This year, as an experiment, the Publishers Publicity Association, as part of its participation in National Book Awards week, arranged a morning of press conferences for three authors of important spring books: Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison, author of The Oxford History of the American People (Oxford); William Bradford Huie, author of Three Lives for Mississippi (Whitney Communications Corp., distributed by Trident); Norman Mailer, author of An American Dream (Dial Press).
Three separate press conferences were held consecutively between 10 A.M. and 1 P.M. on Wednesday, March 10, at the Advertising Club of New York, with coffee breaks in between. They were extremely well attended and very well received by the book review editors in town for the NBA and other members of the press. Peter S. Jennison, executive director of the National Book Committee, was the moderator.