Picture above: Kylie Gellatly FP ‘23. Photo courtesy of Kim Gellatly.
By Rebecca Gagnon ‘23
Staff Writer
Have you ever wondered what an editor does and what exactly they want from writers? Well, those are questions Andrea Lawlor, assistant professor of English at Mount Holyoke, set out to answer. On April 21, Lawlor held a panel discussion with three editors from literary journals and magazines as guest speakers.
“I teach creative writing and the class that I organized [the panel] for was Advanced Projects for Creative Writing,” Lawlor said. “Most of the students are seniors and a lot of them are graduating, thinking about careers in publishing or are thinking about going on to MFA programs.” Lawlor often brings speakers into the course, but this year, the virtual aspect of the event allowed it to be accessible to the public.
The panel consisted of Callum Angus ’11, the founder and managing editor of the literary journal smoke and mold; Spencer Quong, the assistant editor of Poets & Writers Magazine; and Kylie Gellatly FP ’23, a poetry editor for the Mount Holyoke Review, the book reviews editor for Green Mountains Review and a poetry reader for the Pleiades.
“I asked the people I asked because I thought that they would be people who were close enough to current students in terms of career,” Lawlor said. They hoped that choosing these speakers would be more effective in connecting with students, as the speakers would have advice on getting started in the literary community.
“I was asked by [Lawlor] and I was flattered, so I didn’t say no,” Gellatly laughed. “Leading up to it, I talked to [Lawlor] and heard that Spencer Quong is the assistant editor of Poets & Writers [Magazine], and that is the biggest resource of literary publishing that exists, so I was very intimidated and very nervous, but after the panel, I realized how perfectly [Lawlor] had set it up.”
During the panel discussion, each speaker talked about the work they do as an editor and how they got to where they are now. Each also spoke about their writing careers and how different the roles of writing and editing are in the field of publishing. The event lasted for about an hour, but Lawlor and the panelists all discussed how they wished it could have gone on longer.
“I love talking about editing,” Gellatly said. “I think my favorite part was, once it was over, to be like, ‘Oh yeah, I do know what I’m doing,’ because it is really easy to forget. I was doing editor work before but as a student right now, I haven’t really been as much in touch with it, so it was really nice after the event to be like, ‘Oh yeah, right, I know what I am doing and I love it so much.’”
Lawlor said that their favorite part of the event was listening to each speaker talk about how they became an editor.
“My advice to an aspiring writer would be to work as an editor, and my advice to an aspiring editor would be to try to write too,” Gellatly laughed. “I think it is really helpful to know both sides. That is my experience with it, and I love the way they intertwine and overlap, as weird as it can be sometimes.”
Gellatly expressed that understanding how editing and the process that follows a submission can really help a writer in their process of getting their work seen. She also stated that it is important for editors to experience publishing their writing as well.
As the discussion came to a close, Lawlor and the panelists offered a final piece of advice for how to become a successful writer and editor: Read a lot.