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A dependable source of professional and creative advice, this weekly series features anecdotes, insights, tips, recommended reading and viewing for writers, and more from leading agents and editors.
Working in publishing, in my experience, provides an opportunity to think about what it means to be “independent” in a way that supports the life of the mind and of the writer. Although I’ve been an editor for nearly ten years, I still think of myself as a writer first. From both of these perspectives within the publishing industry, I sometimes think too much can be asked of writing: to make a writer’s life easier or their career more sustainable.
When I start editing a poetry or story collection, I’m immediately curious about energy and momentum. How is this writer using their unique style and craft to propel me through their manuscript? What holds me close to the page and makes me eager to read more? What causes me to get stuck?
I edit fiction, nonfiction, and graphic narrative, and what unites all of these projects that I’ve had the pleasure of working on is a really strong point of view. My job is not to interfere with that and to protect voice above all else. It’s important for the author to remember that the editor is a proxy for their future readers. Editorial feedback is the opportunity for the writer to hear an unfiltered, immediate response to the work, which reveals not only what requires revision or restructuring but also what is working. Of course, the book is the author’s work.
I’m going to be super granular here: Poets, when you are composing or formatting your work on a word processor with book publication in mind, please set your margins to approximately two inches on all sides and make sure your poems look the way you want within those margins.
For me, the most important thing is the writer’s voice. A synopsis and outline for a nonfiction submission can be very helpful, but a proposal should have a sample introduction and at least a chapter to communicate the quality of the writing—if the finished manuscript isn’t available. With fiction, however, although a sentence in a cover letter regarding the subject matter is welcome, nothing causes me to glaze over more quickly than a plot summary. I read for style, not for plot. If you’re submitting a novel or a story collection, I will want to have full access to it.
When I’m reading submissions, I’m searching for a writer who trusts their own voice and their grip on the craft. I’m looking for work that feels fresh and wildly new, that feels like no other author could have written this particular piece, that makes the familiar deliciously unfamiliar and unique. I want characters who bounce off the page and sound, talk, and act like fully fleshed out people whom I might someday meet—or might not want to meet. I’m hoping to truly “see” the setting and note how lush and immersive it is.
My motto as an editor started out as a design standard in the U.S. Navy: Keep it simple, stupid! I like to read writing and translation that’s kept simple. I do not mean that I am a minimalist, or that I only want to work with minimalist writers. I do mean that I love encountering a mind that shines, bright and unobstructed, from the page.
It’s important for writers who aspire to be published by a mainstream house to have an understanding of where their work fits in relation to like-minded books and authors publishing today.
Don’t labor over your cover letter when submitting to a journal or magazine! I mean, of course read the publication’s guidelines, and if they’re asking for something specific, by all means provide it. But honestly, the best cover letter is the simplest cover letter. If you address your submission to the editor by name, great. “Dear Editor” works too. Every editor will tell you they’ve received submissions addressed to another magazine—oops! It happens, we get it. I’ve even published a couple of those submissions. It’s not cause for rejection, but try not to do it.
One piece of advice I like to give aspiring authors is to think seriously before you start querying presses—or even before you start writing—about what publishing success means to you. There are so many approaches to getting your work published, and which one you pursue should depend on your individual goals. And these goals can absolutely change throughout the course of your career, or even project to project.
