Amber Qureshi - Editor
I'm a longtime writer, editor and publisher in NYC who has worked on both bestselling and prize-winning fiction and non-fiction.
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Overview
I've worked at the biggest NYC publishing houses on every kind of narrative project there is, including the Booker Prize-winning bestseller The White Tiger, the Orange Prize-winning Small Island, and Voices from Chernobyl, whose author won the Nobel Prize in 2015. My journalism has been published in The Guardian, Conde Nast Traveler, and other major media outlets, and I continue to write for hire when my editing schedule allows. I see editing as an open-ended conversation: I read an author's work more closely than anyone else will, questioning and suggesting as much as possible, in order to make sure that the work accomplishes whatever the author wants it to do. Authors tend to like this. I can make your text sound polished and professional, bringing your ideas and your message to the forefront, where they belong.
Languages
English (UK)
English (US)
Non-Fiction
Biographies & Memoirs
Cooking & Food Wine & Spirits
Fiction
Cultural & Ethnic
Literary Fiction
Short Story
Women's Fiction
Work experience
Editor-at-Large/Freelance Writer, Editor
Catapult, Conde Nast, The Guardian, The Columbia School of Journalism, Fat Possum Records, etc.
January, 2014
–
Present
(about 7 years)
Executive Editor/Associate Publisher
Seven Stories Press
October, 2012
–
January, 2014
(over 1 year)
Executive Editor
Viking/Penguin
January, 2011
–
September, 2012
(over 1 year)
Senior Editor
Free Press/Simon and Schuster, Inc.
April, 2006
–
December, 2012
(over 6 years)
Editor
Picador/Macmillan
April, 2003
–
March, 2006
(almost 3 years)
Editorial Assistant
Alfred A. Knopf/Random House, Inc.
August, 2000
–
March, 2003
(over 2 years)
Portfolio (9 selected works)
Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster
Svetlana Alexievich
Winner of the Nobel Prize in LiteratureWinner of the National Book Critics Circle AwardOn April 26, 1986, the worst nuclear reactor accident in history occurred in Chernobyl and contaminated as much as three quarters of Europe. Voices from Chernobyl is the first book to present personal accounts of the tragedy. Journalist Svetlana Alexievich interviewed hundreds of people affected by the meltd... read more
Small Island: A Novel
Andrea Levy
Small Island is an international bestseller. It won the Orange Prize for Fiction, The Orange Prize for Fiction: Best of the Best, The Whitbread Novel Award, The Whitbread Book of the Year Award, and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. It has now been adapted for the screen as a coproduction of the BBC and Masterpiece/WGBH Boston.Hortense Joseph arrives in London from Jamaica in 1948 with her life... read more
The White Tiger: A Novel
Aravind Adiga
A stunning literary debut critics have likened to Richard Wright’s Native Son, The White Tiger follows a darkly comic Bangalore driver through the poverty and corruption of modern India’s caste society. “This is the authentic voice of the Third World, like you've never heard it before” (John Burdett, Bangkok 8).The white tiger of this novel is Balram Halwai, a poor Indian villager whose great ... read more
Songs for the Butcher's Daughter: A Novel
Peter Manseau
In this acclaimed fiction debut, "a rich, often ironic homage to Yiddish culture and language" (Publishers Weekly), Peter Manseau weaves 100 years of Jewish history, the sad fate of an ancient language, and a love story shaped by destiny into a truly great American novelânow available in paperback. In a five-story walkup in Baltimore, nonagenarian Itsik Malpeshâthe last Yiddish poet in Ame... read more
The Gin Closet: A Novel
Leslie Jamison
From the author of the New York Times bestselling essay collection The Empathy Exams and the memoir The Recovering, Leslie Jamison’s “exquisitely beautiful” (San Francisco Chronicle) novel about three generations of women and the inescapable brutality of love.As a young woman, Tilly flees home for the hollow underworld of Nevada, looking for pure souls and finding nothing but bad habits. One d... read more
The Madonnas of Echo Park: A Novel
Brando Skyhorse
Reminiscent of Luis Alberto Urrea and Dinaw Mengestu, The Madonnas of Echo Park is a brilliant and genuinely fresh view of American life.The Madonnas of Echo Park is both a grand mural of a Los Angeles neighborhood and an intimate glimpse into the lives of the men and women who struggle to lose their ethnic identity in the pursuit of the American dream. Each chapter summons a different voice—p... read more
Feed the Hungry: A Memoir with Recipes
Nani Power
An author whose fiction has been praised by Mary Gaitskill ("Passionate, intelligent, and piercingly beautiful...an altogether striking debut") and Darcy Steinke ("Nani Power...shows that sensuality pervades all of life and is too powerful to be contained in the bedroom alone"), Nani Power turns her incredible storytelling talents to memoir, crafting a sublime work of nonfiction centered aroun... read more
Travel books bring us to places. War books bring us to tragedy. This book brings us to one woman’s travels in war zones: the locals she met, the compassion they scraped from catastrophe, and the food they ate.Peace Meals is a true story about conflict and food. It illustrates the most important lesson Anna Badkhen has observed as a journalist: war can kill our friends and decimate our towns, b... read more
We Learn Nothing: Essays and Cartoons
Tim Kreider
“Kreider locates the right simile and the pith of situations as he carefully catalogues humanity’s inventive and manifold ways of failing” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).In We Learn Nothing, satirical cartoonist Tim Kreider turns his funny, brutally honest eye to the dark truths of the human condition, asking big questions about human-sized problems: What if you survive a brush with death... read more
Amber has 3 reviews
Professionalism
Professionalism
Quality
Quality
Value
Value
Communication & Punctuality
Communication & Punctuality
Perceptive, smart, and creative, Amber "got it" immediately. She gave clear and useful suggestions on getting my manuscript to where I'm trying to take it. As I work my way through her meticulous notes, I'm taking a short break to give her five stars. I can't recommend her enough.
Jamie Boud, January 2021
Very good work!
larry center, April 2019
Amber is a very intelligent editor with a keen perception of character voice and motivation.
Barbara Dzikowski, November 2018
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