The Author-Editor Relationship (with Gina Frangello and Rob Roberge)

Class Description

Once your book is accepted for publication, what’s it like working with an editor? What can you expect, and what should you know before signing the deal? In this informal discussion and Q&A, author and editor Gina Frangello and author Rob Roberge will speak to a wide array of author-editor relationships on both sides of the indie/trade aisle, and in particular address their own process of working together sporadically over a period of 15 years.

Co-founder and longtime editor of the independent press Other Voices Books, Frangello has been working with writers in magazine and book publishing since 1998, when she first discovered a story in the “slushpile” by a young writer, Rob Roberge. Published in her first issue as the editor of Other Voices magazine, Frangello and Roberge went on to work together in a variety of magazine venues print and online, including The Nervous Breakdown and The Rumpus, before Frangello ended up editing and publishing his novel, The Cost of Living, at Other Voices Books in 2013. Roberge, the author of three other books, has worked with editors ranging from HarperCollins to Red Hen, and Frangello, who is a writer besides being an editor, recently had her third book of fiction, A Life in Men, published by Algonquin Books after many years in the indie trenches.

Please bring any questions you have and participate in this informal discussion that will help you better know what to expect from a broad array of editors in today’s publishing climate, as well as the specifics of how an editor can help a particular author reach a higher mark, when to trust your gut, how to collaborate without compromising your voice, and more.

Guest Speakers:

Gina Frangello is the author of three books of fiction: A Life in Men (Algonquin 2014), Slut Lullabies (Emergency Press 2010), and My Sister’s Continent (Chiasmus 2006). She is the Sunday editor for The Rumpus and the fiction editor for The Nervous Breakdown, and is on faculty at the University of CA-Riverside’s low residency MFA program. The longtime Executive Editor of Other Voices magazine and Other Voices Books, she now runs Other Voices Queretaro (www.othervoicesqueretaro.com), an international writing program. She can be found at www.ginafrangello.com.

Rob Roberge is the author of four books of fiction: The Cost of Living (Other Voices Books 2013), Working Backwards From the Worst Moment of My Life (Red Hen 2010), More Than They Could Chew (Harper Perennial 2005), and Drive (Hollyridge 2001). A core faculty member at UCR/Palm Desert’s MFA, his stories and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. He plays guitar and sings with the LA bands The Danbury Shakes and The Urinals. www.robroberge.com.