Just after Thanksgiving (2008), Carol Houck Smith died. Legendary editor at W.W. Norton, she edited numerous prize-winning collections of poems. Read her full obituary at the Washington Post (Friday, December 12, 2008; Page B07) online. In 2004 her advice to beginning writers was:
The best advice to beginning writers, she said in a 2004 washingtonpost.com online chat, is "to be a reader. To become a voracious reader. And to learn to read with your ears as well as your eyes. To read your own work aloud. And even to type out a passage from a writer you love, to really get the rhythm."
The best advice to beginning writers, she said in a 2004 washingtonpost.com online chat, is "to be a reader. To become a voracious reader. And to learn to read with your ears as well as your eyes. To read your own work aloud. And even to type out a passage from a writer you love, to really get the rhythm."
The job of an editor, she continued, "is to discover what the intention of the writer is, and then to try and stand in for the general reader and assess whether the writer has fulfilled that intention. I think it's a chemical relationship between author and editor, in the same way that you're attracted to friends when you meet them, and so the editor has really joined the book."
I'm sure I would have enjoyed meeting and talking with Ms. Houck Smith.
