Interview…with journalist/novelist Janice Harayda

"I was the book editor of The Plain Dealer (in Cleveland, OH) for a decade or so before I began thinking about writing a novel," says Janice Harayda. She began her journalism career while in college at the University of New Hampshire, where she won the Mademoiselle's Guest Editor competition, taking an editorial assistant position. She then worked at Glamour both as a writer and editor before taking the job in at The Plain Dealer.

Now she has two comedic novels - Manhattan on the Rocks and The Accidental Bride - published and has a third in the works as she continues writing freelance for magazines, such as Newsweek, P&S and New Jersey Monthly, and newspapers like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. She also writes and edits for a book review site online.

We wanted to see how one person could work both sides of the publishing industry successfully. Fortunately, Harayda had time to tell us.

As what kind of writer does Harayda see herself?

"I am a novelist and a print and online journalist. I didn't toss aside everything I had learned about writing when I became a novelist," she says. "Instead I brought it with me."


She does, however, have a little bit of trouble balancing her freelance work and her fiction writing. Hers is a one-income household so freelance writing and magazine work, which brings in a check regularly, often commandeers time allotted for her next novel, which may not produce any income for years. She tries to strike a balance but admits she recently abandoned a memoir she had started about a summer in Scotland.

"Scott Turow wrote much of his first novel, Presumed Innocent, while riding a commuter train to his law office in Chicago from his suburban home. But I’ve always had trouble allocating my time so strictly," Harayda says. "It takes me a while to find my momentum each time I sit down to write fiction, and if I have only a few hours, I might not find it at all."

Still she sets aside weekends or vacation time and hopes nothing more pressing comes up. "I fit the fiction in around the other things, which sometimes means not at all."

Is editing a magazine much different than publishing a novel?

The primary difference in Harayda's eyes is the time span from idea to finished product. "If you’re a magazine editor with a wonderful idea for a story, you usually know right away whether you’ll be able to publish it before it gets stale," she explains. Magazine lead times are at the most months ahead, while publishing a book could take a year or more - if everything goes to plan.

"If you’re an author, you have much less certainty…so you have to look for book ideas that are fresh enough to pique an editor’s interest but not so faddish that they may have gone out of fashion if publication delays occur."

She adds that being a magazine editor helped her learn that you can't take rejection personally and you have to be persistent as a writer. She rejected many wonderful writers who just didn't have the right story idea at the right time, but some of them would keep trying until they finally had an idea that worked for the magazine. It is no different with book publishing.

How did being a book critic impact her novels?

"(Being a book critic) helped immensely. To be a good critic, you have to explain why a book works or doesn’t," she says. "And I wanted to be a good critic."

In addition to her stint as a book editor and critic in Cleveland, Harayda was the vice-president of the National Book Critics Circle from 1998-1999 and is currently the editor-in-chief of "One-Minute Book Reviews." She takes books apart, looking at how they work or don't work, studying the subtle techniques of point of view, plot and scene structure so she can support and explain her opinions to her readers.

"That has probably helped more than anything in my career," she says, adding, "except having great teachers and mentors very early on."

In journalism school she learned how to temper her inner critic. One of her professors stressed the importance of finishing projects, which included writing a first draft without looking at her notes. "I had the habit of working quickly and efficiently, then going back and revising," bringing in her inner critic at a later stage than most writers.

"You want to keep that critic on. You just want to shut it off for the first draft or two (or) you might never finish a piece of writing at all."

Her work as a book editor might have opened some doors when she began shopping her novel to agents and publishers, but she thinks that's unlikely.

"The editor at St. Martin’s who bought my first novel, The Accidental Bride, had edited the work of an Ohio author whom I had profiled for The Plain Dealer. So he knew my work and may have been more willing to look at my novel for that reason," she says. "But any agent will tell you: an editor has to love a book to buy it. You can do wonderful work in other media…but if a book doesn’t work on its own terms, an editor won’t buy it."



To learn more about Janice Harayda, visit her website.