Event Information

Authors and Editors

Date: 18 June 2003   Drinks: 18:30   Talk Starts: 19:30 OPuS Event

Review - Post Event

A fine dry evening with no major sporting event to distract us saw some 60 OPuS members gather at Headington Hill Hall to hear presentations and take part in discussion on that perennial theme – the working relationship between authors and their editors.

Was it like a marriage made in heaven, or was it an unholy alliance?

Richard Balkwill introduced the meeting by citing the difficult balance that the working relationship needed – on the one hand, an author feeling protective, even possessive about her ‘creation’, but needing a publisher to endorse and promote the quality of that creation. Meanwhile, the editor was required both to keep faith with authors’ aspirations or sensibilities while at the same time meeting tough financial goals set by the company.

We could not have wished for two more committed and engaging exponents of their respective arts than the author Julie Myerson (published under the Jonathan Cape imprint of Random House) and the editor Sue Freestone from Hutchinson, also a Random House imprint (but not Julie’s editor!).

Julie began by revealing her passion for writing. From an early age (9), she had sent her poems to John Betjeman and the outline for a novel about lions to Daphne du Maurier. By an astonishing coincidence, Julie’s English tutor at Bristol University had been Roy Littlewood, father of Random House’s International Director, Simon, and our third speaker this evening. Professor Littlewood had set standards and made demands about her work that Julie had continued to use throughout her writing career.

Overall, Julie was quite open about her experience – she had had the best of editors: responsive when she needed them, supportive; critical; and (in reference to her current editor at Cape) astonishingly ‘always there’.

Her latest book Something Might Happen had just been published to high critical acclaim, but she was also working to another deadline on a book recounting the history of the people who had lived over the years in her London house.

Sue Freestone did not make the editor’s job sound at all easy. She described sitting with Douglas Adams as he struggled to complete a book by forcing him to write and hand over a page at a time.

The editor’s role, according to Sue, was to act as the writer’s champion, be a passionate reader who also supported and believed in the book at all levels in a company, while remaining agile and alert to crisis and need, and in a very ‘non-9-to-5’ setting.

Sue likened the editor’s task to that of an archaeological dig – helping writers to sift through and unearth their ideas, and turn the core part of it into writing that was logical and hung together. And, yes, it was a high-risk activity that needed conviction and commitment. Nanny, archaeologist and gambler?

Simon Littlewood gave a fascinating description of the importance of people’s dealings with key authors at many different levels within the company, not just editorial. He had travelled 25,000 miles to Norfolk Island and back with the sole aim of reassuring a high-profile author of her importance to the company. He argued that more had been achieved by a few hours’ face-to-face meeting than any number of e-mails or phone calls.

All three presenters tackled the issue of ‘corporate’ versus small scale, and vigorously defended the detailed attention that could still be given by the editors of the separate imprints of Random House, yet offer the global reach of a huge group like Bertelsmann (with 70,000 employees worldwide).

Questions and answers were many and varied. What about covers and jackets? Should an author have a say in the design (yes, but not the final word). How did you cope with a no-hoper of a book? Was is better to be cruel to be kind? (yes, usually). What did the author think about a blurb that bore no relationship to the content, or (worse) gave away the book’s dénouement? (clearly a poorly briefed editor).

So ended an exhilarating evening that had given the audience an impressive insight into the working partnership of a good author/editor relationship. It seemed at once personal and detailed; not at all what you might expect superficially from the over-hyped and heavily-discounted world of consumer publishing.

Richard Balkwill June 2003

Description

Marriage made in heaven, or unholy alliance?

Julie Myerson, successful author of Sleepwalking, The Touch, Me and the Fat Man and Laura Blundy. Julie will tell us about her experiences as a published author (her latest book Something Might Happen is published on 5 June), and what she looks for in a good editor (Sue is not her editor!).

Sue Freestone, Publishing Director of Hutchinson. Sue has wide experience of working with authors, from Douglas Adams to Sebastian Faulks (and including last year's OPuS guest, Douglas Kennedy), and will share her views of what an editor hopes to find in an author.

Simon Littlewood, International Director of Random House, will also be in attendance. Come and enjoy a lively debate on this perennial issue, and share news and views with colleagues over a glass of wine and refreshments in the lovely (open air, if we're lucky!) surroundings of Headington Hill Hall.