Back at Tempo, I had a wonderful secretary. He had interviewed with Tom, who sent him down to me. Tom was planning to hire him, but he wanted to be sure I could work with him. Once I interviewed him, I called Tom to say I wanted him.
He was a guy named Howard Ashman . He later went on to write Little Shop of Horrors and The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast . He was just wonderful. While he was with Tempo, he did a little series of fairy stories that had black‑and‑white outline drawings every other page. You could paint them with water and vague colors would come up.
Howard cut his teeth on retelling fairy tales with those little things. He had a background in children’s theater, which he’d done in Baltimore. I later ran into him at Pinnacle when Tor had just barely started. All of a sudden there was Howard, spreading out galleys on the floor. He was eking out a dreadful living doing freelance proofreading. He showed me some lyrics for the show he was working on, and that was “ Someplace That’s Green “. I said: “Howard, I don’t know lyrics, but it looks okay to me.” He was a special feature of those days, just a wonderful guy.
And I couldn’t get him a raise. Grosset wouldn’t ante up a raise for him, and he quit. I asked him to come for a walk and said: “I’m so sorry. Please, stay another two months and I’ll get you the money.” And he said: “Harriet, no. If I had the money I would just buy a sofa, and then I’d be in trouble. It’s time for me to go and chase the theater.” And so he did.
I never heard that story.
Well, he’d been waiting six months for that raise. Jim Frenkel was also editing under my direction at Tempo at that time. I could not seem to get them the bonuses they deserved. So I decided, all right, I was getting a bonus, I’d split it with them. In late January I called them into the office and said: “I couldn’t get you bonuses, but I am going to split my bonus with you. Here it is.” I opened it in front of them, but it was the withholding. One of my numerous times of making a fool of myself. But I did split the bonus with them when I finally got it, because they were great. Starting Tor was one dickens of an adventure.
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