Sunbonnets and Sophistication
The first thing you notice about Kathy Shearer is a quiet elegance that would be at home anywhere in the world. As the head of Shearer Publishing, she carries executive responsibility with no loss of humanity, and her grace hides a razor-sharp mind capable of dealing with text and photograph alike.
Shearer is reserved, but she is not guarded. She doesn't thrust herself on the world, even comments that she enjoys working behind the scenes. She is a Texan, however, and as you talk with her, she grows animated. Laughter breaks through the reserve as the layers of her personality unfold. She is a sophisticated woman, this Kathy Shearer. She will talk about an innovative restaurant, "First they served a green tea sorbet to clear the palate," then tell you about the discovery of a new Texas wine. Shearer is a Texan who grew up in Hill Country, close to the land and her home. As her personality unfolds, she will tell you that she loves to sit in the study of her home, light turned low, a book in hand. You envision damask drapes and think that suits her until her conversation turns to memories of childhood, and she talks about racing through wild grasses on the banks of the Pedernales ready to jump into the river. She will tell stories culled from family lore about the sunbonnets children made from cardboard and flour sacking. She will laugh, but then comment with practicality that the brims did a good job shielding the face from the persistent Texas sun. Her conversation just as easily easily turns to publishing. She will discuss her publishing philosophy, commenting that the assembly-line production of many publishers does not attract her, in fact goads her to make each of her books even better. "Good is not enough," she tells you more than once, and you sense that there is steel in this backbone. These are the elements she brings to her work as a publisher. The demands of publishing are many and various. There are the technical aspects - editing, determining layout, the small but all-important choices of the right paper, the right ink, even the choice of how the book is to fall open. This would seem to be natural for Shearer, but In an independent publishing house duties overlap, one edging into another. The head of the company bears the weight of all decisions, ones that would be distributed to different departments in a large house. All these aspects are magnified when the book being published is a cookbook. Then the disparate elements of publishing are whipped to chaos for into the mix goes test cooking and food photography. With aplomb Shearer manages these elements, but her skills are humanistic as well as dynamic and she is able to offer her shoulder to a weeping author whose desperate search for synonyms is proving difficult. When not busy with such details, Shearer may occasionally sit at her desk, blue pencil in hand or oversee a layout of text and photographs. But just as often she can found in the nether regions of the Shearer warehouse, standing on the top rung of a rickety ladder to locate a book. Or she may be seen heaving large cartons of books in preparation for a special exhibit.
But you understand best what she brings to her work, if you catch a glimpse of Shearer in conference with an employee who is having trouble in their private life. Her humanity has no reserve in those moments.
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