The Ideal Literary Editor

American messiness and the literary marketplace

Photo by Tim Wildsmith on Unsplash

After my piece on the publishing industry for The Free Press went live, I heard from tons of writers asking what’s next for the book business. I don’t know the answer to that question, but it did get me thinking about the qualities of my ideal editor for a literary imprint. I think most of the problems with mainstream publishing can be chalked up to the lack of competent editors, so if higher quality books are to be published, higher quality editors are needed. The problem is that the young cohort of editors who contract literary fiction are hyper-politicized and disinterested in large swaths of America, which explains why so many books are similarly themed and aesthetically uniform. You get tons of books about young, coastal women behaving badly and the required “diverse” narratives populated by sad/angry POC.

My ideal literary editor is someone interested in all of America and wants to read as many different American stories as possible. There are hundreds of different Americas, and I want them represented in the books I read. I want urban stories and suburban stories; I want to read about rural folks and southerners and even the annoying rich people on the Upper East Side; I want to know what’s going on in Native American reservations and the inner city and every American locale in between. This is a selfish desire, because I’m genuinely interested in America and its people; I think tons of readers—and writers—have the same desire, but they’re not currently being served by the mainstream literary marketplace. We want to know what’s happening outside the big cities and the “cultural” centers over-represented in literary fiction. It’s a massive, beautiful, strange, infuriating country, and I want to know all about it. Too many editors live in a bubble and are content residing inside it forever; they want to drag us inside that drab, safe bubble with them.

One of the products of living in the Brooklyn media bubble is that the editors of literary imprints share the same politics and thematic concerns. They’re very progressive—or they front as very progressive—which leads to a suffocatingly narrow view of diversity. The editors view people of color as victims, and so “diverse” books are about POC fighting the patriarchy/America/insert oppressor here. I’m not saying these stories aren’t valuable, but there is more to the lives of POC than suffering and sadness. But progressive editors view people of color as noble savages, and so every year we’re bombarded with victim tales. And if it’s not the victim tales, then it’s the magical Hispanic tales, in which abuelitas cook up magical enchiladas and generational curses come to light. I’m Hispanic, so I know about the love of magic, but I refuse to believe that every Hispanic-American writer is obsessed with curses and spells. I don’t buy that so many Hispanic writers want to write about this stuff, but they know that progressive editors eat it up, since magic is noble savage behavior. If only one of these abuelitas would cast a spell on these editors and release them from their noble savage fetish! How about a Hispanic yuppie story for once? Some of you don’t even speak Spanish and probably don’t even eat enchiladas!

Progressive editors also disregard rural voices and view most of middle America as the land of rubes, so those stories aren’t represented. My ideal literary editor, then, can’t be too progressive. He’s middle of the road politically, or as apolitical as possible. Maybe this makes him a centrist or a classical liberal or whatever—it doesn’t matter. What matters is that this person is interested in the many different Americas—this is his default state. Desire for diversity comes naturally to this person. Since this person isn’t thinking about diversity, he’s not neurotic about “diversity.” Diversity of place will lead to diversity of everything else. There will be no need for quotas or any bureaucratic measures because representation will happen naturally. What will the ratio of the groups represented look like? Who knows. It’ll change season to season. What I do know is that thinking of diversity in this organic way—the quality of the work at the forefront, of course—will lead to a far more diverse literary marketplace than the current one.  

The ideal literary editor can’t be too conservative. Hyper-conservatives want to live in a bubble of their own and are often petrified of major cities and mainstream American culture. Conservatives are confounded by groups they don’t understand and usually restrict themselves to patriotic stories that highlight the old-timey America of their dreams. This view is just as narrow as the progressive view of America and disregards too many stories. Conservatives, like progressives, are afraid of the messiness of America; both sides choose their bubbles in accordance with what kind of American messiness they fear the most. Conservatives are against bureaucratic “diversity,” but I fear that many are legitimately afraid—or at the very least, skeptical—of actual diversity. Conservative media tokenizes people of color, often treating them like jesters—as opposed to noble savages—so I’m not confident that a literary press run by conservatives will treat POC with respect, if they even publish them at all.

