From: Marc Aronson <75664.3110>
Date: 12 Jun 97 18:40:02 EDT

Ginny:

I'm not sure if this will get to the list, but it is what I thought of saying about Charlotte from the first. I've hesitated because you want us to concentrate on her books. But I think of something that "Big Grandma" also alluded to: Charlote and editors. At her retirement, Robert Warren, an editor with whom she worked closely, as did I, said that what most struck him about Charlotte was not how she helped artists to be creative, but how she encouraged that in editors. That is a very rare and difficult thing to foster. It is much easier to teach editors to watch what sells and to copy that. But helping an editor to discover his or her creative instincts, helping him or her to trust those, as well as his or her criticial faculties, is priceless. It requires a kind of security and depth that does not say "anything goes," but does say
"anything could go, if it should." I can't point to a book that an editor whom she trained did that shows this, but I think if you look at the kinds of books that grew up around her, and around the editors who had contact with her, you'll see that mix of freedom of depth. That is an ideal she made us see was possible.

Marc Aronson
Received on Thu 12 Jun 1997 05:40:02 PM CDT