Presenting...Emily Rodmell

Name: Emily Rodmell

Title: Assistant Editor

Role: I edit and acquire for the Steeple Hill lines.

Tell us about yourself: I've been at Harlequin since 2004. Before that, I worked as a newspaper editor at several newspapers in my home state of Florida, and then worked at Scholastic here in New York City. I started at Harlequin as an Editorial Assistant, was promoted to Assistant Editor and am now acquiring and editing books for Steeple Hill.

For Steeple Hill, I’m looking for inspirational romance, romantic suspense and historicals for our three Love Inspired lines: Steeple Hill Love Inspired, Steeple Hill Love Inspired Suspense and Steeple Hill Historicals.

We're especially focussed on building our author base for the Love Inspired Suspense line. In addition, I’m also looking for women’s fiction and non-fiction for our single title line. Note that Single Title submissions must be agented, though.

In the past year, I've acquired three brand new authors that we’re very excited about. Missy Tippens’ debut novel Her Unlikely Family will come out in the Love Inspired line in February, 2008. Lynette Eason’s debut novel, Lethal Deception, will be published by Love Inspired Suspense in February, 2008 and her follow-up books, River of Secrets and Holiday Illusion, will be released in August and November. And Dana Mentink will also be writing for Love Inspired Suspense. Her first novel with us, Killer Cargo, will be released in June 2008 and her second, Flashover, will come out in January 2009. They have all been very busy writing!

We’re actively acquiring for the Love Inspired Suspense line these days, and we’re very open to new authors. For publishing in general, I would suggest researching the lines you submit to. Make sure your book will fit in, but also make sure that it has a special, unique quality to it. Don’t send in a cookie-cutter manuscript. But also don’t send it something that is so complely different that it doesn’t fit the line.

What are your pet peeves? Manuscripts that were submitted without the author reading our guidelines first. If you’re going to submit, make sure that your manuscript fits within our word count range and doesn’t contain material inappropriate for the targeted line.

What kind of stories appeal to you now? For my personal reading, I like novels with strong heroines. I also enjoy journalistic memoirs and current events titles.

Do you have a favorite book? My favorite book of all time is Gone With the Wind.

Emily sounds like a true romantic--a requirement to be successful at this job. Thank you.

Presenting...Elizabeth Mazer

Name: Elizabeth Mazer

Title: Editorial Assistant, Steeple Hill/Silhouette

Role: Responsible for providing administrative and editorial support to the Senior Editor of Love Inspired/Love Inspired Suspense and the Executive Editor of Silhouette Books primarily through evaluating submissions, providing author support and guiding manuscripts through the stages of production.

Publishing Background: I began at Harlequin in my current position in April, 2007. Prior to that, I worked in the editorial department at what was then known as Bookspan (now Bertelsmann Direct North America) first with Crossings Book Club, and later with Book Development.

Submissions: We’re actively looking for new authors for Love Inspired, Love Inspired Suspense, and the Silhouette lines, and will consider both agented and unagented submissions.

As for formatting, I’d prefer to receive a full synopsis along with the first three chapters. Please list the specific line you’re targeting.

Pet Peeve: Insufficient research! Misspelling my name, or the name of the line in the cover letter can make it very hard for me to give the rest of the submission serious consideration.

The author has to sell me not just on the qualities of her book, but also on how well her story would fit into our line, and I become very hard to convince when I sense that the author hasn’t done her homework.

What I Want to See: Strong, sympathetic characterization. The harder I have to work to relate to the characters, the more likely I am to give up on the book altogether!


Thank you, Elizabeth. So there you have it--I couldn't add a thing. Which comment, coming from an editor, is a real compliment!