Bruce Glassman My friend Bruce Glassman has a message for aspiring artists, actors, and writers: “Life is not linear. You never know when the different things that you learn and study are going to intersect with each other.”
Like most of the people who I really respect in the arts, Bruce wears a number of hats, not counting the baseball cap we covered with tin foil one evening to keep the transmissions out — this after sampling several craft beers. A man of wide ranging interests, he always wanted to be a writer. He also wanted to support himself and his family, and he knew that those two goals are not an either/or proposition. After we graduated from Wesleyan University, he went on to a job at St. Martin’s Press to learn the publishing industry before joining and then taking over his parents’ small educational publishing house, Blackbirch Press. While at St. Martin’s, he attended The French Culinary Institute, but since he doesn’t do things half-way, he took the full professional training course.
During the years running Blackbirch, Bruce was writing non-fiction books for such companies as Scholastic, as well as cogitating on his own creative writing and turning out his own plays and screenplays, one of which is now under option with a Hollywood production company. “Those experiences at FCI and Blackbirch seemed to run on parallel, non-intersecting tracks for a long time, until Blackbirch was bought by a huge multinational,” Bruce remembers. “That gave me the time and means to pursue my other interests and combine my publishing experience with my love of cooking.”
Like most of the people who I really respect in the arts, Bruce wears a number of hats, not counting the baseball cap we covered with tin foil one evening to keep the transmissions out — this after sampling several craft beers. A man of wide ranging interests, he always wanted to be a writer. He also wanted to support himself and his family, and he knew that those two goals are not an either/or proposition. After we graduated from Wesleyan University, he went on to a job at St. Martin’s Press to learn the publishing industry before joining and then taking over his parents’ small educational publishing house, Blackbirch Press. While at St. Martin’s, he attended The French Culinary Institute, but since he doesn’t do things half-way, he took the full professional training course.
During the years running Blackbirch, Bruce was writing non-fiction books for such companies as Scholastic, as well as cogitating on his own creative writing and turning out his own plays and screenplays, one of which is now under option with a Hollywood production company. “Those experiences at FCI and Blackbirch seemed to run on parallel, non-intersecting tracks for a long time, until Blackbirch was bought by a huge multinational,” Bruce remembers. “That gave me the time and means to pursue my other interests and combine my publishing experience with my love of cooking.”
With his newfound freedom, Bruce worked to develop Chefs Press, which partners with celebrity chefs to build their own brands and create cookbooks, such as Jeff Rossman’s From Terra’s Table, New American Food, Fresh From Southern California’s Organic Farms. It has also been the platform from which he has published his own book, San Diego’s Top Brewers: Inside America’s Craft Beer Capital, which debuted last year at the kick-off of San Diego Beer Week. I was down there to help him with the launch party and the festivities that followed, and I’ll tell you, it was tough work, surrounded for a whole week by some of the best beer in the world, as well as new creations from the county’s best up-and-coming chefs. All of this feeds not just the belly, but the creative soul as well. “Not all of the writing that I do is the kind of writing that I have dreamed of doing,” says Bruce, “but writing of any kind is a creative process in and of itself, whether I am writing a book I have contracted to write, or a cookbook that I’m collaborating on with one of our chef clients, or I’m writing a play or a screenplay of my own.”
Over a bottle of Ballast Point Sculpin IPA and a Fried Green Tomato Sammy from the MIHO Gastrotruck, Bruce notes, “One of the most satisfying aspects of my life is that I have been able to create opportunities for myself to do the things that I really enjoy. The beer book was something I really wanted to do, and loved doing in the process. The finished product? I’m really proud of it, and it’s helping me fulfill by professional goals.”
Over a bottle of Ballast Point Sculpin IPA and a Fried Green Tomato Sammy from the MIHO Gastrotruck, Bruce notes, “One of the most satisfying aspects of my life is that I have been able to create opportunities for myself to do the things that I really enjoy. The beer book was something I really wanted to do, and loved doing in the process. The finished product? I’m really proud of it, and it’s helping me fulfill by professional goals.”
And those goals are keeping him very, very busy right now. On the heels of the tremendous success of San Diego’s Top Brewers, Bruce is now putting the finishing touches on two major projects: Come Early, Stay Late, with Top Chef Finalist Brian Malarkey, and Brew Food: Great Beer Inspired Appetizers, Main Courses and Desserts. He has also just begun production on Colorado’s Top Brewers and he’s already asked me to join him in the foothills of the Rockies to help with the “clean up” after some of the photo shoots. Well, someone has to do it. As Bruce says, “I guess the metaphor is, if you really like drinking beer, then find a way to make drinking beer a productive part of your professional life.”
For more information on the people, places and things mentioned in this article, click on these links: Chefs Press, San Diego’s Top Brewers, From Terra’s Table, Celebrity Chef Brian Malarkey and his restaurants, and MIHO Gastrotruck.
For more information on the people, places and things mentioned in this article, click on these links: Chefs Press, San Diego’s Top Brewers, From Terra’s Table, Celebrity Chef Brian Malarkey and his restaurants, and MIHO Gastrotruck.
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