Emily Yellin, author of "Our Mother's War" and "Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us" visited the University Center on Wednesday to talk with students about her life and how her experiences shaped her into the person she is. The Student Leadership and Involvement office sponsored the event, part of the "Lunch With A Leader" lecture series. True to its name, box lunches were provided to 42 attendees.
Yellin, a contributor to a long list of publications including the New York Times and Smithsonian Magazine, was born in New York, though she grew up and currently lives in Memphis. She received her degree in English literature from the University of Wisconsin - Madison and also holds a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University in Illinois.
One of the hallmarks of a leader is perseverance, and to that end, Yellin related her life story - one filled with trials and tribulations. Her first job was as a receptionist and script reader for a small theater, a job that entailed reading very bad scripts, such as a script for "Columbus: The Musical," which she sent back with a note: "We know how it ends." She also turned down an early August Wilson play - something that elicited groans from some members of the audience.
After leaving the theater she worked a number of odd jobs, including selling toner at a semi-legal call center and selling books to Columbia students. Her first big job in the journalism industry was as an assistant articles editor for Seventeen magazine, where she edited a column called "Sex and Your Body."
After getting into Northwestern and traveling around Europe, Yellin discovered that she loved reporting, which she claims gave her "a license to ask impertinent questions." Unfortunately, excessive student debt meant she couldn't get a job in the industry - her salary wouldn't have been enough to pay down her loans. She ended up traveling around the country, editing for the Encyclopedia Britannica in Chicago, living in Washington D.C. for six months and ending up in Los Angeles doing proofreading for ad agencies.
Though Yellin realized the utility of having one's life planned out, she recognized the necessity of going with the flow - especially at that point in her life.
"I'm not making calculated decisions," she said. "I'm saying 'what's next?'"
Now in her 30's, Yellin moved back to Memphis, where she worked in local bookstores until she saw a former classmate's book, which inspired her to go into teaching at the University of Memphis.
Her next big break came when she got a call from Martin Gottlieb, then the special projects editor for the New York Times. Yellin impressed him enough that she was able to do her own story on an elderly woman who lived in Elvis Presley's old house.
Gottlieb was an important person in Yellin's life and career, and he taught her an important lesson about people.
"People can be really nice," she said. "You just got to find them."
Some time later she got her first book deal, and she wrote about something dear to her heart - her mother, who served in Saipan during World War 2.
The book, "Our Mother's War" was an exploration of a little known facet of WW2.
"The story of women in WW2 hasn't really been told," said Yellin. "I've always tried to talk for people who couldn't talk for themselves."
Her second book, "Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us" investigated the world of customer service, and was based off a bad experience with a company's customer service line. This segued into a job devising a new form of customer service that allowed companies to better understand their customers.
Yellin took all of her life experiences and distilled them down to an important life lesson for students.
"Everything you do, no matter how meaningless it may seem, comes around," she said. "If you're prepared and you understand the opportunity you can profit."
Yellin now works as a public speaker, where she "never does anything for free." She also runs a webinar series and recently submitted an editorial to the New York Times, a reflection on the Steubenville rape case and her own experience with sexual assault titled "Waking Up to the Enduring Memory of Rape."
"If you can grasp opportunity and be open to it, you can end up being brave and saying things people can't," said Yellin. "Then you can be a leader."
Yellin also provided advice to the journalists in the room, including Professor Pamela Denney's reporting class, emphasizing the necessity of trying to understand where your subject is coming from.
"Most people aren't bad, they just have to make choices in dangerous situations," she said. "The role of the journalist is to explain the choices they made."
One journalism student took Yellin's message to heart.
Journalism major Katie Grey was one of the attendees of the lecture. She was inspired by Yellin's life story.
"It was very informative and inspiring," she said. "It would be cool to do the stuff the did."
Kay Barkoh, leadership program advisor at the Student Leadership and Involvement Office, hopes that students take away the importance of perseverance and hunkering down when everything seems to be going wrong.
"I hope students learn what leadership is and what it is to be a leader," she said. "She was very persistent, and I hope students learn that things don't always go to plan."
