Show Notes for Ep. 11 “Liz Gorinsky”
Friend of the podcast Liz Gorinsky arrives to share her experiences as an editor, from her early days of reading comic books, to her work at Tor.com, and finally starting Erewhon Books. Mary Anne and Ben inquire about the technical and career aspects of editing, as well as the importance of grappling with their internal editor in their own writing process.
Note: Ben and Liz refer to The Unravelling releasing in May, but the date has been moved to June 8.
You can find out more about Erewhon Books and Liz by going to www.erewhonbooks.com and http://lizgorinsky.com/.
Recorded 7 March 2021 / Published 7 June 2021
Contents
- 0:10: Introducing Liz Gorinsky: Hugo-winning editor for the new small press Erewhon Books, which is publishing Ben’s forthcoming novel The Unraveling.
- 2:00: Liz on the beginnings of her career as an editor, starting as an intern at DC Comics.
- 5:30: Accessibility of comics to new readers.
- 8:00: Liz’s time at Tor, starting as an unpaid intern.
- 11:20: Developmental editing vs. line editing.
- 12:35: How Liz learned to be an editor at Tor.
- 15:20: How editors spend their time at larger publishers and smaller ones.
- 21:55: Mary Anne’s experiences publishing her cookbook.
- 24:55: Creating and documenting procedures at Erewhon.
- 26:40: Who does what in a small business or a household, and under-delegating and over-delegating.
- 31:20: The problems with making decisions about who does what based on relative levels of status.
- 34:25: What led Liz to Erewhon, and why she took the job.
- 38:45: Deciding what Erewhon would publish.
- 41:10: How larger publishers decide to allocate attention/budget/publicity.
- 47:05: Books aren’t interchangeable widgets; publishers wanting to give readers what they want can conflict with producing different and unique books.
- 50:15: What small presses can do for authors; also, being prepared in case a small press book really takes off.
- 54:40: Mary Anne’s cookbook finances.
- 58:30: The three books that Erewhon published in 2020.
- 1:03:05: Brief intermission, featuring an ad for the Speculative Literature Foundation.
- 1:03:45: Erewhon’s recent and forthcoming 2021 books.
- 1:06:00: About Ben’s forthcoming novel The Unraveling: a far-future comedy of manners and rethinking gender.
- 1:08:00: What led Liz to be interested in Ben’s book.
- 1:10:25: What the editing process was like, including the decision to use neopronouns.
- 1:22:45: Different editors have different approaches to editing.
- 1:27:10: The different parts of Liz’s job, especially the deep editorial work that she loves.
- 1:31:35: Deep editorial work, craft, what readers notice and care about, fanfic, and what improves the reading experience.
- 1:40:10: Discussing a couple of specific books.
- 1:42:25: Should an author hire an editor before submitting their work to a publisher?
- 1:49:40: Advice to authors who want to sell a book to Erewhon.
- 1:52:00: Contexts where it might make sense for an author to hire a reader or an editor or a writing coach.
- 2:01:20: Indie LARPing.
- 2:11:55: Conclusion: Preorder The Unraveling, and support Erewhon and other indie publishers and booksellers.
- 2:15:10: Bonus announcement: The Unraveling launches tomorrow, June 8.
- 2:15:30: Credits.
Notes and Links
- Erewhon Books.
- The Unraveling, by Ben Rosenbaum.
- Vertigo comics.
- Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld comic book.
- Nexus comic book, by Mike Baron and Steve Rude.
- Power Pack comic book.
- The Talmud.
- Zita the Spacegirl comic book.
- Lumberjanes comic book.
- Elfquest comic book.
- Xxxenophile comic book.
- Tor Books.
- Igor.
- Kelly Link.
- A Feast of Serendib, by Mary Anne Mohanraj.
- Canva.
- TweetDeck.
- Strange Horizons.
- Interstitial Arts Foundation.
- Small Beer Press.
- Nicola Griffith.
- Clarion writing workshops.
- P&L statements.
- Jeff VanderMeer.
- Iona Datt Sharma.
- Widgets.
- The Midnight Bargain, by C.L. Polk.
- Canada Reads.
- CBC.
- FOGcon.
- Serendib Press.
- The Fortress, by S.A. Jones.
- The Scapegracers, by Hannah Abigail Clarke.
- Rise of the Red Hand, by Olivia Chadha.
- On Fragile Waves, by E. Lily Yu.
- Folklorn, by Angela Mi Young Hur.
- Regarding novel pitches that combine two things: see also Pitchbot.
- Otherwise Award.
- Meghan McCarron.
- WisCon.
- “Is Gender Necessary? Redux,” by Ursula K. Le Guin, appears in Dancing at the Edge of the World. For a summary of the original essay and Le Guin’s revisiting of it, see the 2009 New Yorker article “A Safe Trip Into Androgyny.”
- Neopronouns.
- Bodies in Motion, by Mary Anne Mohanraj, published by HarperCollins.
- Tremontaine, a serial prose work (that Mary Anne wrote for) published by Serial Box, based on Ellen Kushner’s Riverside books and stories.
- Oxford comma.
- Mark Twain (inspired by Josh Billings): “the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—’tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.”
- AO3, a.k.a. Archive of Our Own.
- “The Dead,” by James Joyce.
- Regarding Ellen Kushner’s writing: Note that she and Delia Sherman were the founders of “the ephemeral Young Trollopes movement of conversation-and-tea-drinking-centred speculative fiction writers” (following in the footsteps of Anthony Trollope), as Candas Jane Dorsey puts it in an autobiographical piece. The Young Trollopes were largely superseded by the Interstitial Arts Foundation (see above), but worth noting that the kinds of scenes between Richard and Alec that Mary Anne mentioned were not an accident.
- Erotica vs porn.
- Yellow Silk: Journal of Erotic Arts.
- Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste, by Carl Wilson.
- 33 ⅓ series of books about specific music albums.
- Celine Dion.
- Jean Baudrillard.
- David Moles.
- Encounters with the Archdruid, by John McPhee.
- Preditors and Editors used to be a source of information about whether a given publisher was trustworthy or not. It’s currently being revived.
- Writer Beware is SFWA’s official source of information about “literary schemes, scams, and pitfalls.”
- “Yog’s Law”: “Money should flow towards the author.” But see a 2014 blog post by John Scalzi for a corollary related to self-publishing.
- Sensitivity readers (content warning for descriptions of racism).
- Minal Hajratwala.
- Dream Apart, Ben’s “Jewish fantasy of the shtetl” tabletop roleplaying game.
- Nordic LARP. “It may help to think of Nordic larp less as a game, and more as an improvised theatrical experience.”
- American freeform LARP.
- RuneQuest.
- Apocalypse World and PBTA (Powered by the Apocalypse).
- Dialect: A Game About Language and How It Dies.
- Here Is My Power Button; see also other pages about the game, such as the Stockhold Scenario Festival and Larp Resume pages. Content notes from the latter, about the game: “power in relationships, up to emotional abuse—identity invalidation—emotional dependence—memory erasure—sustained one-on-one play—potential for romantic or sexual relationships.” You can also Download the game (PDF; name your own price).
- Her (2013 movie).
- Robin’s Friends, one of the Nordic LARPs that Ben referred to.
- Avery Alder.
- The SLF’s Fountain Award.
