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Editor/Agent Spotlight: Editor Rachel Stark of Disney-Hyperion

I’m so excited to welcome Rachel Stark, editor at Disney-Hyperion, to the Mixed-Up Files!

Rachel (they/them) is an editor, marketer, and activist with almost a decade of experience in children’s and young adult publishing at houses including Disney-Hyperion, Macmillan, Scholastic, Simon & Schuster, Bloomsbury, and Sky Pony Press. The award-winning and bestselling authors they’ve edited include Alexandra Bracken, Erin Bow, Jason June, Pablo Cartaya, Jen Wang, Rainbow Rowell, Faith Erin Hicks, Ben Hatke, John Patrick Green, Zach Weinersmith, and more. Books they have edited have been #1 New York Times, Washington Post, and Publishers Weekly bestsellers; been longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature; won the Goodreads Choice Award, Asian/Pacific American Award for Children’s Literature, and Christopher Medal; been shortlisted for the Schneider Family Book Award; received multiple starred reviews; appeared on the Kids’ Indie Next List and myriad state award lists, and been listed as best books of the year by NPRKirkus ReviewsSchool Library Journal, and more. Not only that, but (unbeknownst to me when I first reached out to them) they were the editor for our very own MUF member Natalie Rompella’s novel Cookie Cutters & Sled Runners!
MMD: Hi Rachel, thanks so much for coming onto the Mixed-Up Files. 

RS: Thanks so much for having me! I’ve been reading this blog for so long, it’s kind of wild to actually be featured. 

MMD: What was your path to becoming an editor? Did you always represent children’s books? 

RS: I was a big reader as a kid, and I always knew I wanted to work with books—I just didn’t realize that there were ways to work with books other than writing them. As a freshman in high school I picked up Betsy Lerner’s The Forest for the Trees, which is an editor’s advice to writers. Reading about what Betsy herself did as an editor was a lightbulb moment, and in the way of a fourteen-year-old gifted kid who’s pretty sure they know everything and can do anything, I set my sights on editing then and there.

My actual path to the role I’m in now was, of course, far more complicated than my fourteen-year-old self imagined. After several internships I worked in textbook editorial and then children’s book marketing, and by the time I started editing full time I’d been in the industry five years already. 

And no, my path wasn’t always aimed at kids’ publishing! At fourteen I wanted to edit adult literary fiction, but one of my first internships was at Scholastic’s former Arthur A. Levine Books imprint, and after I moved on to the next thing I found I couldn’t stop thinking about the books I’d read and the community of optimistic, brilliant creators I’d discovered there. I dove into kidlit and never looked back.

MMD: What were some of your favourite middle grade books to read when you were growing up? Would you say that has influenced what you look for in terms of representing MG books?

RS: This is always a fun and slightly embarrassing question to answer, because though I was a huge reader as a kid, what I liked to read then is only a fraction of what I love to edit now. As a kid I read almost exclusively books with unicorns, horses, or wolves on the cover. I loved Jean Craighead George—I still want to train a falcon like Frightful in My Side of the Mountain, and if I could trade everything to go back and be raised by wolves, I would. Joanna Campbell’s Thoroughbred series made me dream of being a jockey until I grew way too tall for it. And I treasured Bruce Coville’s Into the Land of the Unicorns and Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher; if I branched out from horses and wolves, it was usually to fantasy.

I had to go back as an adult and read a lot of the classics that came out when I was younger, but I’ve since fallen in love with a much wider array of genres, and my list reflects that. I do think my childhood reading influences me; my taste leans literary and layered, and quote-unquote animal books sometimes get excluded from that category—but I still have a soft spot for the stories I know I would have loved. Cookie Cutters & Sled Runners is a great example of a book I’d have picked up for the dog on its cover, and then fallen in love with for its wonderful characters and impeccable representation of neurodivergence. And if you keep your eye on PW you’ll someday hear about a series I just acquired that perfectly marries the kind of story I loved as a kid with the kind of empowering narrative I want the kids of today to have.

