Book Therapist: Help your book resolve its issues
Jaylan Turkaan
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The Rogue Theater, Chelsea Repertory Co., The Living Room Theater Co., The Complete Theater Co., The Shoestring Radio Theater Co.
I’ve worked with Liz Hollander on two plays recently – and one of them has already been selected and staged! I’ll keep coming back to Liz for deep insights about characters, momentum, and most importantly, emotional beats.
Jonathan Tel
Author of Scratching the Head of Chairman Mao, The Beijing of Possibilities and other works
Winner of the Commonwealth prize and
The Sunday Times EFG prize for short fiction
I can highly recommend Liz Hollander as an editor of fiction, from my own experience. She has read much of my writing before publication, and has given helpful editorial advice. Sometimes she has pointed out specific details that don't work, or a broader aspect of the writing that needs to be improved. Sometimes - and this a rare talent - she has sensed that something needs to be added. Of course the editor is not the writer; she makes suggestions, and then it's up to the author to find a solution. If you're looking for an editor who can give either specific or more general guidance, look no further.
When Liz Hollander discussed my mss with me, she did the most marvelous and rare thing: she showed me how to make it the story I was trying to tell, not change it to something she would write. Her mind is as fast as a bullet, which means she gets it. Then, like a magician she reveals which parts of your novel don’t add up yet, where there's a hole, where and why the focus needs to be heightened or even re-directed. This was important since I had a 110,000-word novel with many threads.
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She can pore over an entire chapter’s soul. While she’s a book therapist and not an editor, she would also rearrange a few paragraphs, word by word, and somehow they were still mine. Only now they flowed like water, now the reader was drawn in, just the way I wanted but wasn’t happening before. This gave me the vision and knowledge of how to rework the other sticky spots myself. There were places where she showed me why character A would never say what she says to character B, she’d say it to character C that I just couldn’t see myself.