Q&A With Editor Jaimee Garbacik
Jaimee Garbacik is an editor, writer, publishing consultant, and the owner/founder of Footnote Editorial. She cut her teeth in publishing as the sole acquisitions editor for The Literary Group International, a major literary agency in Manhattan, where she handled editorial development for their more than 200 clients world-wide. Jaimee has been privileged to work with New York Times bestselling authors, Caldecott Honor and Emmy Award recipients, and some of the world’s foremost scientists. Her first book, Gender and Sexuality For Beginners, a critical examination of the evolution of gender roles, is currently on curriculum at over a dozen universities.
(Photo credit: Rani Ban)
Q: What do you think makes a strong editor? A: From where I’m sitting, editing well is largely about the capacity to see both the big picture and the minutia with equal clarity. The ability to alternate between the two without faltering is your job every day. You must never lose sight of myriad trickle-down effects from one seemingly small change. To know what an author’s readership wants, what is most compelling about the author’s perspective, and to be able to yank that out of a work-in-progress draft—that is editing.
To that end, it is only the editors who cannot be deterred from reading absolutely everything that crosses their path who develop that necessary sixth sense. It may sound a bit obvious to say that the most important quality of any editor is an insatiable appetite for the written word, but it is nevertheless true. Only someone who reads voraciously and widely can have any prayer of developing the ear to edit with precision.
It’s not about one’s knowledge of grammar (although you had better be fanatically diligent about looking up suspected errors). I find it more essential that an editor know instinctively when a protagonist is acting “out of character,” to notice when a line of dialogue doesn’t ring with authenticity. If an author employs repetitive sentence structure or uses vapid exposition to provide context, it’s on you to nip that in the bud.
Editors must never pummel sentences for sport. We are not the judge and jury of style—editors exist to enhance authors’ voices and aid the delivery of their message. Our red pens are solely for slicing away that which detracts from the gold. Every strong editor I’ve ever known has been exceptionally articulate and able to mesh with a variety of personalities. Besides that, it’s helpful if an editor has the disposition of a counselor, because certainly authors need that more than they know.
Q: What kind of books do you most enjoy editing? A: The kind of books that seem to be inventing a new genre as they go. A poetry book that feels more like a diorama in essay form. A short story collection that spans four continents and explores race issues from the point of view of a platypus. I’m only halfway joking! I like editing a book where one feels quite sure that only that specific author could have written it, and had anyone else tried, the result would have been utter rubbish. I go in for fanciful, inventive plots and prose that never wastes a word.
I specialize in short story collections and literary fiction novels, both realistic and surrealist. I take great pleasure in YA, essay collections, and books which concern gender and feminist or queer issues. I also have a soft spot for interviews, music writing, food politics, cultural studies, and long-form journalism.
I most enjoy a novel I can live inside of, whose characters I will come to know and worry about long after I have finished editing. If you spend a third of your life reading—as editors do—you may find that there are protagonists whom you feel bonded to as if they were people in your everyday life. So it’s best if they’re well-formed characters with an awful lot to say about the predicaments they find themselves in. In nonfiction, I like all sorts of books so long as the subject is a passionate one for the author rather than a vanity project intended to legitimize their professional work. I want to edit for seekers, travelers, artists and chefs, philosophers, humanitarians, curious vagabond researchers, and guerilla ethnographers.
I tend to seek out authors as clients who are interested in developing a lasting relationship with an editor as they grow their technique. Sometimes I will reply to an editorial query for a manuscript that has a compelling concept or approach even if I know the writing can’t be elevated to a publishable level. In those cases, I tell the author right up front, “This isn’t your breakout book. But if we revise it, you will not make the same mistakes with the next one. And that might be the book that makes you.” If they’re up for that process, workshopping for the sake of craft, then I am in. I know it will be pure. I want to work with that author more than on any specific book. I want to edit for writers who will take chances and who are dedicated to a lifetime of letters. And if David Mitchell or Karen Russell should ever find they need a second set of eyes on something, the internet knows where to find me.
Q: You have a reputation for exceptionally frank and prescriptive editorial letters. Do you find that authors crave candid feedback? What sort of relationship should writers look for with their editor? A: Don’t get me wrong, a good editor knows when to couch constructive criticism between compliments so as not to bludgeon an author’s confidence. But a great editor also knows when to be brutally honest so as not to coddle an author’s disastrously indulgent habits.