MMD: What are some favorite middle grade books you’ve worked on in the past? And what are some you’ve worked on recently that our readers should look out for?

RS: Cookie Cutters & Sled Runners is the first book I ever acquired and will always hold a special place in my heart. I recommend Jen Wang’s Stargazing constantly—it’s such an empathetic, sweet, and funny story with wonderful characters. Ben Hatke’s Mighty Jack & Zita the Spacegirl and John Patrick Green’s InvestiGators were both so much fun to work on, and I love cheering for those creators and series as they keep finding more fans. The middle grade I’m most proud of by far is Simon Sort of Says by Erin Bow, which came out in January and has gathered a host of award nominations and fabulous reviews. It’s a wildly ambitious, laugh-out-loud funny and heart-wrenchingly timely novel about a kid finding himself, his friends, and his voice again after surviving gun violence at school. It sounds like a downer but it’s full of heart and levity thanks to Erin’s genius for finding light in darkness and using it to keep on going. I could talk about it forever.

MMD: What is your top advice for writers?

RS: I’m struggling to come up with one single piece of advice because that’s so dependent on each writer’s strengths and needs. But I’ll share something small that goes a long way toward building goodwill at your publisher: When writing your acknowledgments, ask your editor to send you a list of the people in house who worked hard on your book but who you may not have known were involved. It takes a village to make a book, and you likely don’t realize how many people have poured their energy into yours. Editors and publicists are often the people whose work is most visible to authors and so they’re used to being thanked, but for the sales assistant who really rallied behind you, the marketer who handsold your book at every con, or the managing editor who saved everyone’s butt when it came to making printer deadlines, it means so much to have their work seen and valued.

MMD: What advice would you give to a debut author? Both in terms of working with their editor and in general?

RS: Broadly, I think my biggest advice is to focus on the things you can control. There’s so much that’s out of your hands, that’s out of even your publisher’s hands. You can write an award-worthy book that happens to publish in the same year as many award-worthy books, or in a year where the award committees are interested in something other than what you’re doing. Market conditions and buying practices can change in a heartbeat, budgets can be slashed or imprints consolidated, key cheerleaders could move to other jobs, delays or paper shortages or pandemics or any number of unpredicted obstacles can suddenly topple the best-laid plans. . . . 

You’ve likely been dreaming for years about what your debut experience will be like, and now that it’s here you’ll want all the stars to align just right. But remember that you can’t control the stars. 

What you can control is writing the best book you can write, and then writing the next one, and the next one. That first book is just the start of what for most writers is a long and winding career, where the models for success are as many and varied as the books on your shelf. If it doesn’t go the way you hoped? Get to work on the next one.

MMD: After the high of having sold a book to a publisher, many authors I know, myself included, have a big cry when they receive their editorial letter. I think that as much as authors know that however many drafts they’ve done on their book it kind of gets set back to zero once they begin the editorial process, seeing that letter can be demoralising no matter how gently it’s written. Whether it’s a debut author or an author working with you for the first time, do you find that the relationship requires managing expectations and building trust?

RS: The editor-author relationship requires a huge amount of trust! It’s intensely vulnerable to receive critique, and I find that the process of digging deep into a story to make it the best it can be often demands that the author and I dig deep into ourselves. It takes both trust and care to create a space where we can do that. 

With regards to that initial shock you feel on receiving feedback—it’s incredibly hard to write a novel and incredibly hard to revise one, and of course cresting one mountain to realize there’s another ahead is going to be daunting! Whatever you feel in that moment, it’s understandable. But remember that your editor chose to work with you on this project, and feedback is a show of our investment in your work reaching readers and being well received. We wouldn’t be putting so much time and emotional energy into your work if we weren’t wildly in love with your writing and excited about the story you’re working to tell.

MMD: That is really helpful advice, thank you.

I loved this interview with you at Kirkus. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/news-and-features/articles/rachel-stark-freelance-editor/. What are some pros and cons for being a freelance editor vs being in-house?

