Be Kind To Writers and Editors Month Celebration

You've probably noticed we're writer focused here in Seekerville.
(Writing and food and beverage focused.) Today we will be off topic and we will be exploring, and celebrating the

E-D-I-T-O-R

So welcome to the party. Stick around and comment and you could win one of these wonderful EDITORIAL prizes:

• A copy of Self-EDITING For Fiction Writers: How to EDIT yourself into Print by Renni Browne and Dave King

• Red pens. Lots of red pens will be given away today!

Let's start our celebration with some random EDITOR stuff.

EDITORPHOBIA:

Approaching editors is for me similar to that scene in the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy approached the GREAT AND POWERFUL OZ.

Unfortunately I don't have the courage or the stamina to kill the Wicked Witch of the West and bring back her broom so I can have an audience with the Editor. Instead I enter contests. Coward that I am.

How about you? Do you suffer from EDITORPHOBIA?

Symptoms: sweaty palms, nausea, brain farts, incoherent babbling.

A support group will be forming in a cyberspace near you very soon.



Talk of editors would not be complete without mentioning Maxwell Perkins.

Max Perkins: Editor of Genius by A Scott Berg (Sept 2, 2008)


(Description from Amazon) The man who invented the modern profession of book editing finally got his due, 31 years after his death, when this revelatory biography appeared. A. Scott Berg's detailed explication of Maxwell Perkins's work on the manuscripts of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, and a host of other important American writers shows how much the Scribner's editor contributed to their books, all the while maintaining that he only helped his authors find the best in themselves.



A Day in the Life of An EDITOR.

Ever wonder what it's like to be an EDITOR?

Do they really open their closets and pick out a black suit and black shoes from a closet filled with black suits and black shoes? Is it true they read on the subway home and never read manuscripts at work?

Are slush piles truly high enough to be considered fire hazards?


How about that urban legend about the editor whose puppy piddled on the author's manuscript, thus guaranteeing the author a SALE?

Is any of this true?

I stand clueless on it all, although I did stumble on this from Confessions of a Slush Pile Reader

Some publishers consider reading slush a waste of resources and no longer accept it; some bribe their assistants to read it by throwing slush-and-pizza parties (presumably figuring that nothing makes cheesy fiction go down easier than a little cheese and pepperoni). My publisher welcomed all slush and handed me the reins. Thus for two years, in addition to fulfilling my normal editorial duties, I hired freelance readers, generated form rejection slips, evaluated the rare promising submission and fielded phone calls from every would-be Frank McCourt with a manuscript in his drawer and an Oprah's Book Club Pick in his dreams. I wish I could say that serving as a conduit between the publishing elite and the uncorrupted masses taught me valuable lessons in compassion and grace. Instead, it convinced me that the world is full of lunatics.

As for an editor's life-- if you insist upon reality, then here is an interview from Vault with Russell Davis of Five Star and a day in his life as an editor,

or check out Kate Duffy's day in the life interview on A Romance Review.


Ode to An Editor


An editor is someone who separates the wheat from the chaff and then prints the chaff.
—Adlai E. Stevenson


Editors seek out the first novels with the seductiveness of Don Juans; the pleasure of discovery is one of the obvious reasons.
— William Targ

The job of an editor in a publishing house is the dullest, hardest, most exciting, exasperating and rewarding of perhaps any job in the world.
— John Hall Wheelock

The publisher is a middleman, he calls the tune to which the whole rest of the trade dances; and he does so because he pays the piper.
— Geoffrey Faber

Finally, what would a party be without some party games?

How About --Pin the Name on the Editor-- to end the day?

I have posted the pictures of some very big name editors in the romance field.

Hey! Talk to the hand.

No whining.

If you write romance, inspirational to steamy, you better know who you are sharing an elevator with at that national or local romance conference.

Take a guess. Answers will be posted at the end of the day along with random prize winners.


A.

B.

C .

D.

E.

F.

G.

H.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

EDITORIAL RESOURCES:

More interviews

Novel Journey's Interview with Cynthia DiTiberio, Acquisitions Editor, Avon Aspire

From the Seekerville archives,
An Interview with Barbara Scott, the Senior Acquisitions Editor for Fiction from Abingdon Press


Writers At Play, Interview with Harlequin Editor, Melissa Endlich


E Harlequin: Meet the Editors Podcasts

Editors Who Blog


Edit Cafe: Barbour Editors Blog

Avon Romance: Blogging Editors at Avon

Isabel Swift: Wouln't You Like to Know