On Monday, April 22nd at 7PM at Paragraph: Workspace for Writers, editors Karen Braziller, Nancy Rawlinson and Alexandra Shelley held an editor roundtable discussion about their work. 

L to R: Alexandra Shelley, Karen Braziller, and Nancy Rawlinson

Karen Braziller’s primary experience is as an acquisitions editor at S&S, Dutton, and elsewhere, and as the editorial director of Persea Books, a literary house she co-founded. She has worked closely with numerous authors, from conception to published book—among them, Oscar Hijuelos, Joyce Carol Oates, Meg Kearney, Pablo Medina, Thylias Moss, Gary Soto, and Alan Ziegler. In 2008, she began a prose workshop, adapting her one-on-one experience to the group format while aiming for the same goal: a publishable manuscript that realizes the writer’s vision. In the workshop’s five years, ten books have been published or are under contract.

Nancy Rawlinson is an independent editor, teacher, and creative coach with over ten years of experience. She works with both fiction and nonfiction writers to help them complete manuscripts, move past their inner blocks, and achieve publication. She has worked as an editor at Madison magazine, Publisher’s Weekly, and Guernica: A Magazine of Art and Politics. Nancy also runs her own independent workshops in New York City. As a writer, Nancy has been awarded residencies and fellowships from the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony, the Ragdale Foundation, Atlantic Center for the Arts, and the Jentel Artist Residency Program. Her website is www.nancyrawlinson.com.

Alexandra Shelley, a book editor for 20 years, is former deputy editorial director at Bridge Works Publishing.  She now works independently with authors, mainly on novels and narrative non-fiction.  Among the best-selling books she’s worked on recently are Kathryn Stockett’s THE HELP and Emily Giffin’s WHERE WE BELONG. She also teaches fiction workshops at The New School and in her living room.  She edits about 30 books a year, which is why she can be found staring moodily at the Paragraph coffeemaker trying to remember that she’s in the kitchen not on a drought-stricken Australian sheep farm or a packet ship crossing the Atlantic.