The Writers' Community of York Region

Reading Between the Lines: The Author-Editor Relationship.
Allyson will draw on her own experience and that of author and editor colleagues to discuss the various roles and responsibilities of literary editors, and what makes for a creative, productive and enjoyable relationship. Her tips will also address ways you can help your editor help you, resulting in more polished manuscript for submission to writing competitions, agents, and traditional or independent publishers.

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Allyson Latta has been a writer and editor for more than 25 years. With degrees in Criminology and Journalism, and a certificate from University of Western Ontario’s Economics Program for Journalists under her belt, she worked over time (and often overtime) as a newspaper reporter, associate editor and features writer for trade, business and popular magazines, freelance writer, and media relations coordinator for two universities.

Later, as a freelance editor she contributed to an assortment of books—from higher-education textbooks to Harlequin romances, from Frommer’s travel guides to scholarly titles in both Canada and the West Indies—before establishing herself as an independent editor of adult and young-adult fiction and nonfiction. She is also senior editorial adviser for a business and financial book publisher.

Books she has freelance edited have won international and national awards—the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, Scotiabank Giller Prize, Governor General’s Literary Award, Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize (including once for four years running), BC’s National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction—and have been nominated for the international Man Booker Prize for Fiction and many others. Among talented authors with whom she’s had the pleasure of working are Lawrence Hill, Austin Clarke, Richard B. Wright, Joseph Boyden, Annabel Lyon and Ian Brown.

She has a special interest in memoir. Her online course “Memories into Story: Introduction to Life Writing” is offered in partnership with the Creative Writing Program at U of T’s School of Continuing Studies and the New York Times Knowledge Network, and she’s available through U of T as an Online Mentor. She is also on the Literary Faculty of Koffler Centre of the Arts.

Allyson has led writers’ retreats in Santiago, Chile, Northern Ontario, and Tucson, Arizona, and in 2012 will host one in Costa Rica with guest speaker and crime novelist William Deverell. Visit her website at www.allysonlatta.ca