On amplifying the voices of others

Was there pressure stepping into the role as series editor of Best American Short Stories after Heidi Pitlor’s 18-year tenure?!

Maybe. I think it’s different because I’ve worked at a newspaper, which feels like the ultimate pressure because something is published every day. So, once you’ve worked in a newspaper environment, publishing doesn’t feel like the same level of pressure.

She did such a beautiful job for so many years and selected so many wonderful writers to work with, and she’s launched the careers of so many wonderful writers. I wanted to do the same.

I don’t have time to think about what it meant for me and especially because I’m the series editor, I’m happy being in the background. It feels urgent to find the stories and get them in front of more readers.

What has the role entailed? These stories have been published and edited elsewhere, so how do you see your role shepherding them into this collection versus your previous work at the Boston Globe or the New York Times Book Review?

The stories that I’m going to select for the final 120 are pretty clear pretty quickly. Even though I try to give extra chances to stories, it never really works when I force it. I’m getting smarter [about the role]: I reread sometimes and that makes it impossible to do the job because you have to move fast and make a decision.

I really wanted to feel confident and I knew I could trust Celeste [Ng, guest editor of Best American Short Stories 2025]. She has great taste, and she has incredible training, which I knew from writing a profile of her. I knew that she would do it with precision and care, which is what I was looking for the first year.

Plucking these stories and making sure that they have a bigger audience feels like a great mission, making sure that as many people read different perspectives as possible. That’s what this particular table of contents feels like to me. There are incredibly strong voices.

A lot of times I read stories where there’s an incredibly strong voice, and then it falls flat in the end. I do wish I could reach out to writers and say, “What if you introduced a caper? What if they had a quest?”

Was it hard to hold yourself back from doing that?

It is really hard, but I keep a list of writers to watch for. I keep the document open when I’m reading. If something doesn’t work, I keep a note of the author and the story and where it was published [and keep an eye out for them if they submit again].

What has it been like working with Celeste Ng as your first guest editor? You mentioned you profiled her so it’s a nice full circle moment to be working with her again! And we were talking before I turned the recording on about being able to meet in person to work because you both live in the same city. Could you talk more about that?

Especially post-pandemic and especially having mostly worked freelance for the most recent part of my career before this job, I was hungry for our personal connection. I knew I wanted to approach her [to work in-person]. I didn’t know if she could do it necessarily, but I knew I wanted to ask her right away because I thought if we could have a local connection, [that would be great]. I miss having colleagues.

I don’t know if you can say much about the next issue and who the guest editor is, but maybe you can talk about how that process has differed, assuming that the guest editor, if they’ve already been assigned, is not living in your city?

I don’t think I’m allowed to say yet, but no, they live on the other side of the country. I’ve had to think about the timeline in a different way, but the new editor is another warm and wonderful person. I’m sure it might be different some year, but already I’m lucking out with the process because not only are they brilliant writers and have excellent judgment, but they’re really kind people, and they’re great literary citizens.

Can you tell me about the process of compiling the stories chosen for the collection?

I’m sure there’s a much better way than this, but I keep a lot of sticky notes in physical copies. I keep a lot of digital bookmarks, and I keep a lot of open Word documents where I’m keeping a yes list, a maybe list, a no list, and a writers-to-bear-in-mind list that I was talking about earlier. I also keep a publications list so that I’m reminded to go and check on them.

Some publications know me [from my work at the Boston Globe and the New York Times Book Review], so they just started sending issues to my house, which Heidi was very smart to tell me not to do, but I like the direct connection. I like getting the mail.

The only time the job makes me nervous is when I’m not seeing the stories I think I should be. I want to be seeing stories all the time. When it’s quiet, that’s when I get a little anxious, and I start excavating online. What haven’t I received? What can I find from online journals? So, if it’s a quiet time, I might make sure that there’s nothing I’m missing online.

Every time I’m in a bookstore, and I’m in a bookstore very frequently, I look in the literary magazine section and find journals that way. There’s this sense of discoverability. It feels like then I’m getting as many stories as I can to read, so I have enough reading material.

Writers submit to me directly as well.

Maybe I’ll develop some stricter guidelines, but right now I just read anything that comes my way.

It sounds like this isn’t a problem for you, but how do you ensure that reading doesn’t become a chore? Can you read for pleasure or are you always looking out for what can potentially be put into the collection?

I’m not reading a lot of novels right now, and I’m not reading a lot of what I can’t consider for work. So this is taking up the bulk of my reading time. I do feel guilty if I’m reading something that isn’t a short story that could be considered for the collection. Maybe hopefully I’ll find a balance this year. But it hasn’t gotten old for me because they’re short [stories]: there’s always something new which keeps it from feeling stale.

I reread Middlemarch every summer. It’s comforting.

Is this your only job? If not, what else are you working on?

I’m mostly just doing this. I have another larger writing project that I’m working on. I occasionally take on freelance editing jobs. Any time I have left over, I have to save for my own writing project, which is something I have been working on since I left the Boston Globe.

What are you writing?

I am not quite there yet: I have a proposal that I need to tweak and send out!

Do you have any rituals surrounding work? Like you can’t start your day without this thing, or this is how you switch from work mode to leisure mode, especially if you work from home.

I wish I had something better. Just a lot of coffee. I try to get up and not sit still for too long. I have three kids and three dogs, so I have to attend to other people’s needs. A dog always has to be taken out, so that’s great. You can just clear your head and walk a dog.

It’s quiet here until about 3pm so I get the bulk of my reading done before then. I read in the evening also.

You need to sit still for reading, so is that physically not sitting still or is it more about your mind not sitting still?

You have to physically do something in order to clear your head, otherwise you can’t read with a clear mind. I get up and do squats. I hop on the Peloton and clear my head for short bursts throughout the day. And getting outside is the absolute best thing that you can do as a reader and a writer.

The dogs certainly lend themselves to that! Do you read on the Peloton or listen to short stories in audiobook format when you’re walking the dogs? Or is there a clear delineation between reading and doing something physical?

I find that listening to stories doesn’t work for me because I can’t fall into a story in the same way when I’m listening. In order to really pay attention, I have to see the words on the page.

How do you avoid burnout?

I think it’s just these things we’re talking about, like doing something physical, remembering that you have a body, remembering that you have to drink water, that you have to go outside. I don’t really get reading burnout.

What do you do when you’re creatively stuck?

Read poetry or look at art. Going to a gallery or a museum. Listening to music. Traveling helps. Seeing art when you travel, it’s electrifying.

What advice do you have for editors?

Editors have an impossible job. I’m so in awe of the work that literary editors do at these magazines. They have no budgets. There are graduate students or they’re professors. They have jobs because it’s not sustainable to do this as a living. They are finding voices. They are making these discoveries, and they’re passing them on to me, and I pass them on to readers. I’m grateful for the work that they do.

And what advice for short story writers?

They’re all doing a great job on their own. If you can be as truthful to the character as you can, that’s the only advice that I have to give.