I was sad to see this obituary in this morning's Globe and Mail: A behind-the-scenes force guiding books onto shelves. Excerpt:
Saeko Usukawa's long hours bent over draft manuscripts and her quietly persuasive work with authors helped guide hundreds of books onto bookstore shelves.
As an editor for more than four decades, she was a behind-the-scenes leader in the Canadian publishing world. She edited books by award-winning authors including Wayson Choy, Douglas Coupland, Sky Lee, Bill Richardson and many others, covering genres as diverse as literary fiction, first nation studies, visual art, and cookery.The obituary mentions that she started at Douglas & McIntyre in 1979, so I must have been one of her first authors: I still recall with pride the memo she sent Scott McIntyre after reading the manuscript of Icequake.
I also recall her remarkable editing style: She was very quiet, very gentle, and simply not to be argued with. She understood books better than the authors did--better than I understood mine, anyway--and she would softly point out where the problems were and what the solutions should be.
I've been very lucky with most of my editors, so I have trouble understanding authors who've battled theirs. I look forward to getting the editor's take on a manuscript--to see what I've missed in my own story, and where the story is working well. Even when I don't agree with an editor's suggestion, I'm careful to reconsider my own opinion.
Much of what I know about writing, both fiction and nonfiction, I learned from editors. And Saeko was one of my finest teachers.
Comments