Spotlight On

Kania, who grew up in a small town outside of Milwaukee, says she was the black sheep of her family. A child of the 1980s punk/new wave scene, her influences were people like Andy Warhol, Julian Schnabel and Francesco Clemente. So it follows that her first aspiration was to be an artist. But a few semesters at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago convinced Kania she didn't have the talent to make it as a painter. Fortunately, she had a side job as a bookseller.

“I can tell you, almost to the day, when I decided to go into publishing,” Kania says. She could, it turns out, get it down to the month—August 1992. That was when Donna Tartt's The Secret History came out. Kania was enthralled not only with the book but also with how it was marketed. “It was her. It was the story of her. It was Bennington. And it was the package.... When you're 21 and you're trying to figure out what your lot in life is, and you wake up and you're like, 'Oh shit, I can't paint,' you know, you panic. I decided I wanted to be a publisher. I didn't want to be anything else.”

Although Kania admits she had only a vague idea of what a publisher actually did, she knew enough. She knew about Gary Fisketjon and was as enamored with writers—writers like Raymond Carver, Mark Lindquist and Jay McInerney—as she was with artists. So, with $1,200 and a one-way train ticket, Kania set out for Manhattan. “Bright lights, big city,” she quips. “You know, the whole bit.”

Despite a bumpy start in the Big Apple—she was working for a computer programmer, sharing a studio with a drag queen—Kania got a lucky break when she met Michael Morrison at a friend's wedding. “I begged him for a job,” she recounts. “He hired me as his assistant in 1995, and I've been working with him ever since.”

Kania's passion for her literary (and visual) idols has served her well professionally. She managed to turn Harper Perennial into a recognizable brand, in part by publishing the kind of literary fiction and nonfiction that turned her on to the business 16 years ago.

And while some scoff at the notion that readers notice what's on a book's spine, Kania vehemently disagrees: “If people watch a television show because it's on HBO, if they see a movie because it's a Focus Features release, if they buy an album because it's on Sub Pop Records, then why doesn't the same go for books?”

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Ethan is an entrepreneur in his own right who has turned his natural talents to elevating women and minorities. Founder of Girl Empire, Parlor Shows, Lean Crafting and Checklet, he’s a start-up super-connector. He’s played a critical role in countless business launches and partnerships. It’s no surprise he sits on Lieutenant Governor Mark Hutchison’s Nevada Entrepreneurship Task Force.

Distributed ledgers? He got in on the ground floor and has it on lock. His wife, Allison Clift-Jennings, is the founder and CEO of Filament, an IOT company using blockchain technology. They read whitepapers the way other couples read the Sunday New York Times. They aren’t just investors, they’re pioneer builders. This goes way past the theory, emerging tech is the business they’re in, and they’re committed using tech to make the world a better place. Not many know, they’ve made the final round of the Anu & Naveen Jain Women’s Safety XPRIZE.

Ethan and Allison have been hard at work launching their latest endeavor with Tonic Audio Labs. The first product is called Lumos and is easy-to-use songwriting hardware that leverages AI. The product will hit Kickstarter in February and Ethan breaks down how this product will make songwriting even easier.

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Listen into this panel that took place September 2nd that featured 3 music tech companies, a promoter and a venue. Juan Torres moderated this panel. He's the VP of Business Operations at Prism a company that is revolutionizing how live music events are managed.

Here are the panelists:

• Matt Ford is CEO of Prism.fm.
• Mallory Ferro is currently serving as the GM of the historic Antone's Nightclub in Austin, TX.
• Megan Lazaroff is a jack-of-all-trades working on Disco Donnie Presents' talent buying team and also with B&W Productions.
• Greg Patterson is the Chief Strategy Officer at VEEPS.com a company that gives artists the ability to ticket, schedule and produce livestreams, 100% commission free.
• Lawrence Peryer is the Chief Revenue Officer at Lyte and host of this podcast that you're listening to.

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LP chats with Nicole d'Avis, managing director of Berklee Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship and the Open Music Initiative.

Nicole has worked for 15 years in the education and creative tech sector in Boston, with Sociedad Latina, on a global scale with the Intel Computer Clubhouse Network and now in the world of innovation and the arts with Berklee College of Music's Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship and as a founding team member of the Open Music Initiative. Nicole specializes in program development and operations, strategic planning and evaluation, and event and database management.

LP and Nicole spoke a bit about Yucatec Mayan history in this episode. Here are 2 of Nicole's favorites:

Yucatan's Maya Peasantry & the Origins of the Caste War, by Terry Rugeley

Maya Saints & Souls in a Changing World by John M. Watanabe (this one is actually about a village in Guatemala, but it's an excellent case study in acculturation)

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LP talks with writer Paul Perry about pirates, Ken Kesey, Jesus in Egypt, Salvador Dali, the Miracle of the Sun, near-death experiences, and UFOs.

Paul Perry is the co-author of several New York Times bestsellers, including Evidence of the Afterlife, Closer to the Light, Transformed by the Light, and Saved by the Light which was made into a popular movie by Fox. His books have been published in more than 30 languages around the world and cover a wide variety of subjects from near-death experiences to biographies of authors Ken Kesey and Hunter S. Thompson. He is also a documentary filmmaker and owns PAUL PERRY Productions, a film production company, in Paradise Valley, Arizona.

Perry's writing and film making earned him a knighthood in the Royal Family of Portugal where he is a Knight Commander in the Order of Saint Michael of the Wing and the official filmmaker of the Portuguese Royal House.

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• Did you enjoy this episode? Rate Spotlight On ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

• Subscribe! Be the first to check out each new episode of Spotlight On in your podcast app of choice.

• Looking for more? Visit spotlightonpodcast.com for bonus content, web-only interviews + features, and the Spotlight On email newsletter.

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