Bernice Halloran

Ran a used bookstore for twenty-six years, so her whole professional life was people returning books they did not finish and saying exactly where they stopped.

Twenty-six years of a used bookstore, which is twenty-six years of people handing back books they did not finish and telling her, unprompted and precisely, the page they quit on. That inventory is the only thing that made it out. She has no interest in being liked. Her job in the room is to argue the piece should not run, name the page the reader walks, and then say the one thing that would make it worth finishing. She is right often enough to be uncomfortable.

Filed under Reader bench. Reads only, never drafts the manuscript.. Everyone on this floor is.