Michelle Frey: Editor Panel

Michelle Frey is an executive editor at Alfred A Knopf Books for Young Readers. She's been editing for twenty-five year, and twenty of those have been with Knopf. She's worked on all kinds of books. Some of her best known are ERAGON by Christopher Paolini, THE PENDERWICKS series by Jean Birdsall, I'M NOT YOUR PERFECT MEXICAN DAUGHTER by Erica Sanchez, and OF THEE I SING by Barack Obama, illustrated by Loren Long. 

When discussing what makes a submission to turn into a book Michelle must have, she says the absolutely number one things is voice. When she finds a great voice, there can be other problems, but Michelle finds she can work with those problems, but voice is that element that's hard to teach. 

Michelle shared an SCBWI success story. She met an author with an amazing voice at a first-pages session at an SCBWI event, but it had a lot of problems. Based on Michelle's feedback, the writer worked on her book for six months and then submitted to Michelle, and Michelle ended up buying that book. 

When it comes to social media, an authors presence is not important to Michelle when acquiring. Michelle would rather see an author spending time on writing rather than building a social media presence. That said, if social media is a place that an author wants to be, and creates a following, that's great too.

Michelle says she really wants to work with people who are kind. In terms of the creative relationship, building on the partnership is important. She's not expecting a writer she's working with to take every bit of feedback. It's both listening well to the feedback, and also trusting yourself as a writer to fix issues, even it's not in the way she suggested. 

If Michelle takes the time to give a writer feedback (a writer who has submitted), it's because she sees something in that project. It's also a time for her, as an editor, to see how a writer she's never worked with revises.