Andy Kifer - Editor
A keen, devoted editor who loves storytelling in all of its forms, with nearly a decade of experience at the center of NYC publishing.
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Overview
From my earliest conversations with Andy, I found he was that rare editorial specimen: someone to be trusted with my sentences.
- David Epstein, author of the New York Times-bestselling The Sports Gene (Penguin)
Andy Kifer is one of the most astute and sensitive readers it's ever been my pleasure to work with.
- Garth Risk Hallberg, author of the New York Times-bestselling City on Fire (Knopf)
Andy Kifer was the best editor I’ve ever had. He spent seven months helping me beat the weird, formless mess of my first novel into shape with endless sensitivity, warmth and wisdom, and I felt in his every line edit an absolute and focused devotion to the minutiae of my book. I miss his razor keen eye for writing every day, and my novels - all of them - are written for him.
- Tom Toner, author of The Promise of the Child, Weight of the World, and Tropic of Eternity (Gollancz)
My first two novels would not exist without Andy Kifer's editorial guidance. Whether he’s helping with the bigger picture questions that confront writers early on - such as realizing the overall shape of a novel, or helping to solve problems of character or plot - or in later stages, with attentive line-by-line edits, Andy is a keen reader, critically insightful, honest, and articulate. He is professional, courteous and prompt - but maybe best of all, Andy doesn’t try to force his vision onto a novel, but rather assists writers he works with to excavate their own best writing. Working with Andy is an excellent experience.
- Tom Sweterlitsch, author of The Gone World and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (Putnam, optioned for film by Fox and Sony)
Writing is done in isolation, and it is often a solitary art, so a writer - like a manuscript -needs an interested and invested companion. Andy Kifer has a gift for seeing a book at a measure more distant than we do as writers, thus seeing it at its full depth. It would be accurate to say that he understood the circuitry of my story better than I did. He understood the paths the characters needed to travel, he recognized those that needed to be abandoned, and we worked, reworked, and reworked again the final chapter until those sentences sang. When we were finished, the book was stronger, more elegant, and better balanced, and after the book was sold for publication, relatively little work remained to be done by the editor who bought it. I would never have published this book without Andy’s dedication to my novel, and to me.
- Daniel Lowe, author of All That’s Left to Tell (Flatiron Books), long listed for the 2017 Center for Fiction First Novel Award
Working with Andy on my first novel, he saw instantly what the book was after—what it wanted to be and how it wanted to get there—and from there he proceeded with the intelligence and skill of a master diagnostician. It’s this empathy for the writer’s project, his antenna for the things that have fired the writer’s imagination, that sets Andy apart. He brings the heart, brain, patience and temperament required to tease out the best in books.
- J. Bradford Hipps, author of The Adventurist (St. Martin’s Press)
I had the pleasure of working with Andy on a debut novel. It was clear that way before the manuscript landed on my desk, Andy helped the author immensely editorially to get the book into a shape that made me want to buy it. Andy knows the high-bar books have to clear in order to find publishing homes.
-Amy Einhorn, Vice President & Publisher, Flatiron Books
I pray every writer has the opportunity to experience something like the relationship I’ve had with Andy Kifer. From the very first white hot and frayed draft, Andy believed in this project and fought like a dog for it. So long as there are folks in the literature industry with Andy’s quality of integrity and heart, there is still hope for art.
- Tim Taranto, author of Ars Botanica (Curbside Splendor)
"Andy is an exceptional reader: shrewd, knowledgeable, articulate, honest, sensitive, generous, and inspiring."
- Lisa Halliday, Whiting Award-winning author of the nationally bestselling Asymmetry (Simon & Schuster)
"Andy was absolutely instrumental in helping get my first novel published. He is a keen reader and a deft editor—I’d recommend him highly to any writer, experienced or aspiring."
- Christopher Scotton, author of the national bestseller The Secret Wisdom of the Earth (Grand Central Publishing)
- David Epstein, author of the New York Times-bestselling The Sports Gene (Penguin)
Andy Kifer is one of the most astute and sensitive readers it's ever been my pleasure to work with.
- Garth Risk Hallberg, author of the New York Times-bestselling City on Fire (Knopf)
Andy Kifer was the best editor I’ve ever had. He spent seven months helping me beat the weird, formless mess of my first novel into shape with endless sensitivity, warmth and wisdom, and I felt in his every line edit an absolute and focused devotion to the minutiae of my book. I miss his razor keen eye for writing every day, and my novels - all of them - are written for him.
- Tom Toner, author of The Promise of the Child, Weight of the World, and Tropic of Eternity (Gollancz)
My first two novels would not exist without Andy Kifer's editorial guidance. Whether he’s helping with the bigger picture questions that confront writers early on - such as realizing the overall shape of a novel, or helping to solve problems of character or plot - or in later stages, with attentive line-by-line edits, Andy is a keen reader, critically insightful, honest, and articulate. He is professional, courteous and prompt - but maybe best of all, Andy doesn’t try to force his vision onto a novel, but rather assists writers he works with to excavate their own best writing. Working with Andy is an excellent experience.
