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What Hooks Jordan and Sara?
Jordan Brown is an executive editor with the imprints Walden Pond Press and Balzer + Bray at HarperCollins Children’s Books
Highlights from Jordan:
He asks himself, "What kind of books do kids need?" and "What kinds of things are desperately important to kids growing up today?"
Jordan is looking for books that "expand a kid's capacity for empathy." Characters who aren't all white, cis-gendered, characters who are different from readers.
Questions to ask ourselves as writers: "What does our character lack? What's their wound?"
He advises that "plot is intrinsically tied to character."
And he's looking for a narrator telling him a story, "a story that needs to get out."
Jordan also explains how the decision process works for him, and much more...
Sara Sargent is an executive editor at HarperCollins Children’s Books, where she acquires picture book, middle grade, and young adult fiction.
Highlights from Sara:
Sara edits books for the same reason she reads them: "escapism"
She's excited about re-imagined fairy tales, is really into fantasy and likes stories that are
romantic
fantastical, and
transportive.
She's looking, for even on the first page, a "feeling of being well taken care of." That the author has a mastery of language. An atmosphere that immediately envelopes her in the world.
Sara also speaks of the challenge of not editing something into the familiar, allowing projects to keep the unique thing about them that captured her in the first place.
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