New York City was never Katie Raissian’s dream. “Like a sucker, I came to New York for love,” she says. But shortly after she immigrated to the United States from Ireland in 2009 to pursue a personal relationship, she started a different kind of relationship in the form of an internship at New Directions, falling in love with the independent publisher’s backlist of titles. “I was blown away by their list, the Alvin Lustig covers in particular, which I am still obsessed with and collect wherever I can find them,” she says, referring to the American book designer whose distinct designs covered a number of New Directions titles, starting with the 1941 edition of Henry Miller’s The Wisdom of the Heart.
Katie Raissian, an executive editor at Scribner. (Credit: Andres Hernandez, photo assistant Kuan Hsieh)
But it was the everyday work—breaking down cardboard boxes, mailing books, photocopying, writing editorial copy, helping with press releases, and later doing some editing—that made her realize editorial was her true love. “If I can stand here and be really excited and happy mailing things, I think this might be the environment for me,” Raissian recalls thinking at the time. “I was the first at the office and the last to leave; I was that pain in the butt.”
After her internship ended, Raissian found a job at academic publisher Routledge, Taylor & Francis, working in the education monographs section with Catherine Bernard, who she describes as a “really amazing woman who loved what she did and was so passionate about academic publishing.” This was where Raissian really sank her teeth into the ins and outs of what it takes to be an editorial assistant. But academic publishing was not where her passion lay, so she continued on her journey and found a job with Maya Mavjee as an executive assistant at Crown Publishing Group (before the Penguin Random House merger). The move to corporate publishing opened up Raissian’s world even wider, but more important was her professional relationship with Mavjee, the first woman of color she worked for in publishing. “She’s amazing,” Raissian says. “I learned a lot at that desk. I learned a lot about how corporate publishing in particular works.” But executive assistant work is different from editorial work, and she knew she would have to move again to find her true passion in publishing. So when she heard there was an opening at Grove to work as Elisabeth Schmitz’s assistant, she sent her cover letter—and the rest is history.
From editorial assistant to senior editor at Grove, and now an executive editor at Scribner, Raissian’s path up through the ranks of publishing is perhaps not unique, but it exemplifies the ambition, drive, and passion that it takes to finally land in exactly the right job at exactly the right time. Raissian and I spoke at length about the importance of finding literature—and writers—that both build on and continue a storied legacy, the difference in one’s acquisition philosophy at a small, independent press compared with a Big Five house, and the ways mentors help shape our editorial journeys.
You were at Grove for over a decade. What about Grove’s list has inspired your own editorial philosophy?
I absolutely love how Grove publishes. I think Grove Atlantic is one of the most innovative and exciting publishers at work in America today for both its frontlist and its backlist. They have a broad spectrum of books. I think we associate Grove with mostly very literary [titles], but they also do more commercial crime; they do serious nonfiction as well. I loved Grove books before I joined. Obviously not to be a stereotypical Irish person, but Samuel Beckett and Barney Rosset of Grove Press were incredibly close, and that was [Beckett’s] U.S. home. So getting to land there was a bit of a dream.
Barney’s—and Grove’s—international focus really was about the quality of the work and the quality of the writing and finding a hidden gem. At Grove, especially as a younger editor, I was looking for things that were being overlooked elsewhere, especially, but not exclusively, international books. My first acquisition, a short story collection called Young Skins by Colin Barrett, I bought with [Grove Atlantic president] Morgan Entrekin. Colin was a brand-new talent on the scene. And now he’s fast becoming an elder statesman of Irish writing, and he was just longlisted for the Booker Prize for his debut novel, Wild Houses. I also want to talk about writers like Caleb Azumah Nelson and his debut, Open Water. I think I was the only North American editor interested in that book when it was on submission.
I became a little bit fearless at a place like Grove because it wasn’t like I could just acquire without thinking about it. In fact it was the opposite. Morgan Entrekin really encouraged all his editors to think like the publisher when we were buying a book. We’d have to think about the marketplace, think about the format, think about how many copies we would initial, who is the audience for the book. But at the same time if I found something rare and exciting in a collection of stories, which I did with books like Milk Blood Heat [by Dantiel W. Moniz] and eventually So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men by Claire Keegan, I got to acquire and work on those books.
So I would say [Grove] gave me a bit of boldness to think about a writer’s career arc. Not just one book but how you build. It should ideally go upward. So you might get a modest advance to begin with, but then the idea is that you’re getting royalties, you’re building as you go. And just thinking about writer care and what we as editors can offer a writer is something I’ve carried with me.
A natural cheerleader for the book.
That’s very much the spirit of Grove.
I love what you said about learning to be bold, especially when it comes to something like short stories or even submissions where you might be the only one who thinks there’s something there. What do you say to people’s knee-jerk reaction about how short stories don’t “work”?
I tell them that’s garbage. If you’re a short story writer, there is absolutely nothing wrong, in my opinion, with submitting a short story collection to editors. I think the short story is an art form that, when it’s done well, is impeccable. It’s better than a novel. I also love moving through myriad worlds in the space of a book. I feel like I’m getting treat after treat after treat. It’s a really satisfying reading experience for me to inhabit different characters and different worlds. And really, I think it’s its own art form, but it also can provide a gateway for a writer to maybe expand in form and genre if they want to. [A novel] is never a prerequisite for me as an acquiring editor. I’m interested in how language moves and how environment and place are evoked in the work.
I’m always looking at the arc of a short story collection. What makes you gravitate toward a collection?
I think a lot of the time it’ll be voice, style, rhythm, and a writer who can land that ending. And a story that has a really beautiful arc. I love stories that read as if they’re novels in the sense that you feel full after [reading] them. You’ve gasped at some point, or you’ve cried, or you’ve set the book down and gone, “Oh my God. That was just an incredibly powerful journey I went on in my imagination with this writer.” That’s what I’m looking for. I do like thematically linked [collections]. I do like something that’s linked by a place or a set of characters. But it can also be a collection that moves across time, moves across place and characters as long as there is some sort of emotional payoff to each story.
I can be a bit bullish when it comes to suggesting to a writer that “this story should come out of this collection.” Because I think every story, as much as possible, needs to be its own gem.
You also acquire novels and nonfiction. What stands out to you when you’re reading a novel or when you’re reading a proposal?
Again, it’s voice, narrative control, perspective. For novels I’m reading for characters I love, or even love to hate, a strong sense of place. And then I also want to learn a bit about what it means to be alive, what it means to be a person in the world. So, high levels of emotional intelligence, that always kind of shines to me. I want to be taught something or to have something imprinted on me by this work. I don’t want to close the page and forget about it. And in nonfiction, it’s not dissimilar. I love memoir. Again, another format and genre that gets a bashing in our business all the time.
Yes, I love memoirs. I publish at least one a year.
And we’ve got to remain open and optimistic, I think. And sometimes the nagging on certain genres really annoys me. So for nonfiction I’m looking for a personal story interwoven throughout. Even if it’s a historical nonfiction book, I do like to see the presence of the author in the text or that they’re connected to the story in some way. I also love true crime because I love stories that center on mortality and death…ones that teach me what it is to be alive.
