Author Editor Quotes

Frank Morley, who had worked in London at Faber and Faber, was the new head of Harcourt Brace, and he hired me to start in 1940. The early years at Harcourt were wonderful. Almost my first assignment was Virginia Woolf's novel 'Between the Acts.'

I never hand in a book until it's completed. Richard Jackson then reads it and asks me to clarify murky points. We work very well together. He knows how hard to push, and I know how hard to push back. He's the only person who can criticize my work without me throwing a hissy fit.

Chiki Sarkar edited 'Mrs Funnybones,' and she is a ruthless but kind editor to work with. The only lesson I learnt during this process was to say, 'Yes, Prime Minister,' and re-write.

Authors don't tend to stay with the same agents and editors over their entire lifetimes, but Grafton worked with Marian Wood, her editor at Putnam, from Kinsey's first outing, and signed with Molly Friedrich, still her literary agent, with the publication of 'B Is for Burglar.'

The relationship with the words someone uses is more intimate and integrated than just a quick read and a blurb can ever be. This intimacy - the words on the page being sent back and forth from engaged editor to open author - is unique in my experience.

Authors can get an attitude of us-against-them when it comes to publishers, but learning how authors and editors can work together taught me to look at my work in a different way and to make that work as solid as possible before it ever goes to the publisher.

There's never any humongous next draft. I know a writer who every time he finished a novel - you would know his name very well - but his editor would come and live with him for a month. And they would go through the manuscript together.

There are a few editor men with whom I am privileged to come in contact. It has not been long since it was their habit to come in contact with me. There is a difference.