Yaacov Agam

and freedom to write with my own
voice.
On the editing side, Zeman
recently put his pen to articles that
went behind-the-scenes at the White
House, investigated the mysterious
death of an Englishman relocated to
Afghanistan and reported efforts to
avoid Y2K glitches.
n Wniti
"The editing
part is particularly
fun because it deals
-4
2,2,0
with great writers,
rressstbk,
such as Carl
SPRI
Bernstein," says
FA
Zeman, who knew
he wanted to be a
journalist while
attending Groves
High School in
Birmingham and
then earned
Ex otsikT;
degrees at the
University of
Michigan and Columbia.
His older brother David, an
investigative reporter at The Detroit
Free Press who has worked at The
Jewish News, was his role model.
"I wanted to do what David did,
and it seemed to be the one thing I
was really good at," says Zeman,
who realized early in his career that
magazines were for him because they
allow more time, put a slightly
greater emphasis on style and use
long-form writing.
Although the two brothers are the
only journalists in the family, their
parents, Evelyn and Miles Zeman,
gave a literary bent to the house-
hold, imparting a love for reading to
their children, including Peter, 41,
an Ann Arbor stockbroker.
"I'm close to my family and get
back to Detroit about four times a
year," says the Vanity Fair editor-
writer, who celebrated his bar mitz-
vah at the Birmingham Temple. "I
also do a lot of traveling to
California, where I used to live."
Zeman knows that outsiders con-
sider his world glamorous.
"They associate where I work
with who I am," he says. "It's a nice
lifestyle, but it's hard, stressful and
usually [a matter of] being at the
office. There are a lot of parties, but
I don't go to them that often. It's
not nearly as glamorous as people
think, but it is more fun than most
jobs."
For article assignments that are
his to write, Zeman toils late into
the night, when the dark and the
quiet make it easier to concentrate.
"I don't have a specialty so any-

C2Mii0 Z.4

01+

N

thing that allows me to jump from
subject to subject is something that I
jump at," the former Detroiter says.
"I'd like to write a book. To be at a
magazine like this and write about
things I care about — with books on
the side — would be a perfect way
for me to live." 17

Sov., :cs

bli

Lisa Kogan —
'Elle'

If Lisa Kogan had not gone
out for weekly dinners with a
close pal, she might not have
become a writer-at-large for
Elle. During the late '80s,
when she was earning lots of
money in real estate, the idea
for magazine work first sur-
faced over a casual meal at a
Greenwich Village diner.
"I was saying that I was
bored and not sure what I
wanted," recalls Kogan, 38, who now
does a lot of celebrity interviews and TV
criticism as well as health and beauty
articles. "My friend mentioned that the
editor of a little magazine that he some-
times worked at was looking for an assis-
tant. I went for an interview, and the
guy asked if I could type. When I said
`not really,' he said I'd fit right in."
Although the magazine soon went
out of business, Kogan learned about
journalism and was hired as an editor-
ial assistant for Egg, a Malcolm Forbes
publication. She went on to Mirabella,
Fox television and then Elle, where
she's been for six years.
"I like the sense of camaraderie at
Elle, and I like the exposure," says the
Southfield-Lathrup graduate who
attended Emerson College in Boston
for a year before earning an associate's
degree from the Fashion Institute of
Technology. "It's nice to be associated
with something of this magnitude,
and I like the freedom that I have
with what I write."
Kogan's recent pieces have included
interviews with designer Donna Karan
and actor-comedian Paul Reiser, a cri-
tique of the season's new network
shows, profiles of hunk male models
and a first-person experience with
becoming a redhead.
When the Elle staffer was growing
up in Michigan, she attended Temple
Israel with her parents, Sidney and
Rosestelle Kogan, whom she still visits
periodically, most recently with her
sweetheart, Johannes Labusch, an
illustrator and graphic designer.
Before finding her way into
magazines, her advertising studies
opened the door to a job with an

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Detroit Jewish News

3/19
1999

81