Jesse Shuman – Editor

Please note that right now I am only taking on query reviews.

I'm a deeply collaborative and engaged editor who strives to guide authors to the best version of the story they're telling. It's not about my vision, it's about yours and how best to bridge the gap between vision and execution. I try to be a creative partner, to think big picture and in the details of your choices, to be prescriptive, and encourage my writers every step of the way. When it comes to fiction, I'm truly genre omnivorous: mystery and thriller, romance, literary fiction, speculative fiction—you name it, I edit it.

I worked for seven years at Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, where I published New York Times bestselling, critically acclaimed, and award–winning fiction by authors like Jennette McCurdy, Catherine Steadman, Chloe Gong, Lee Child & Yasmin Angoe, Jinwoo Chong, Leigh Stein, Megan Cummins, Mary Helen Specht, Shelly Jay Shore, Antonia Angress, among many others.

Authors I have edited have been shortlisted for or won the National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Award, the Plimpton Prize, the O. Henry Prize, the Story Prize, the PEN/Hemingway Award, the VCU Cabell Award, the Goodreads Choice Award, and the ITW Thriller Writer Award for Best Novel. Novels that I've edited have been New York Times Editors' Choice selections, named "Best Books" of the year by major national media outlets, selected for major book clubs. Quotes of mine about the publishing industry have appeared in the WSJ Magazine, Publishers Weekly, and The Atlantic.