Poets & Writers – September 2019

SEPT OCT 2019 76

something and it’s amazing, one of my

first thoughts is, “Oh my God, another

ed itor is goi ng to preempt t h is book be-

fore I can make an offer.”

I’m sure that happens to every book

editor. What’s that like?

Sadly it’s a primary part of the job—

falling in love with a book and getting

your heart broken because someone

else acquires it yet managing to keep

your heart open for the next great

book. There are certain editors and

houses I hate losing a book to, but it’s

because I have enormous respect for

them. There’s a kind of old-school

collegiality among editors. And thank-

fully I’ve been lucky enough to win a

few of these bruising auctions too.

When you do, you realize how much

you stand on the shoulders of those

who’ve come before you. After the

success of The Empathy Exams, for in-

stance, pretty much everyone in town

wa nted to publ ish L e sl ie Ja m ison’s nex t

books. And part of the reason I won

the auction is that Little, Brown is the

house of David Foster Wallace, and

the publisher of Infinite Jest, and that

meant a lot to Leslie.

Once you’ve had the initial editor-author

conversation and acquired a book, what’s

your next step?

In terms of editing, I try to send a com-

prehensive letter that says, basically,

here are the ways in which the book is

bowling me over and the things I see

you trying to achieve. And then, within

t hat context, here is where it’s not quite

working in the way it appears to want to.

Usually it’s a big-picture thing first, and

later I’ll get a revision, and at that point

it’s down to the nitty-gritty and trying

to make sure that even if it’s a four-

or five-hundred-page book, each line

is holding its own. But inevitably the

process ends up being slightly different

for every book.

What if in the revision the writer doesn’t

strengthen the book in the ways you had

hoped?

I haven’t had an experience where a

writer didn’t substantially strengthen

the book in the process. A writer wants

her book to be as good as it can be be-

fore it goes out to what we both hope

w i l l be m a ny t hou sa nds of reader s. But

I also don’t think a writer should ever

make a change to a book that doesn’t

in her gut feel like the right change to

make. In an editorial letter from the

novelist and New Yorker editor William

Maxwell to Eudora Welty, Maxwell

once said, simply, “I trust you to be

firm about the unhelpful suggestions.”

I’ve always remembered that. While an

editor can sometimes see something

in a manuscript that a writer can’t, the

editor is never as smart as the writer

about her own book. Often you’ll make

a suggestion that the writer doesn’t

implement, but the writer says, “Oh,

I see what you mean,” and comes up

with something better. That’s because

the book has been living in the writer’s

subconscious for years. I’m a big be-

liever in those intuitions, which I’ve

seen lead to remarkable new writing in

a book even in the late stages.

You’ve said that you view acquisition as

just the beginning of a long editor-author

relationship that will involve, ideally,

many books. Do you think this approach

is unique in New York?

I think every editor in every house

would like for that to be the approach.

I do think there’s a lot more pressure

now for the first book to be a success

sales-wise, and there’s less patience

with building a writer over time. But

at Little, Brown, anyway, we’ll work

really hard to stick with a writer we

believe in until wider success hap-

pens. Reagan Arthur published Kate

Atkinson for many years—and it was

especially sweet, after all that time, to

see Atkinson’s novel Life After Life, her

eighth, land at number one on the New

York Times best-seller list. I still remem-

ber the moment that list came out, our

CEO, Michael Pietsch, walked down

the long hallway to Reagan’s office to

give her a hug. Editors know how much

THE WRITING

PROGRAM

All students receive full and

equal funding in the form of a

tuition waiver and a generous

stipend. All students teach

creative writing–one

workshop each semester–in

their second year.

For more info:

http://english.artsci.wustl.edu/

graduate/writing_program

314.935.5190

[email protected]

MFA IN

POETRY

FICTION

NONFICTION

Faculty: Mary Jo Bang,

Kathryn Davis, Danielle

Dutton, Kathleen Finneran,

Marshall Klimasewiski,

Aditi Machado, Edward

McPherson, Carl Phillips

2019/20 Visitors Include:

Jane Brox, Brian Evenson,

Micheline Aharonian Marcom,

Diane Seuss, Aisha Sabatini

Sloan, Patricia Smith

AGENTS & EDITORS BEN GEORGE