Today we’d like to introduce you to Rebecca Weston.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Rebecca. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
My favorite childhood memories are of reading and of playing outside, imagining myself as the different characters from books like Little House on the Prairie, Anne of Green Gables, and Swallows and Amazons. My family didn’t watch TV, so I lived inside the world of books and my imagination. As I got older, I moved on to the works of Jane Austen, P.G. Wodehouse, and Nabokov, to name just a few. When asked what I wanted to do when I grew up, I said that I wanted to read. My childhood fantasy became a reality when I joined Random House after college.
At Colby College, I studied philosophy and creative writing. The summer after I graduated, I attended the Columbia Publishing Course, a six-week intensive program on book and magazine publishing, where I met all sorts of brilliant authors and editors. From there, I began my career as an editorial assistant at Random House Children’s Books, working with authors of middle-grade and young adult novels. It turned out that my love of reading, my ability to write in the style of different authors, and the skills that I’d developed as a philosophy major, which included being able to read deeply and to summarize and analyze texts clearly and succinctly, had laid a solid foundation for my work as an editor.
During the eight incredible years that I spent at Random House Children’s Books, I met kind and smart colleagues and worked with acclaimed and award-winning authors, many of whom turned out to be, in the words of Anne of Green Gables, “kindred spirits.”
In the summer of 2017, I started an independent editing company, Rebecca Weston Literary, where I work with authors of middle-grade, young adult, and adult fiction and memoir, at varying stages in their careers.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I was fortunate to get a job at Random House right out of college, while attending the Columbia Publishing Course. I also lucked out in that I worked for someone who very generously gave me a lot of editorial freedom right away. My boss, Michelle Poploff, always said that she saw our editing process as a collaboration, and, with her, I got to work early on in my career with extremely talented authors such as Kirby Larson, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Clare Vanderpool, and Jenny Hubbard. Soon, I started acquiring my own books, the first of which was Black Radishes by Susan Lynn Meyer, which won a Sydney Taylor Honor Award. As I began developing my own list, I gravitated toward literary books with broad appeal, as well as textured commercial projects. One very special book that I edited toward the end of my eight years at Random House was The Secret Horses of Briar Hill by Megan Shepherd, a historical middle-grade novel touched with darkness, hope, and magic.
Things became difficult in the spring of 2015, when I developed three different repetitive strain injuries from overuse, first in my right hand and arm, then in my left, when I tried to switch to editing with my left hand. I suffered for a year before going out on medical leave and then ultimately leaving Random House to give my body time to heal.
In the winter of 2016, my husband and I moved from New York to Boston, and after doing some freelance editing, I started my independent editing company, Rebecca Weston Literary. We live in City Point in South Boston, which is quite peaceful after the hustle and bustle of New York (although I do miss that at times!). I enjoy walking around Castle Island and on Carson Beach when I want to take a break from editing, and popping into our local library, where I have at least ten books checked out at any given time. I love working for myself and spending the majority of my time editing and chatting with authors about their work–my favorite things to do!
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Rebecca Weston Literary story. Tell us more about the business.
I am owner and editor at Rebecca Weston Literary, an independent editing company that I founded in the summer of 2017. I edit middle-grade, young adult, and adult fiction and memoir. I work with writers at all stages in their careers, from those just starting out to those who already have an agent and a publisher. The edits that I provide span from notes on big-picture elements, such as plot and character development, to detailed editorial letters with manuscript notes, to line editing, to editing agent query letters.
Every editor is different, and the relationship between a writer and his or her editor is important, even if we are only going one round together. Because of this, I begin each project with a phone call, during which I encourage writers to share the inspiration for their projects and what they want out of the editorial experience. Then, we end each editorial round with a phone call so that I can answer any lingering questions, or we can brainstorm together.
I feel most proud when, after a writer has read my editorial letter, he or she says “You got it! I know how to make my story so much better now!” That is the best feeling. I think that this reaction that I often receive speaks to the fact that I pay attention to each writer’s vision and then do my best to help the writer to more fully bring that vision to light. My motto is “helping make good books great.”
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
Luck is a funny thing. I thought that it was horrible luck when I developed repetitive strain injuries from doing the thing that I loved, preventing me from doing that work. Now, while I miss my Random House colleagues and authors, I feel so fortunate to have found this new path in life.
Working for myself is exciting and empowering. Every step of the way has been an adventure, from making the decision to start the company, to developing my idea of what it would look like through working on my logo and website with designer Kate Short and photographer Elizabeth Clark, to shaping the structure of my business model and the structure of my days, to discovering the world of social media (I went from zero to Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook in a day), to meeting talented beginner and veteran writers alike. It is incredibly satisfying knowing that every one of these steps is helping to shape something that I created. As I continue to grow the company, I am growing, too–as an editor, a business owner, and a human being.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.rebeccawestonliterary.com
- Email: rebecca@rebeccawestonliterary.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rwestonliterary/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rwestonliterary/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/rwestonliterary
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwestonliterary/
Image Credit:
Elizabeth Clark Photography
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