SEPT OCT 2019 74M. ALLEN CUNNINGHAM is the
author of nine books, most recently
the novel Perpetua’s Kin, a reworking of
Shakespeare’s Hamlet that spans North
America over five generations. His hybrid
book Q&A, inspired by the 1950s quiz
show scandals, will appear from Regal
House Publishing in 2020. Founder of
the small literary press Atelier26 Books,
Cunningham teaches creative writing at
Portland State University and elsewhere.
Although he seemed to come out of
nowhere in his work with Pearlman,
George had been editing some of our
most distinguished writers for years in
the small press world—first at the Uni-
versity of Idaho’s Fugue literary maga-
zine and later at Tin House magazine
and the University of North Carolina’s
literary journal Ecotone—working with
writers such as W. S. Merwin, Denis
Johnson, Annie Proulx, Jonathan
Lethem, Charles Baxter, John Jere-
miah Sullivan, Ann Beattie, and Terry
Tempest Williams. “I loved working
at the magazines,” says George. “I
would’ve happily done it forever if I
could have made a living at it.”
While the writers with whom he has
worked know George as an extraordi-
narily gifted and exacting editor—they
often effuse in their acknowledgments
pages about his skill and care—George
keeps a low profile. A soft-spoken Ohio
nat ive (“A lot of people seem to ident if y
me as Midwestern in my temperament
and phrasings,” he says), George prefers
to view his work in book publishing as
a privilege. “For you to be able to edit
or publish anything, there has to be
someone who has faith and believes in
you, and I’ve been lucky to have those
mentors along the way,” he says, citing
Court and Arthur.
George and I spoke last fall at Little,
Brown, in the Manhattan offices of the
Hachette Book Group.You earned an MFA in fiction at the Uni-
versity of Idaho, where you ended up ed-
iting Fugue. Soon after that you became
an editor for Tin House magazine. WhatAGENTS & EDITORS BEN GEORGE