Editor and publisher Alan Rinzler remembers the day he first met Toni Morrison in 1965. At the time, she was unknown to the literary world, but Rinzler saw her potential and helped her get published.

Rinzler met Morrison through an author he had recently published named Claude Brown. After meeting Morrison, Rinzler agreed to read one of her books.

"Toni was the girlfriend of Claude Brown, she was a young woman," Rinzler said. "She was his teacher at Howard (University) in Washington. She was a single mom with two kids and she had two books."

Morrison gave Rinzler a copy of her novel "The Bluest Eye" and asked for his help. Rinzler said he thought it was beautiful.

"I thought it was stunning, (but) it needed work," Rinzler said. "She was very respectful and knew what she wanted. When the book came out it was praised."

Although Rinzler, who lives in Berkeley, many not be a household name, many of the authors he has published and edited have graced the New York Times Best Seller List numerous times.

Rinzler graduated from Harvard University with a degree in English Literature in 1960, and he knew that reading and writing were his passions. He said that reading Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton helped develop his love of reading.

"It's really thrilling to really dig into the layers of meaning and content and structure and beauty of the language," Rinzler said.

Upon graduating, Rinzler traveled for a year before a former tutor from Harvard suggested he go into book publishing. His first job was at Simon & Schuster, where he met Robert Gottlieb, who published Joseph Heller's novel "Catch 22" and edited Bill Clinton's autobiography "My Life."

"He didn't teach me anything directly, I just watched him," Rinzler said. "It was my job to be helpful and subsume my own ego and try to get into the unconscious of the writer and be inside the writer's head."

Rinzler is currently Executive Editor at Jossey-Bass Publishing in San Francisco, an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Inc. in New York.

Rinzler has been responsible for publishing and editing some of the most notable pieces of literature within the past 40 years, including books by Tom Robbins, Hunter S. Thompson and Clive Cussler. At the age of 71, Rinzler said he plans to retire but will continue to edit on a freelance basis.

"I'll just quit my day job and do what I've been doing, work with a select group of good writers who work primarily in fiction," Rinzler said.

Rinzler said anyone interested in becoming a publisher has to be brave, willing to learn and dedicated.

"The only way to become a book editor is the old fashioned way: learn while you earn," Rinzler said. "It helps to be an English major, you have to love to read, and be brave. I love books: To me they are instruments of change. (Books) can change the world."

Tags: FACES OF BERKELEY, ALAN RINZLER