-- A lovely young lady who became a supportive wife and mother--
-- Three young sons who kept both parents hopping--
-- Garrets and apartments and dream houses in the suburbs--
-- And an interesting look at
About the Author
Wallace J. (Wally) Gordon has been writing for a living for something like forever – fifty-six years and counting – and after piling up mountains of rejection slips for short stories and a novel, he made a successful and satisfying detour into the advertising business, writing ads and commercials for clients ranging from Coca-Cola and Dodge to the neighborhood bank.
However, after almost forty years
of the advertising wars, he decided enough was enough, and is now writing books
for himself, his wife and kids, and anyone interested.
Enjoy--