Hi friends,

Greetings from London!

Last year I started a series of interviews with multi-talented people.

I’m particularly excited about this latest interview with my former colleague Rebecca Hiscott, who was managing editor at Stripe Press and now holds that role at Anthropic.

She shares how to read like an editor, give feedback that’s actually helpful, and why excellence is forged through repetition.

I hope you enjoy it!

Until next time,

Florian

Before seeing you and the Stripe Press team at work, I thought of editors mostly as “fixers of language.” I’ve learned it’s so much more than that. How do you usually describe what you do to a curious stranger?

The most succinct way I’ve found to describe the managing editor role is as an air traffic controller for the editorial process. That part of my work is all about making sure manuscripts are moved through the editing process at a predictable pace.

I do a lot of the more traditional editing work as well. This is where I try to think like both the author and their intended reader. What are the key messages the author wants the reader to absorb? What gaps in the argument could be filled in to make it more persuasive? What research and storytelling can help support those points and add color to the narrative?

Then there are the “fixer of language” bits: making sure the writing is clear and grammatically correct and the narrative has a natural flow. I see this as the layer of polish we apply once the content and narrative are solid.

Robert Gottlieb once said that an editor “has to be selfless, and yet has also to be strong-minded.” Does that resonate with you? What does it really take to be a great editor?

“Selfless” isn’t a word I would have used in connection with editing, but I think what he’s getting at—which I very much agree with—is that as an editor, you have to remember that the book or article isn’t about you. An editor’s role is not to impose their own vision on the work but to marshal their expertise to help the author express their vision. I might not agree with all of an author’s positions, and I certainly haven’t. But my job isn’t to get them to share my perspective; it’s to make their perspective as persuasive and factually bulletproof as possible.

The strong-mindedness comes in with regard to how you help the author do that. An editor has to be comfortable pushing the author to add research, find a more compelling example, rephrase an argument, or even cut or restructure entire sections. It’s not an easy ask, given the effort the author has already put in. But if you, the editor, are asking for a change, it must be because you have a strong conviction that the book will be better for it. If you’ve demonstrated that you are selfless—that you consistently put the author and their readers first—I’ve found they will generally trust that what you’re asking for is valid and well reasoned.

When you open a draft for the first time, what’s the thing your mind itches to find?

I love writing on the level of words and sentences—word choice, sentence structure, imagery, cadence, rhythm—and I’ve done a lot of freelance copy editing work, so I tend to pay attention to style before anything else. In the early stages of a manuscript, I often have to hold myself back from polishing the language straight away and remind myself to look at the big picture first: narrative structure, organization, and strength and quality of the arguments.

You’re making the very last edits before a book goes to press. What does “I’ve done a great job” feel like in that moment?

By the time a book has gone to press, I’ve read it in full about five times. I know I’ve done a good job if the book continues to surprise and challenge me. Maybe I pick out a new detail I hadn’t paid attention to before, or a particular turn of phrase really strikes me. If the book still feels fresh and engaging after months or years working on it, I consider it a success.

Also, I pray we don’t find any typos after printing. I can’t claim to have a totally clean scorecard there.

What’s something you’ve learned as an editor that you think more people could use in their own lives?

Excellence is a function of habit. (All credit to artist Jack Rusher for this framing.) I think this is true of just about any discipline. Raw talent is a starting point, but so much of being a good editor is learning by doing. The more you read and write and form opinions about what makes good writing, and the more you work with authors and editors and understand how the process unfolds, the better you become. Maybe it’s a truism, but so much of what makes people great at what they do is a result of just doing it over and over again.

Giving good feedback on other people’s writing is such an underrated skill. What’s one kind of comment you loathe seeing in a Google Doc — and what should people do instead?

I once asked a former Stripe Press designer, Josh Miranda, how to give better feedback on cover and interior designs. His advice: Make your subjective observations objective. That applies to editing too, and to giving feedback in general. It’s not particularly helpful to say “This isn’t persuasive” or “Can you make this more interesting?” There’s no why there.

If I don’t find an argument persuasive, I‘ll suggest a counterargument a skeptical reader might raise and ask how the author would refute it. If a passage feels bland, for example because it’s citing fairly wonky academic research (not a bad thing!), I might ask whether there’s a brief anecdote or real-world example that can make the data more concrete for the reader. Stories help the facts stick. Grounding feedback in how the reader will experience the work is helpful because it keeps the goal of the book—to be persuasive and compelling to the reader—top of mind.

Of all the books you’ve worked on, which one gave you the most joy, and why?

I have genuinely found joy in each Stripe Press book, but Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One by Stewart Brand, out in January, was a really special experience. Stewart is a legendary author, environmentalist, early tech evangelist, founder and editor of the Whole Earth Catalog, and an exceptional researcher and writer—a true practical polymath. Much of his work invites people to look at aspects of everyday life anew, and that’s what he does with the Maintenance series, examining a variety of disciplines through the lens of maintenance and repair.

Working on the project felt more like experiencing the book than editing it. The book is both a series of fascinating stories—like how the manufacture of rifles and sewing machines paved the way for auto manufacturing today—and a more macroscopic argument for the underappreciated value of maintenance.

I love when a book project spills out into my life. Around the time Stewart started publishing sections online, my husband and I bought our first flat and promptly learned the price of neglect: a dead boiler in need of replacement and weeks without hot water. Thanks in large part to Stewart, I take maintenance pretty darn seriously these days.

What’s your favorite book about writing or editing?

I don’t think I’ve read a book specifically about writing or editing since grad school, which is probably to my detriment. But I’m a natural mimic, so my advice to people hoping to hone their writing is to pick an author whose work they admire, articulate what it is that so appeals to them, and emulate it. Does the author deftly blend data and storytelling? Is their language especially vivid? Do they come to surprising, counterintuitive conclusions? You can learn a lot by osmosis.