RS: An interesting question, and my pros and cons are pretty specific to me. For context, I didn’t initially choose to go freelance; I mysteriously found myself lacking a job after supporting a union drive 😊. But it was exactly what I needed after that experience. Being able to choose my projects and clients, working with people who enthusiastically wanted to work with me, and having enough flexibility to reinvest in other hobbies and give myself breaks from thinking about work were all wonderful. I was lucky to have a lot of opportunities to use my freelance work to get firsthand experience in genres and formats I’d always been interested in but not yet exposed to—the expertise I gained in graphic novels has proven invaluable in my job at Disney-Hyperion—and to work with editors and authors I’d always admired. The down side, beyond the obvious stuff like lack of benefits and the potential for the work to dry up, was that I wasn’t getting the opportunity to build a list and a reputation of my own. By the time Disney-Hyperion offered me a role, I was ready to take what I’d learned and start building a reputation for the books I acquired and ushered successfully to market. 

MMD: What kind of projects did you/do you work on as a freelance editor—for example are they projects where an author is trying to get their book to the level needed to get an agent, or are they at other stages? What are some reasons someone might be interested in a freelance editor?

RS: Because of the connections I had, I actually found myself in the position of working mostly on books that had already been signed up for publication, but that needed an extra perspective, someone to keep them moving while an editor was out, or just someone who could give that individual book more time and attention than the full-time staff who were torn between millions of priorities. So mostly I was being hired by publishers rather than by writers. I did take on a couple of projects from authors looking for an agent or a book deal, and I found that often they’d taken their manuscript as far as they could take it and still weren’t getting the responses they wanted, so they were looking for an outsider’s perspective on how they could keep developing their craft. Some writers reached out to me before even going on submission, just to have the benefit of feedback from a fresh set of eyes. The writing process is so solitary, it can be immensely helpful to have someone to bounce ideas around with and to help you see your strengths and areas to improve in.s

MMD: I know that in your long time in publishing you have also worked on the marketing side, including high profile campaigns for New York Times–bestselling books and series, as well as winners of the Caldecott Medal, Newbery Honor Medals, the Coretta Scott King Award, the Stonewall Book Award, the Walters Award, and more. Do you find that your experience in marketing influences your editorial work and style?

RS: For a lot of the time I spent in marketing I was dying to become an editor, and it was frustrating to not be there already—but in retrospect that experience was so valuable. It changed how I think about what I acquire and what I hope success to look like for each book. And having worked outside of editorial I have an even greater sense of empathy and appreciation for how hard everyone is working in all departments to make books shine. Something folks don’t realize about editors’ role is that a lot rests on the relationships we have with colleagues, and how and when we’re able to get them excited about what we’re working on, our ability to brainstorm and build alongside each other, and what we can learn from them—so the added camaraderie I get from knowing what it’s like to be in their position is invaluable. I think the effects of my marketing experience are more visible on the publisher’s side than in my relationships with authors and agents, but it has brought me great books! Simon Sort of Says actually came to me because I had marketed one of Erin Bow’s books and we had a mutual admiration from that time.

MMD: What genres, themes etc are you looking for at Disney and where can people find out more details about this?

RS: I acquire original novels and graphic novels for middle grade and adult readers, and I have a wishlist I update regularly here: https://rachelstark7.wixsite.com/home/general-1. Unfortunately Disney’s policy is that I can’t accept unagented queries, unless I’ve specifically requested them at a conference or convention. But I do find that sometimes after writers find an agent they remember that I seemed like a fit and point their new agent in my direction—I hope Mixed-Up Files readers who liked what I’ve had to say and write in these categories will do that!

MMD: What are your socials and/or the best way for people to keep up to date with you?

RS: The best places to connect with me are Bluesky (syntactics.bsky.social) and Facebook (@EditorStark, https://www.facebook.com/EditorStark/)/. I’m also (regrettably and half-heartedly) on the Website Formerly Known as Twitter as @syntactics. 

MMD: Rachel, it’s been such an honor and education speaking with you, and I know our readers will get so much out of your responses. Thank you so much for joining us!

