Houston, We Have An Editor!

[Writers Plot]

posted by Jeanne Munn Bracken

Over 20 years ago, I got the call that every writer dreams about. An editor at Oxford University Press was interested in publishing my Children with Cancer: A Reference Guide for Parents. I did the happy dance all over the place. Her name was Shelley Reinhardt, and over the next couple of years we polished off the book and sent it out into the world, where it garnered very nice reviews and is still sort of in print. I drifted into fulltime library jobs and Shelley moved on to other publishing houses.

The second edition of Children with Cancer came about when a woman from Canada insisted that it had to be updated and that she would help. Eventually we had a signed OUP contract and a deadline. We split the advance and divvied up the chapters. The initial deadline was July 1, 2002, which was pushed back a year when my coauthor moved out of the country. I won't go into the bloody details, but the collaboration didn't work out and I have ended up responsible for the entire 400+ page edition.

The book was first assigned to a house editor (#1) who was not interested in the project. The next editor (#2) was a pleasant young woman who negotiated the contract and promptly left for culinary school. Editor #3 had been with OUP for ages. We had been corresponding over the years. We had even had lunch in San Francisco and agreed it would be good to work together to finish the book. (He was the one who advised just giving up on the coauthor, and of course he was right.)

I kept researching and revising and was getting close to a completed (first) draft when Editor #3 retired. One of his last acts was to pass Children with Cancer Two off to a young protege, Carrie, #4 if you're keeping track. When I was in New York, she took me to lunch and I felt we really connected. I was relieved and we even exchanged a couple of chapters so she could see where things stood. She liked the work, had excellent ideas, and the project was on a front burner.

Before I could finish, though, I got the dreaded e-mail announcing that she was moving on to another house. I have heard about books that get "orphaned" when editors move on and sometimes the whole project dies. So I was relieved to get an e-mail from OUP checking on my status was because they would like to schedule the book for publication.

I replied that I would have the manuscript ready to submit by June. I don't believe I mentioned what year, luckily, because it's now July and the book, while I do have a complete first draft, still needs a lot of tweaking before I can comfortably send it off. I did worry, though, when I couldn't find out who the actual editor will be.

I tried to e-mail OUP a couple of time but didn't get any response. So I called New York and asked for a guy listed as medical editor. He wasn't in the office and never returned my call. I waited a few days for everybody to get back from BEA and tried again. The switchboard transferred my call to "Publicity", which struck me as odd, but I left a message. They didn't return my call. I waited a few days for everyone to get back from ALA and gave it another shot. The switchboard kept me on hold for, I swear I'm not exaggerating, 10 minutes. I was sure that this was OUP's way of letting me know they'd finally lost patience with me and the project was doomed.

Eventually I was transferred to another office, where I assumed Editor #5 would return my call. She did not, despite my having left her my home phone number, work number, cell number, and e-mail addresses. After a couple of days of silence, I was really getting nervous. I mean, I have hundreds of hours tied up in this book and I'm really committed to seeing it in print, and soon. Honest.

So imagine my relief when I spotted a e-mail titled "I am your editor!" and discovered that....I still can barely believe it...my new editor is....ta DAH...my "old" editor Shelley Reinhardt, who has returned to OUP.

Yee hah! Doin' the happy dance here again, for sure.