III. QUICK PICKS

What are some distinctive youth novels that you’ve acquired or edited in the past few years? Why did they appeal to you?

Rofe: All books that I acquire are my favorites—if I don’t love it, I won’t take it on. One particularly distinctive novel that I acquired and sold recently is Las Mantas de Milagros (Holt, 2007)—a beautiful YA about a young girl, Milagros, who lives in the Caribbean. When the island Milagros lives on is attacked, she flees by boat. Ultimately, Milagros ends up in a North American town that is very different from the home she knows. It is there that Milagros begins to discover the meaning of family, the importance of identity, and the power of a mother’s love.

Neaves: The multi-award-winning Marika by Andrea Cheng has a completely captivating opening scene, and the rest of the story follows fluidly and sparely. Kalpana’s Dream by Judith Clarke (a Boston Globe Horn Book honor award winner) has one of the most appealing characters I’ve met in a long time. Other favorites include You & You & You by Per Nilsson (currently a finalist for the L.A. Times book award) and Soul Moon Soup by Lindsay Lee Johnson (winner of the 2004 Lee Bennett Hopkins Promising Poet Award)

Among these, or any of all-time status, what are 1-2 of your favorites? Why?

Rofe: Some of my all-time favorite books include (but are not limited to) Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, To Kill a Mockingbird, The World According to Garp, Catherine Called Birdy, Passage to India, and Sula. Aside from gripping plots, the characters—the complete, complex, intriguing, strong, and flawed characters—make these my favorites.

Neaves: Honeysuckle House by Andrea Cheng was challenging for me to edit. It has an intriguing combination of compelling characters and high-interest subject matter.

IV. ON A PERSONAL NOTE...

How has meeting writers at workshops or conferences influenced you?

Rofe: I find it invigorating to work with writers at workshops/conferences and to spend hours, sometimes even weekends, among artists working on and learning about their craft. I find it tremendously inspiring—writers are courageous souls.

Neaves: Writers conferences are one of the only chances I have for face-to-face contact with authors. Talking to authors about how they go about crafting their work and how they might fine-tune it leaves me feeling charged and excited about my own work. It sparks my thinking about how best to talk with authors whose work has engaged me, and how I may help them get inspired about revising.

What do you like most about your job?

Rofe: I love the rush of falling in love with a manuscript. I love working with my clients to help develop their stories, and I love the relationships I develop with my clients through this process. I consider myself an editorial agent in that I spend time working with my clients to revise and strengthen their manuscripts before presenting them to editors. I believe strongly that it’s important to be honest with my clients, and I won’t give up on projects until all avenues are exhausted.

Neaves: I most enjoy collaborating with authors whose work I admire.

What would you like writers to know about you, the individual who scrutinizes their literary labor of love?

Rofe: For me to take on a client, I need to feel a connection to the work and I need to believe in it. Your agent should be one of your biggest fans. Rejecting manuscripts isn’t, by any means, the most enjoyable part of my job. Every time I put a rejection in the mail, I think about the anxiety a writer must feel when, after weeks and months of waiting, she opens the mailbox to find my letter. Typically, when I reject a manuscript it’s simply because I am the wrong agent for the material. But editorial opinions are subjective—I might not be the right agent for the work, but somebody else may be!

Neaves: The most difficult thing about being a writer is the work itself. The second most difficult thing about being a writer is finding the right publisher for your work. It takes research and effort to find out who is publishing what, and who accepts unsolicited manuscripts. And rejection letters can be discouraging.

The important thing to keep in mind is that an editor is trying to build a list. A list traditionally consists of the combined tastes of various editors who have bought books over the years. The list is determined by tradition. Before submitting your work, research various imprints and find editors and publishers who are publishing books similar to your own.

It’s important for the success of a project to find not only a publisher willing to publish your work, but an editor who believes in it and has a vision for how to develop it. Yet an editor’s response is nothing more than one person’s opinion about your work. You’ll no doubt find editors who respond differently to a project. An editor accepts or rejects manuscripts for a variety of reasons, from personal taste to business considerations. When an editor rejects a project, it simply means that it isn’t right for his or her list—nothing more and nothing less.

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