A lot of editors know what it’s like to read and publish a novel or an essay: I know what it’s like to write one. I’ve been writing professionally for 35 years now. I’ve published four novels, a dozen short stories, 30 museum and gallery monographs, and more than 200 essays and reported articles. (You’ll find links to some of them in the ‘About Me’ section.)
So I know both the exhilaration and the despair, and everything in between: how it feels to be lost inside your own work, and looking for the right landmarks. I’ve committed the dumb mistakes we all make, produced the awkward sentences, succumbed to vagueness, missed the turnoff, got stuck in the mud. And I know those rare, euphoric moments when you feel like the English language is your joy and your home, and you can do no wrong.
I know where an author’s courage falters, and how to strengthen it. I know how we writers can bullshit ourselves, without even realizing it, and how we can do something utterly inspired, and not realize that, either. I’ve felt the joy of riding the perfect wave, and the fear of drowning. I know what it’s like to absolutely dread the prospect of writing one more draft, and how important it is to do it anyway, because the next draft is the one where the magic starts flowing again.
Making something “publishable” is not so hard: I can help with that, but I want to go further. My goal is to help you make something undeniable, incapable of being ignored. Moreover, the idea is always to make your book your book—to make it more yours than you might have thought possible. When we get there, it’ll be like no other feeling in the world.