Most of the conservatives I’ve seen who want to start independent presses are also leaning into an anti-woke stance, which is just as artistically bankrupt as wokeness. These aren’t people interested in art for art’s sake, but in responding to a movement they find distasteful—they’re reacting. Conservatives, long having given up on culture, viewing it as the domain of liberals and hippies, cannot be trusted as arbiters of aesthetics. Their websites are often cringey and one gets the sense that any hint of experimentation or transgression will send them running for the hills in a panic.

I also think that if editorial positions are filled with people disinterested in politics, the writers will follow suit. I’m convinced that literary writers aren’t as politically obsessed as they seem; they might care about a handful of political issues, but the gatekeepers are so politicized that the writers follow along for careerist reasons. A lot of the writers I talk to want an excuse to stop caring about politics and are far less political than their social media feeds when you talk to them one on one. Ironically, if writers stop performatively caring about politics, the politically engaged work they do produce will be far less propagandist and hackneyed. The ideal literary editor, even if he’s disinterested in politics, understands the value of political fiction, and is not opposed to publishing it so long as it works as a piece of art. Aesthetics over politics, always. His own politics—whatever they may be—won’t get in the way of transcendent work.

The ideal literary editor isn’t reacting, but curating based on a sensibility that isn’t dictated by the petty politics of the times.

The ideal literary editor is drawn to American messiness and rejects the bubbles. He understands that America is the land of Elvis Presley and James Brown and Ralph Ellison and Dusty Rhodes and Bob Dylan and Barry Hannah and Joan Didion and Tonya Harding and Dennis Rodman and so many other messy, unclassifiable freaks. He understands that America’s magic comes from its messiness, and any to attempt to constrain it, is pure folly. He is searching for writers who are able to harness their particular brand of American messiness and then help them deliver it to a wider audience. The ideal literary editor is on the lookout for true writers, which is to say artists who aren’t pandering. He believes in magic and mystery and the muse and understands that everything else is bureaucracy.

The ideal literary editor knows what he wants because he’s been looking for it for a very long time, way before he even knew that the publishing business existed. He is a “book person” because books have always been necessary to his well-being and happiness. It’s a very simple concept, but often forgotten due to its simplicity: people who traffic in books should love books. The current crop of young literary editors is more interested in working in publishing than working with books and writers. Even though it’s continually losing cultural relevance, the publishing industry maintains a certain cachet with elites. Young women from elite universities want to work in publishing or publishing-adjacent industries like public relations and marketing. These jobs, especially at the entry level, don’t pay well, and so they’re staffed by people who want sweet, sweet status and are able to forgo monetary compensation. The ideal literary editor, however, doesn’t care about the status conferred from editing but treats the work as if it were a calling—because it is. The job is to find talent, hone it without killing the magic that drew you to it, and then shepherd it into the world.

A common complaint I hear from writers—especially debut novelists—is that their editors don’t do much editing; or if they do edit, it’s shoddily done. Writers don’t want their books hacked to pieces by disinterested, untalented editors, but they do want them honed by someone who understands their vision—they want shepherds. The current publishing system no longer functions on the shepherd/gatekeeper model that cultivated the careers of many literary greats. The Gordon Lish model is gone, replaced by the publishing course model: a recent college graduate from an elite institution, entertaining the idea of a life in publishing—not a life in books—applies to a $60,000 six-week publishing course. After the course is completed, the new “publishing professional” gets a job as an editorial assistant or at a literary agency. How many books have they read? Do they know how to edit? Do they even know how to communicate with writers? The answers to these questions don’t matter because what’s being produced aren’t book people, but publishing people. The young publishing professionals have the same politics, the same tastes, and so it’s no surprise that the same types of books are published year after year.

The ideal literary imprint would be staffed by two or three younger editors—book people—under the tutelage of an older gatekeeper editor who’s spent years cultivating and honing his literary aesthetic. A small imprint will ensure a distinct sensibility and that contracted writers will receive the utmost attention. A handful of people with excellent taste and a genuine interest in America and its people—that’s all you need.