Thursday, April 17, 2014

Two Editors, One Novelist

The Slate Book Review author-editor-editor conversation with Emma Donoghue.


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From left, Judy Clain, Emma Donoghue, and Iris Tupholme
Photos by Beowulf Sheehan, Nina Subin, and Kate Cassaday
As is the case with many novelists with an international profile, Emma Donoghue has more than one editor. Her newest novel, Frog Music—her first since the best-selling Room—was edited by both Judy Clain, editor in chief of Little, Brown in the U.S., and Iris Tupholme, editor in chief of HarperCollins Canada. The Canadian novelist and her two editors talk about sharing responsibilities, resolving disputes, and the long list of ideas Donoghue has waiting for the novels to express them.

Judy Clain: Emma, what is it like working with two editors on your books? When I came aboard for Room, I was the new girl stepping into an old relationship. So I was very conscious of the fact that the two of you might have had systems and ways of working together in place.

Emma Donoghue: Well, I think Iris and I had worked together on only one book ahead of you, so it’s not as if she had been my editor for 20 years and you were intruding or anything. I suppose it was less scary for me because I knew one of my editors (Iris) already. But Room felt like a new experience anyway—there was so much excitement about its publication worldwide from the start. So I had no sense that you were the new girl, Judy.

Clain: Well, that’s good. What helped for me, just in terms of process, was that you, Emma, were very clear from the start that you wanted to hear from both of us separately.  And I think with some authors where there are two editors working on a book, they get together behind the scenes and communicate about the edits and combine them into one editorial letter. And you wanted to hear from me, what I thought, and from Iris, what she thought. And I suppose we’re lucky, or maybe it’s not luck that neither of us said anything that completely contradicted the other!
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