![]() As much as I love editing and publishing my own list, it brings me so much joy to help other editors do the same. KL: Mentoring, coaching, and managing a team. JR: That’s some interesting journey! What do you enjoy the most about your job? Even so, I reached a point where I was curious what it would be like to work somewhere I hadn’t spent most of my adult life, so when Justin Chanda asked me to come to Simon & Schuster to become editorial director of Books for Young Readers, I decided to take the leap, and I started there in September 2019. Working under three different presidents, two different publishers, and through the merger into Penguin Random House, I got to bear witness to so much change and reinvention. KL: I spent fourteen amazing years at Viking and made my way up the ranks from editorial assistant to editorial director. JR: How did you land at Simon & Schuster? Herlong, which Sharyn November helped me acquire as an assistant editor, and which went on to become an ALA Best Books for Young Adults in 2010. KL: As an intern, I loved working on the Magic School Bus books, but the first book I ever acquired was The Great Wide Sea by M.H. JR: What was the first book you worked on? This is such an apprenticeship-based business and I’m so grateful to have had a great mentor throughout my career! After working full-time at Scholastic after college in the Book Clubs, I joined Viking Children’s Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers, where Joy had become a senior editor, and getting to work with her again cemented my interest in being an editor. We became friends on day one, and she introduced me to so much about the publishing industry and made me want to pursue editing as a career. KL: Publishing wasn’t a career I was aware of as a young person, but I had the good fortune to get an internship in college working for the amazing Joy Peskin, who was an editor at Scholastic at the time. JR: Could you tell us a little bit about your path to becoming an editor in children’s books? I love coaching, and though my work as a coach has remained a sideline to my publishing career, I’m grateful for the ways my coaching expertise helps me in my work with authors and with my colleagues. So I enrolled in a year-long certificate program and my life as a life coach began. Around the same time, I’d been getting a little too deeply involved in my friends’ lives and challenges, and needed to find a healthy way to channel my desire to help people. I thought, Wow! I’d like to be able to do something like that! She was a life coach, and by getting to know her, I found out about a field I hadn’t heard of before then. A few years before, when I was new to publishing, I met a woman at a party and asked her what she did for a living. KL: I’m so glad you got so much out of the workshop! I became a life coach in 2008. I’m sure that must be very rewarding for you. I know that you do a lot of coaching as well. JR: To start with, I had a great time in your workshop and learned a lot. Besides leading a great workshop, she couldn’t have been nicer! If you don’t know her, you’ll get to know her now! We are in for a treat today! As many of you know, this past spring I went on a retreat for Jewish Literature and was fortunate enough to have been in a workshop taught by Kendra Levin, Editorial Director at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. Does your book qualify as middle-grade?. ![]() Turning Kids Into Bookworms: A Book List For Parents. ![]()
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