The Ideal Literary Editor

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.