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[sartorias]

The unnamed agency in our previous post has chosen to come forward to present their perception of our exchange. We confirm that it was the agency we referred to. We stand by every word we wrote in our original article

Comments

[beth_bernobich]

I know authors who had their gay character changed to straight in copyedits. I know other authors who were explicitly told by agents to change their gay character to straight. Some did, and the novel sold. Some did not, fired their agent, and went on to sell their novel.

[beth_bernobich]

They posted in comments on the original PW article. Some gave their names (Nicola Griffith) and some did not.

[teacup_werewolf]

What book had queer romance, funny since I love Bordertown and I've been curious on reading more of your stuff?

[ellen_datlow]

A copy editor made that kind of change and wasn't told by the editor and the author to back off? That's not how copyediting works. Copy editors have NO power in the editing process. Final word is author's at that stage of the production process.

[ellen_datlow]

That was meant to respond to Beth's post but it didn't go where it was supposed to...

[mme_hardy]

I wish that were true. I'm aware of an author, Caridad Ferrer -- she blogged about it -- whose copyeditor went through her novel Adiós to my Old Life and corrected all the author's idiomatic, native-speaker, Cuban Spanish to high-school Spanish. Caridad didn't see the changes until the book was in print.

http://jenniferechols.livejournal.com/30312.html?thread=194408#t194408

[ellen_datlow]

Copy editors sometimes overstep their jobs and it's the editor's job to ensure 1) that copy editors do not edit the material but fix punctuation, query grammar that isn't "voice", and do some fact checking when necessary and 2) that the copy edited ms gets to the author in a timely manner in order to stet or make other changes. Ultimately the publisher is at fault.

I see from Caridad's blog post that the book was copy edited after she signed off on the galleys. That' just wrong. I hope her agent reamed out everyone at the publisher who let that happen.

[beth_bernobich]

It was the editor who made those changes. I just double-checked, and it was *after* the author had reviewed the copyedits. Luckily the author caught the changes in first pass proofs.

[ellen_datlow]

Aighhhh. That really sucks. It's really important to be able to trust your editor. I'm glad the author was able to change everything back in time--and assume that the author has never worked with the editor again.