Beginning to End – Hard Mouth: Acquisition & Editing, Jennifer Alton

Beginning to End is a series from Spine following a book from writing through acquisition, design and on to publication and publicity. For our second "season," we're looking at Hard Mouth, Amanda Goldblatt's debut adventure novel. We’ve spoken with author Goldblatt, her agent, Caroline Eisenmann, and book cover designer Nicole Caputo. Next up: Jennifer Alton, assistant editor at Counterpoint Press and editorial lead on Hard Mouth.

---

Photo: Philip Harris

Acquisition

On a quiet Friday at Counterpoint Press, Assistant Editor Jennifer Alton sat down with a manuscript. Caroline Eisenmann of the Frances Goldin Literary Agency sent her Hard Mouth, a novel about Denny, a woman facing—and sometimes fleeing from —her father’s drawn-out battle with cancer. If published, the book would be the first for writer Amanda Goldblatt.

With context provided by Eisenmann’s pitch, Alton began to read. “From the first page, the first sentence, I knew that the book was special,” she told Spine. “There’s something so electric and precise about Amanda’s language and the way she’s crafted Denny’s narration.” Alton brought the manuscript home, staying up late to read and waking up early to continue. “When my fiancé came into the living room hours later he found me crying, and I remember looking up and saying just, ‘This book is really good.’ It’s so simple, but it’s how I felt.” 

Alton jumped, and was relieved when Eisenmann told her the book was still available. She laid out her editorial vision for the book, worked with Counterpoint’s Associate Publisher and Senior Director of Publicity Megan Fishmann on some early publicity ideas, and sent the concepts to Eisenmann and Goldblatt. They liked them. “When Caroline called to say that the book would indeed land at Counterpoint, I was overjoyed!”

Editorial Process

As she does when considering a book for acquisition, Alton begins her editorial process with the book’s audience. “Holding a reader in mind, what the reader wants or needs, gives a necessary direction and unifying cause to that work of revision. There is really a need for clarity, to give readers access to the tools or the keys to reading and interacting with the text. Readers are participants, are doing work, engaging with a book in an active way. It’s part of my job to make sure the keys are there for the reader who is looking for them, that a connection can be made.”

To get into this readerly mindset, Alton first sits down to edit without a red pen. “I want to be hooked, invested, curious—critical, yes, but not already revising. I want to follow a writer to where they’re trying to take me, to trust in their vision.” Once she has an idea of where she thinks the author is going, what the author means to accomplish, she begins to edit, mostly via questions. 

“My edits are often interrogative, meant to start a conversation with the writer, meant to tease out what might still be hidden in the text, to prompt a writer to explore and come back with revisions or ideas that they probably wouldn’t have if I’d been prescriptive.” 

With Goldblatt, this process worked beautifully. The mastery of language and narrative that drew Alton in when reading Goldblatt’s manuscript made the writer a perfect fit for Alton’s editorial style. “It was very satisfying creatively to be in conversation with an author in this way during revisions, and it certainly helped that Denny was such a strong and well-realized character. There were parts of the book where the reader can really see things that Denny doesn’t, even in her controlled retelling of her story, and those moments were so narratively interesting and fun to discuss and explore with Amanda, who is an incredibly generous and thoughtful writer—and person.”

Up Next

Once a manuscript is finished, Alton hands it off to the publicity crew. (Stay tuned!) Hard Mouth launched this fall, and Alton is deep into the work of editing other manuscripts. This spring, look out for the re-release of Marion Winik’s Above Us Only Sky with all new essays, The King’s Beast by Elliot Pattison, and in the fall, The Disaster Tourist, a joyride of an eco-thriller by Korean author Yun Ko-eun and translated by Lizzie Buehler.

Find Jennifer Alton online at jenniferalton.com and on Twitter @jennyoalton.

---