Top 20 Writing Resolutions for 2024

Like you, I’ve got a full lineup of goals for 2024. The new year offers a time to look at what’s most important. My most pressing and concrete goals are a home-run revision that grabs the reader (my writing world), and to meet help my son and daughter finish the school year strong (my personal world). However, my general goal is to make a difference on all fronts. If I tackle each goal with the idea of making a difference and thinking of others, good things tend to happen.

Here is my top 20 list of writing goals for 2024:

  1. Keep the reader turning the page. Keep the reader turning the page. Keep the reader turning the page. (This is the No. 1 rule from my amazing literary agent, Joyce Sweeney.)
  2. Give the reader just enough detail so they’re dying to know what comes next.
  3. Choose a setting that adds to suspense and advances the story.
  4. Immerse myself in the main character so the reader feels like they’re experiencing the story through their five senses (think Avatar).
  5. Keep the reader turning the page. Keep the reader turning the page. Keep the reader turning the page.
  6. Each scene has urgency for the characters to reach their goals (or not).
  7. Conflict. Every scene filled with conflict. Conflict between characters. Inner conflict. Think all the Rocky movies.
  8. Transformation. How do the characters change? What do they learn? How do we journey through their transformation?
  9. In revision, know what to take out and what to leave in. I know this one’s easier said than done. A mentor once told me to defend each word like a lawyer defends each client.
  10. Keep the reader turning the page. Keep the reader turning the page. Keep the reader turning the page.
  11. PPR. In fantasy football, it’s points per reception. In writing, it’s “Pitch, Polish, Repeat.” Got this one from author/illustrator Fred Koehler. PPR forces me to examine each piece of writing and whether it’s ready for the world.
  12. Which stories are in my heart, and which stories are in my head? Put them together for a force of  words.
  13. HUMOR. Use it to entertain and drive the story forward. Author Jonathan Rosen taught me a cool technique in which you state three things, and the third item is so bizarre it makes you laugh.
  14. Self-deprecate. Readers love a character with flaws. Makes the character believable and relatable.
  15. Keep the reader turning the page. Keep the reader turning the page. Keep the reader turning the page.
  16. Misdirection. Like a magician, surprise the reader in a delightful way.
  17. The Ticking Click. Got this one from the head of the Seymour Agency, Nicole Resciniti. From the opening chapter, have the main character race against the clock to reach his or her goal.
  18. Goal, Motivation, Conflict (GMC). Also from Nicole: What is the main character’s Goal, Motivation, and Conflict in each scene. (For more writing–and agenting–wisdom from Nicole, click here.)
  19. Each chapter ends with a cliffhanger to leave the reader wanting more. R.L. Stine of Goosebumps is the master of this.
  20. Keep the reader turning the page. Keep the reader turning the page. Keep the reader turning the page.
In the end, it’s about writing a book that makes a difference. Hope you reach your goals in 2024!

That’s not all, folks!

For more writing resolutions and goal-setting tips, check out this post from MUF member Meira Drazin, and this one from Dorian Cirrone.

AI as a Tool in Children’s Writing

Steering the literary world into a captivating era, the integration of artificial intelligence in children’s

AI-generated image from the prompt: “a robot writing something at a computer”

book writing has sparked both curiosity and conversation. With the creative landscape continually evolving, the marriage of AI and storytelling has opened unprecedented avenues for authors and publishers alike. From crafting imaginative narratives to curating interactive experiences, the role of AI in shaping children’s literature is a fascinating intersection where technology meets the timeless magic of storytelling. In this blog post, we delve into the intriguing realm of AI-powered children’s book writing, exploring its impact, possibilities, and the enchanting stories emerging from this innovative collaboration.

Okay…now here’s the part where I do the thing all those news anchors do when they’re being cute: That entire opening was written by ChatGPT with the prompt, “write me a one-paragraph introduction to a blog post about using artificial intelligence in children’s book writing”.