- Tom Sweterlitsch, author of The Gone World and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (Putnam, optioned for film by Fox and Sony)
Writing is done in isolation, and it is often a solitary art, so a writer - like a manuscript -needs an interested and invested companion. Andy Kifer has a gift for seeing a book at a measure more distant than we do as writers, thus seeing it at its full depth. It would be accurate to say that he understood the circuitry of my story better than I did. He understood the paths the characters needed to travel, he recognized those that needed to be abandoned, and we worked, reworked, and reworked again the final chapter until those sentences sang. When we were finished, the book was stronger, more elegant, and better balanced, and after the book was sold for publication, relatively little work remained to be done by the editor who bought it. I would never have published this book without Andy’s dedication to my novel, and to me.
- Daniel Lowe, author of All That’s Left to Tell (Flatiron Books), long listed for the 2017 Center for Fiction First Novel Award
Working with Andy on my first novel, he saw instantly what the book was after—what it wanted to be and how it wanted to get there—and from there he proceeded with the intelligence and skill of a master diagnostician. It’s this empathy for the writer’s project, his antenna for the things that have fired the writer’s imagination, that sets Andy apart. He brings the heart, brain, patience and temperament required to tease out the best in books.
- J. Bradford Hipps, author of The Adventurist (St. Martin’s Press)
I had the pleasure of working with Andy on a debut novel. It was clear that way before the manuscript landed on my desk, Andy helped the author immensely editorially to get the book into a shape that made me want to buy it. Andy knows the high-bar books have to clear in order to find publishing homes.
-Amy Einhorn, Vice President & Publisher, Flatiron Books
I pray every writer has the opportunity to experience something like the relationship I’ve had with Andy Kifer. From the very first white hot and frayed draft, Andy believed in this project and fought like a dog for it. So long as there are folks in the literature industry with Andy’s quality of integrity and heart, there is still hope for art.
- Tim Taranto, author of Ars Botanica (Curbside Splendor)
"Andy is an exceptional reader: shrewd, knowledgeable, articulate, honest, sensitive, generous, and inspiring."
- Lisa Halliday, Whiting Award-winning author of the nationally bestselling Asymmetry (Simon & Schuster)
"Andy was absolutely instrumental in helping get my first novel published. He is a keen reader and a deft editor—I’d recommend him highly to any writer, experienced or aspiring."
- Christopher Scotton, author of the national bestseller The Secret Wisdom of the Earth (Grand Central Publishing)
Languages
English (US)
Non-Fiction
Biographies & Memoirs
Health & Wellbeing
Self-Help & Self-Improvement
Fiction
Dystopian
Fantasy
Literary Fiction
Science Fiction
Thriller & Suspense
Women's Fiction
Work experience
Editor
Self-employed
July, 2018
–
Present
(about 3 years)
Literary Agent/Developmental Editor
The Gernert Company
April, 2012
–
April, 2017
(about 5 years)
Literary Scout
Aram Fox, Inc
June, 2010
–
April, 2012
(almost 2 years)
Portfolio (12 selected works)
The Secret Wisdom of the Earth
Christopher Scotton
"A marvelous debut...has everything a big, thick novel should have, and I hated to put it down." - John Grisham"A page-turner." - New York Times Book ReviewFor readers of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, this is a dramatic and deeply moving novel about an act of violence in a small Appalachian town and the repercussions that will forever change a young man's view of human cruelty and compassion.Af... read more
The Gone World
Tom Sweterlitsch
“I promise you have never read a story like this.”—Blake Crouch, New York Times bestselling author of Dark MatterInception meets True Detective in this science fiction thriller of spellbinding tension and staggering scope that follows a special agent into a savage murder case with grave implications for the fate of mankind...Shannon Moss is part of a clandestine division within the Naval Crimi... read more
Asymmetry: A Novel
Lisa Halliday
NATIONAL BESTSELLER “Asymmetry is extraordinary...Halliday has written, somehow all at once, a transgressive roman a clef, a novel of ideas and a politically engaged work of metafiction.” —Alice Gregory, The New York Times Book Review “A brilliant and complex examination of power dynamics in love and war.” —Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal “A scorchingly intelligent first novel...Asymmetry w... read more
City on Fire: A novel
Garth Risk Hallberg
National Best Seller • Named a Best Book of the Year by: New York Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, Vogue, The Atlantic, Newsday“A novel of head-snapping ambition and heart-stopping power—a novel that attests to its young author’s boundless and unflagging talents.” —Michiko Kakutani, New York Times New York City, 1976. Meet Regan and William Hamilton-Sweeney, estranged heir... read more
All That's Left to Tell: A Novel
Daniel Lowe
A haunting, luminous debut novel about a man and his relationship with his daughter, his captor, his past, and his future.“Like Tim O’Brien’s Going After Cacciato, All That’s Left to Tell celebrates not just the power of storytelling but the deeply human need for it in even the most dire situations. Alternately gripping and dreamy, Daniel Lowe’s debut imagines what the stories we tell reveal a... read more
Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Tom Sweterlitsch
