Alice Corrie – Editor

I have worked in children's publishing since 2001, initially in house at Random House Children's Books (now Penguin Random House) and since 2010 as a freelance editor, writer and project manager. Going freelance allowed me to combine the career that I love with my family life once I had children (and to avoid the dreaded commute from Brighton to London). This move to freelancing also gave me the flexibility to move to Berlin, where I am now based, when my husband's job took us there in 2016.My area of expertise and specific interest is in illustrated children's books - picture books and heavily illustrated middle grade fiction as well as non-fiction. I adore the economy of language required to write a really blinding picture book (it's much harder than you'd think!), and the way the words and pictures work together to tell the story in both picture books and illustrated middle grade fiction. I love working with authors and illustrators to develop their ideas and characters and their storytelling. The process of pinging ideas back and forth until the best version of a story or an illustration is worked out is such fun. I see my role, when editing, as that of a guide. I am there to help and to tease ideas out of authors and illustrators and to push them to do their very best work (but in a super nice way, of course!). The author/illustrator relationship with an editor, in my experience, is a close one, and must be based on mutual trust and respect, all of which hopefully comes as one works together. A designer is also closely involved in this team, especially with highly illustrated books. I have found, in the past, that one often forms a very tight creative unit with the editor, designer, author and illustrator, and this is one of the big upsides of the job, in my opinion. And the really fabulous thing is that at the end of it all, you have a book! A gorgeous, tangible object to launch out into the world.