We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lisa Mangum a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Lisa, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Who is your hero and why? What lessons have you learned from them and how have they influenced your journey?

Maybe it’s cliche to say this, but my mom is my hero.

Mom was a writer and an editor, which meant that I grew up in a home full of words and books. I remember being a young child and taking a copy of The Secret Garden to my mom and asking her to read it to me. That began my lifelong love of books and words.

Mom taught me how to tell stories and how to edit them. She taught me that I had something important to say, and she showed me all the different ways I could say it. Even when I didn’t believe in myself, she was always my cheerleader, telling me “I believe it you! You can do it!”

I remember one year when we left the Christmas tree up until Easter. We took all the ornaments off it, but we left the lights on, and every night Mom and I would sit in the living room with just the twinkling Christmas lights on and talk about all the important things in the world: school, books we were reading, work, editing, my dating life, and paper clips. It may seem like a small thing, but those chats had a profound influence on my life.

It was my mother’s encouragement and example that set me on my path to becoming a professional author and editor.

And now, as I look back over a career that spans more than twenty-five years (with more years ahead of me, I hope), I can see so clearly my mom’s guidance. The things she taught me about being a thoughtful and sensitive editor have served me well as I’ve worked with all kinds of authors who are telling all kinds of stories. The methods of storytelling and character development helped me write my own novels, which were lucky enough to win awards and national acclaim.

I have taken her life and her lessons to heart, and I’ve made it a goal to share them with other authors and editors so that her wisdom and legacy can continue.

Lisa, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

As I mentioned, I grew up around words and books, so it seemed natural for me to pursue a career in that field. I graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in English and began working as a freelance proofreader for Deseret Book Company just a few weeks later.

In October 1997, I was hired by Bookcraft Publishers as an Editorial Assistant, where I began my on-the-job training as a book editor. Bookcraft was acquired by Deseret Book Company in 1999, and I’ve been there ever since.

I am involved in the entire publishing process for a book–from reviewing submissions through all the levels of editing all the way to sending a project to press. I work closely with the design department, marketing, and sales as well as with the other members of the editoral team.

I really enjoy the developmental phase of editing since that allows me to work directly with an author to help shape and strengthen the story. I like seeing the “big picture” of the story and thinking about character arcs and themes. I am particularly skilled in line editing, which is when I edit sentence by sentence, line by line, word by word, and tighten up the prose. (I like to joke that I can cut 5000 words out of a manuscript without the author even noticing.) I also do a copy editing pass where I correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

Part of my job involves writing the copy that appears on the back of a book or on the front flap of a hardback jacket. I love the chance it gives me to be creative and to highlight all the best things about the book.

I am proud of all the books I work on, but I hold a special place in my heart for manuscripts that I plucked from the “slush pile” (the name given to submitted manuscripts from aspiring authors) that then made it all the way to a bookstore shelf. I have lots of success stories from my more than twenty-five years of experience, but I’ll share just one.

Jason F. Wright submitted a manuscript called Christmas Jars and Hope, and I read the entire manuscript during lunch one day. The heart of the book was a tradition of collecting spare change in a jar throughout the year and then giving it away anonymously at Christmastime. I finished the manuscript and thought, “We’ll call it Christmas Jars, sell it with a jar, and it’ll be a thing. This could totally work.”

I gave the manuscript to my supervisor and eagerly awaited his review. He, too, read the book in one sitting and then said, “I feel strongly we can sell 20,000 units of this book.” The manuscript traveled through the various review and approval processes, and we published the book in 2005. It ended up on the New York Times bestseller list and has inspired a hardback edition, two more companion novels, a children’s picture book, a collector’s edition, a cookbook, and a movie.

Even after all these years, I still love to find that “diamond in the rough” manuscript and help an author polish it until it shines.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

When I was starting my journey as an editor, I received some very timely and helpful advice from an editor at TOR books. I was still in high school, but I remember making a promise to myself that if I was ever in a position to help someone else the way that editor at TOR helped me, I wanted to do it.

Early on in my professional career, I was asked to teach at a writing conference and talk about our publishing company and publishing process. Here was my chance to “pay it forward” and help out! I had such a great time at the conference, and I loved meeting all the authors and talking about all their stories. I realized I could provide a very valuable and necessary service for those authors by making myself available and accessible to answer their questions and offer guidence and encouragement.

I started teaching at more and more conferences, both in my home state as well as across the country, where I have met authors who we have gone on to publish.

I have developed a reputation for being helpful, approachable, and knowledgable, and I believe it all stemmed from the kindness that had once been shown to me when I was young.

We are all on this creative journey together, and there is someone up ahead who is willing to reach out and give you a hand up. And it’s up to us to then reach out and help someone behind us come along on the journey too.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I was only a few years into my career when I was assigned to edit a historical novel set during the American Revolutionary War. The author had already written two books in the series, but his previous editor had a scheduling conflict, so the project came to me. I was both excited and terrified. This would be the first big project I would be in charge of, and I wanted to do my best work.

But because I was young, it meant I was also trying too hard; I was doing too much.

I remember a passage where the author was describing a breakfast scene. The characters had gathered around the table to enjoy jam and bread. Whether it was instinct or bias or because I was trying to prove that I knew what I was doing, I changed it to “bread and jam.” (I suspect it stemmed from all the times I’d read Bread and Jam for Francis by Russell Hoban as a child.)

I didn’t think much of the edit until the author sent it back marked “stet,” meaning to leave the original text.

I’ll admit I was mad. How dare the author question my judgment? I was The Editor. But after I calmed down, I was able to take a step back and recognize that there was nothing wrong with “jam and bread.” All the words were spelled correctly, they were used appropriately, and they communicated the idea with clarity. The fact that I thought it didn’t “sound right” was not a good enough reason to change it.

Now when I’m editing, I sometimes have a “bread and jam” check, in which I will ask myself: Am I changing this because it’s actually wrong and needs to be fixed, or am I changing it because it’s not how I would have done it?
Looking back now, I am grateful for having learned an extremely valuable lesson, even if at the time, it was a struggle.

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