NRN copy editor leaves legacy of excellence, education

Nation's Restaurant News,  Jan 15, 2007  

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NEW YORK -- Michael Eugene Schrader, the longtime copy editor and cookbook reviewer for Nation's Restaurant News, will be remembered by his friends and colleagues at the publication as a dedicated craftsman and generous teacher.

Schrader, who retired from NRN last year, was slain at his home in Lauderdale Lakes, Fla., on New Year's Day.

The Broward County Sheriff's Office said it had arrested a man in connection with the stabbing and charged him with murder. The accused man, Luis Fernando Ortiz, has confessed to the crime, the Sheriff's office reported.

Ortiz was an acquaintance of Schrader's from New York, authorities said.

Schrader, 68, had moved from New York to southern Florida in 2006, after spending more than 20 years with Nation's Restaurant News. During his long term as chief copy editor, he was instrumental in helping to shape the content of the publication while guiding its editorial style.

"Michael really found a home at NRN as evidenced by his tenure of two decades," said editor Ellen Koteff. "He was always teaching, even when he wasn't aware of it. He was especially helpful to journalists just getting their start in the business."

A natural-born educator, Schrader aspired in his youth to become a college professor. Born in Jersey City, N.J., on April 3, 1938, he demonstrated an early aptitude for language and literature. He matriculated at New York University, from which he earned a bachelor's degree in Latin in 1961 and a master's degree in English in 1963. In 1965 he pursued his doctorate at the University of California, Los Angeles, during which time he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study for a year at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.

Over the course of his academic career, Schrader studied a number of languages, including Anglo-Saxon, Greek and Old Norse. He also was an avid student of contemporary poetry and harbored a particular fondness for the works of Sylvia Plath and Hart Crane.

While he did not complete his doctoral thesis, Schrader served as a teaching and research assistant at UCLA in the late 1960s.

In 1970 he left academia and moved into the field of publishing, taking a job as senior copy editor at Dell Publishing Co. in New York. Following that he moved to San Francisco, where he served as copy chief at Saturday Review magazine. He moved back to New York late in 1972 to take the copy editor's post at Penthouse magazine, which he held for four years. He later served as an editor on Woman's World magazine.

Schrader joined the NRN staff as copy editor in 1985. During his tenure, he was charged with creating a style guide for the magazine.

"Michael worked long hours for many years to help put out the best magazine week after week," Koteff said. "His imprint will remain on NRN for years to come--through the style guide he created, but mostly for the standards that he set when it came to the integrity of the written word."

"Michael was exemplary in his dedication to consistent verbal standards and his unwavering regard for precision and clarity of expression," said executive editor Richard Martin. "He leaves a substantial legacy at NRN through the thousands of manuscripts he refined and the thoughtful guidance he shared with colleagues over his long career."

"He lived for words, loved them more than anything," said on-site editor Elissa Elan. "Michael was the consummate copy editor. He was extremely proud of this publication and went to great lengths to ensure perfection."

While staff writers were known at times to chafe under his copy alterations, they inevitably came around to appreciating his steady and consistent approach to the craft of editing.

"As time went on, I realized that I was truly a beneficiary of his grammatical guidance," said national reports editor Milford Prewitt. "I think, if anything, the one lesson I take away from my years under his magnifying glass is that clarity is everything in writing."

During his time at NRN, Schrader also initiated a bimonthly column called "From the Bookshelf," in which he reviewed the latest books on cooking and the restaurant business. The column, which was well received by those in the foodservice and publishing industries, resulted in his being asked to judge the James Beard Foundation's annual food and beverage book awards from 1991 through 1994.

In 1994 Schrader gathered together all of the many books he had accumulated over the years and bequeathed them to NYU's Bobst Library, establishing the Anne Kane Schrader Cookbook and Nutrition Collection in memory of his mother, who had died several years earlier. He continued to donate books to the collection until his death.

While Schrader will be remembered for his professionalism and many contributions to Nation's Restaurant News, his friends also will remember him for his inimitable, larger-than-life personality, which could swing from pure exuberance to deep concern--and then back again--in the span of a few brief moments.