Saturday, January 31, 2009

The Inside Scoop: Jennifer Rees, Scholastic

Says Jennifer Rees, Scholastic Press editor, her press loves the irreverent and the humorous as well as the commercial successes. As an editor, she loves variety—fiction, nonfiction, his, romance, teen fiction, history, humor, almost anything.

She loves genre and genre blending. After grad school she worked at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Cincinnati (yay!) and took great joy in recommending books that her customers loved.

Here are a few things she wished she would find in every manuscript:

  • A distinctive, fresh voice. Don’t hold back on your voice and writing style.
  • Great characters. Let them speak to you as you’re writing.
  • Something that aims to set his own trend. She wants something new, not knock-offs.
  • A story that keeps me guessing. She doesn’t want predictable.
  • A story that is out of the box.Write the story that keeps you awake at night. Your writing should be set to the music of its own song.
  • A professional package. She wants a manuscript that is readable. She needs SASE.
  • A writer who knows about the market.

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