A Necessary Resilience
PUBLISHING is such an intensively collaborative enterprise, I find it surprising that we in the industry value independence above everything else. After all, none of us is ever working alone—except perhaps when we read and evaluate a manuscript that is fresh off an untried writer’s desk. Two forces are always at play in the market: the one that follows trends and the one that creates them. When editors are reading manuscripts, therefore, I want to know which force is uppermost in their minds. Are they looking for something they know has worked before? Or are they open to the unexpected?
The loss of Toni Morrison this year gave us all a
