Holding onto Nothing

HOLDING ONTO NOTHING is Gordon Bishop''s first book, begun when he was 19 at the Iroquois Hotel in Manhattan and completed when he was 20 and working as a copywriter for a catalog house in Passaic, New Jersey.

In 1959, Mr. Bishop walked into THE HERALD-NEWS, Passaic, and got a job as a reporter. Soon after, he was writing his own general-interest column and winning awards: The New Jersey Press Association''s Award for "Best Column" in 1965 and the NJPA''s Award for "Best Reporting Against Deadlilne" in 1966.

A graduate of Rutgers University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English, Mr. Bishop, as a student, became a good friend of his teacher, Paterson Poet Louis Ginsberg, father of the famous avant-garde poet Allen Ginsberg. As a result of their decade-long friendship, Mr. Bishop wrote two books on the Ginsbergs, the first a collection of essays (with pictures) entitled THE FIVE WORLDS OF ALLEN GINSBERG, and a biography, THE GINSBERGS: A FAMILY OF POETS, both of which are scheduled for publication later this year.

Mr. Bishop also co-authored a three-act play, THE PURPLE CANARY, dealing with corruption in public school systems and which was presented at the off-Broadway Midway Theater in Manhattan in 1963.