For years, Stuart Goldman used to send me individual short stories for feedback and would always accompany them with these little notes like, “You're the ONLY editor in the world I trust enough to do this.” And for a good while, I thought his trust strange because we didn’t agree on politics at all and had never met in person. Yet over time, we developed a real bond because he knows I will give it to him straight and unadorned, which is what a gonzo journalist like him needs to avoid going off the rails. He knew from the beginning how valuable our fledgling rapport was, and now we are quite close. I highly doubt there is a one-size-fits-all editor who is perfectly suited to all clients in equal measure. Go looking for one who seems to hear your voice dwelling between the lines and has the audacity to pluck it out and spread it across the page.
I’m afraid there can be a rather wide divergence between what an author wants and what an author needs. And I trust that any writer with significant talent will possess the emotional intelligence to acknowledge the difference. At the end of the day, changing a passage or leaving it as it was typically remains the author’s call. I find it more effective to provide strategies rather than simply spewing blanket encouragement—or worse, taking money for offering false hope to a new writer. Your editor ought to provide you with a toolbox or else direct you to someone who will.
Now, of course, it is true that many authors need some hand-holding in order to coax out their best possible writing. But if you are working with a professional editor, one would assume you already take your work quite seriously and feel that it has merit. So I consider it more important that I convince an author to get rid of an errant chapter from the second-person point of view than that I reinforce her sense that the work is already perfect. Firstly, the work is never perfect, and secondly, if it somehow were, I would still demand to see growth. I am indefatigable that way.
Q: What were some of your most rewarding moments as an editor? A: I had the great privilege of editing [two-time Individual World Poetry Slam Champion] Buddy Wakefield’s Gentleman Practice for Write Bloody Publishing. His figure looms large in my literary universe. Every moment that I was working on that manuscript felt like a gift. After Buddy saw my edits, he called me to say that he was shocked at how I had intuitively understood what he was going for. He said I had made it a much stronger manuscript. There is nothing like the feeling of knowing that your insight into an author’s intent helped to shape their finished product, nevermind when the author is one of your personal heroes. I was ecstatic.
There have been many others. It’s obviously deeply gratifying when one of my clients wins an award or gets an excellent review. But I am also delighted when an aspiring novelist sends me an email telling me that an agent signed them after our work together. Even more so, I take pride in the subtle improvements of my clients’ capacities over time—when I see them killing their darlings and starting a story, like Kurt Vonnegut suggests, “as close to the end as possible.”
This may sound strange, but my proudest moments are when clients leave me messages at 4a.m. to tell me they have figured out how to fix a plot point or structural issue. The fact of the matter is, I no longer keep a phone in my bedroom for that very reason, but my authors know I will be brimming with excitement for them when I wake up. Knowing they can’t wait to share their epiphanies with me, that they consider me intimately integral to their process—that means everything. Q: Can you tell us a bit about the books you’ve edited for Inkshares? A: I recently edited Yann Rousselot’s Dawn of the Algorithm, a sci-fi poetry collection that both humorously and gravely deconstructs the difficulty of forging human connections as technology advances. I relished cultivating his various speakers. Getting the order of the poems right was quite an endeavor, though, since the themes span from robopocalypse to heartbreak to the nature of a sentient algorithm’s mind.
(Photo: Jaimee fusses over the order of poems in Dawn of the Algorithm) I also edited Scolding the Winds for Inkshares, Joel Kelly’s novella about a young woman who is fighting to redefine herself after walking away from her family’s religion. Joel’s style is one of dense brevity. Since he was toying with nontraditional chronology, it was my job to make sure that his protagonist was fully fleshed out and that her vices felt entirely true-to-life. My most recent project was Travels with Harley, a memoir detailing Colonel Chris Holshek’s insights into personal and national identity considered over the course of a cross-country motorcycle ride. Col. Holshek is extremely versed in writing about foreign policy and security, but it was a new way of thinking for him to expound on his personal experiences. We worked together to rein in terminology and political references that would require too much additional context for a civilian audience; it was an honor to be part of his process. I am wary of sounding like an advertorial, but I will say that it’s very freeing to edit for a publisher committed to authors having the final say instead of the marketing department. I look forward to seeing what kinds of innovative and experimental new projects will be made possible by Inkshares’ model.