Now, I know you probably  want to go back and read it again. Go ahead…I’ll wait.

Weird, right?

AI-generated with the prompt: “Cover of a children’s book about a blobfish who learns the true meaning of Christmas

Artificial intelligence is the sort of thing that drives people to extreme perspectives, especially when you apply it to a specific context like kidlit. I’ve read plenty of articles warning that AI will be the downfall of all creativity, and to be fair, I’ve come across more than a few YouTube channels devoted entirely to generating picture books using AI with what seems to be the sole purpose of flooding the market and turning a profit.

But the thing is, AI is a tool. You can use tools for all sorts of things, both good and bad. My toddler demonstrates this regularly when he whomps his brothers with the play hammer on his workbench. 

In this post, I’m choosing to highlight AI as a tool for good. We won’t delve into all of the implications for children’s publishing (my friend Susan did a great job with this a few months ago in her post, “What Does AI Mean for Middle Grade?”). The reality is that there will always be people out there who use the hammer for whomping. 

So how does AI support true creativity and help middle grade authors craft awesome stories? Here are three things I’m really excited about:

VISION BOARDS

AI-generated series with the prompt: “a sprawling metropolis built on the surface of a clementine”

A lot of authors conceptualize elements of their stories by using vision boards. They’ll collect clippings from magazines, search clip art databases, and even draw illustrations themselves. The idea is that a visual reference can help kickstart the creative drive and supplement the process of generating new ideas. Artificial intelligence is really great for this! Specifically, we’re talking here about generative AI (like DALL-E). AI image-generating engines can give a real boost to writers in a creative slump. For example, if you’re trying to envision a scene but having trouble nailing down the descriptive language, you could use a simple prompt such as “murky swamp” and get a whole collection of AI – generated images that could serve as reference points for drawing the scene.

 

AI-generated image with the prompt: “loveable sidekick”

This works really well for characters, too. For one of my books a few years ago, I used an avatar creator to construct my main characters ahead of time. I’ve always struggled to describe physical attributes of characters in my stories, and I thought it might help to have pictures of them tacked all around my writing desk. It took me a few hours, but it was worth it to help me flesh out physical details. Now, that same process would take only a few minutes using prompts in a program like dream.

SEAMLESS RESEARCH

Research is foundational to most creative works, even works of fiction. I was working on a spooky middle grade a few years ago and probably spent hundreds of hours researching paranormal investigators, types of ghosts, haunted locations, etc. A lot of that process involved sorting through websites and combing for specific information that related to my story. Artificial intelligence can do this much more quickly and efficiently. Google’s chatbot, Bard, can organize Google’s extensive database of information into a neatly packaged summary that feels like it was written just for you (because it was!). Of course, for non-fiction writers who rely heavily on accurate information, additional fact-checking will be required, but it’s still hard to argue with the ease of having a personal research assistant at your beck and call. Bard even arranges things in bullet points. I love bullet points!

BOOK COMPS

When I was querying agents a few years ago, one of the things I struggled with was coming up with appropriate comparisons between my books and previously published works. Book comps are an important aspect of pitching a book, and while there is much debate about the value of referencing your creative works in relation to similar titles, it is a reality of the publishing world. That said, the process of sifting through thousands of other titles (many of which a reasonable person could never hope to have read) is extraordinarily time consuming. By now you probably know where I’m going with this. AI can do it for you! Just check out this example from ChatGPT in the screenshot below. I asked for comp titles for my latest middle grade book (which goes out on submission this January!). If I were pitching my work to an agent or editor, this list could be really helpful. Bonus… This is a great way to discover some wonderful new writing!

I hope you found this admittedly brief list thought-provoking. Of course, the lingering question remains… is AI going to completely upend children’s publishing? Personally, I don’t think so, and neither does AI. I mean, obviously I asked, and ChatGPT’s response is a fitting way to wrap up this post:

“…the essence of storytelling and the emotional connection fostered by children’s books are unlikely to be diminished. Instead, AI may complement human creativity and expand the possibilities for engaging young readers.”