In this “wild mash-up of Raymond Chandler, Philip K. Dick, and William S. Burroughs”*, a man who uses virtual reality to escape the horror of his dystopian world becomes obsessed with a mystery that could drive him mad. Pittsburgh is John Dominic Blaxton’s home even though the city has been uninhabitable ruin and ash for the past decade. The Pittsburgh Dominic lives in is the Archive, an immer... read more
Ars Botanica
Tim Taranto
Written as letters to his unborn child, Tim Taranto’s Ars Botanica describes the infinite pleasures of falling in love the small discoveries of each other's otherness, the crush of desire, the frightening closeness and the terrifying impossibility of losing someone. Through examinations of the ways in which various cultures and religions carry grief, Taranto discovers the emotional instinc... read more
The Invisible Mile: A Novel
David Coventry
A re-imagining of a true story, The Invisible Mile is a novel about the capacity of the human mind and body when stretched to their absolute limits, written in prose that calls to mind the works of Marilynne Robinson and John Banville, as well as Colson Whitehead’s National Book Award-winning novel The Underground Railroad. In 1928, the Ravat-Wonder cycling team became the first English-speaki... read more
The Adventurist: A Novel
J. Bradford Hipps
In the anonymous office park of a modern software company, whip-smart software engineer Henry Hurt is a man in the middle: of life, of career, of self-assessment. Henry is mired in his corporate responsibilities until his deathless office existence is torpedoed by the loss of his mother. Overcome by "the pall," Henry seeks escape in a quest for love and purpose, which is occasioned by a crisis... read more
School of Velocity
Eric Beck Rubin
**Shortlisted for the 2017 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize**Shortlisted for the 2017 Vine Awards for Canadian Jewish Literature**Finalist for the Frank Hegyi Award for Emerging Authors**A CBC Books Best Canadian Debut Novel 2016**A Guardian (UK) Best Book 2016**An Observer (UK) Best Book 2016**An Amazon (UK) 2016 Rising Star (Best Debuts)A wrenching and deceptively spare debut novel about an electr... read more
Among the most significant works of science fiction released in recent years.”Tor.com It is the 147th century. In the radically advanced post-human worlds of the Amaranthine Firmament, there is a contender to the Immortal throne: Aaron the Long-Life, the Pretender, a man who is not quite a man. In the barbarous hominid kingdoms of the Prism Investiture, where life is short, cheap, and danger... read more
Moth and Spark: A Novel
Anne Leonard
A prince with a quest. A commoner with mysterious powers. And dragons that demand to be freed--at any cost.Filled with the potent mix of the supernatural and romance that made A Discovery of Witches a runaway success, Moth and Spark introduces readers to a vibrant world--and a love story they won't soon forget. Prince Corin has been chosen to free the dragons from their bondage to the Empire, ... read more
Andy has 14 reviews
Professionalism
Professionalism
Quality
Quality
Value
Value
Communication & Punctuality
Communication & Punctuality
I'm new to writing, and this was my first time hiring a professional for assistance with a manuscript which I've been wrestling with and trying to make sense of for years. Andy bravely waded into this morass and helped me identify which parts of the novel were worth saving while also giving me the courage to cut significant portions and plotlines which just weren't working. Overall, I come away...
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jimmy meixiong, June 2021
Andy's examination of my text was sharply perceptive and his critique painfully true. It was insightful and instructive. It has proven most valuable in the highest sense of value. He is the expert I sought.
Jefferson Lewis Jewel, May 2021
I had a great experience working with Andy. He reviewed my full manuscript (100k+ words) and gave me his editorial assessment in a detailed letter. His insights were extremely useful and rang true. Without any leading he seemed to uncover all of my conscious and unconscious concerns with my plot, characters and prose. He then put them into understandable and digestible terms and offered act...
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Richard R, February 2021
I contracted for Andy's Editorial Letter and was delighted with the high caliber of what I received.
It was obvious to me that he read every line of the manuscript and became not just familiar, but involved with all of my characters.
He complimented my strengths and was honest and direct about my weaknesses. He made it clear what I needed to do to improve the work.
I intend to continue with...
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Carole Johnson, February 2020
I suspect many writers are skeptical of hiring editorial services on their own -- I certainly was. At the same time, I'd been turning one novel over and over for four years, exhausting the generosity of my friends, and my perspective had become so distorted that I no longer had much objectivity. It may sound like ad copy, but it's completely sincere: hiring Andy Kifer was the best thing I've do...
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Doug McCord, August 2019
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Fran Lebowitz
Former Agent, Writers House, now Expat; two Newbery & NBA authors. I take a holistic, highly customized approach with a plan
New York, United States
Sarah Cypher
I specialize in literary and LGBT fiction, but I'm also a sucker for multicultural fiction and tales with a quirky, speculative twist.
Alexandria, Virginia, USA
