Thursday 22 May 2025
12:30
Graydon Carter
When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines
Graydon joins us to tell of how he made his mark as one of society’s most talented editors and shapers of culture, having arrived in New York from Canada with little more than a suitcase. At Vanity Fair he assembled one of the best-ever stables of writers and photographers under one roof, cementing its place as the epicentre of art, culture, business and politics. Charming, candid and brimming with humour, he perfectly captures the last golden age of print magazines from the inside out.
Graydon is the founder and co-editor of Air Mail. Before this, he was a staff writer for both Time and Life. He cocreated Spy, edited The New York Observer, and for twenty-five years was the award-winning editor of Vanity Fair. He is also the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning producer of more than a dozen documentaries and one hit Broadway play. He and his wife live in Greenwich Village, not far from the Waverly Inn, and have five children. His memoir, When the Going Was Good: An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines, was published 27 March 2025.
'Graydon Carter is a brilliant raconteur of his own life...it's a real yarn of a lost world'
Editor-In-Chief, Vanity Fair, 1992-2017
Graydon is the founder and co-editor of Air Mail. Before this, he was a staff writer for both Time and Life. He cocreated Spy, edited The New York Observer, and for twenty-five years was the award-winning editor of Vanity Fair. He is also the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning producer of more than a dozen documentaries and one hit Broadway play. He and his wife live in Greenwich Village, not far from the Waverly Inn, and have five children. His memoir, When the Going Was Good: An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines, was published 27 March 2025.
