Editors

I had a conversation with the man behind the counter at University Press Books in Berkeley, who said that editors must need a lot of empathy to work with writers who are often difficult or reclusive. (This is obviously less true of journalism than more rarefied forms of writing, like poetry. We were discussing Frederick Seidel, who mostly shuns publicity, but agreed to be interviewed by his publisher. My impression from the interview is that Seidel edits himself. His depiction of how he writes sounded a lot like how I write, whereas James Ellroy's description, in an interview in the same issue (190) of the Paris Review, absolutely didn't, unless you count storyboards or a list of a few would-be section headings.) Editors are impresarios: they create occasions for writers. They also have to get those occasions out the door, which means, besides empathy, they have to be able to cajole.