Beth Anderson, Children's Writer

It’s hard to put your writing out there. So personal. And then when the feedback comes…OUCH! Here’s a great post from author Mel Rosenberg on his path to trusting the experts as he found his way through EMILY SAW A DOOR.

GIVEAWAY! Leave a comment below for a chance to win a copy of EMILY SAW A DOOR from Mel Rosenberg!

Congratulations to Marcia Parks, winner of GEORGE WASHINGTON’S ENGINEER from Darcy Pattison!

Fume, Flounder, Fix – How Editors Opened the Door for Emily….and Me

by Mel Rosenberg

Four years ago, the email which I had been yearning, praying, hoping for, finally arrived.  Yotam Shwimmer, the editor of Tal-May (a small, but highly regarded local publisher) was interested in publishing my story “Emily Saw a Door.” I was beyond ecstatic, and nearly broke my leg jumping around the house. 

But there was one hitch (isn’t there always?) Yotam asked me to fix a critical scene in the story:  After Emily knocks on one door after another and faces one disappointment after another, she decides to create a door of her own. But how? In the manuscript, she pulls several crayons from her hair and draws a door of her own. Yotam felt that this was contrived. My kishkes told me he was right. What to do? 

First, I did what every author does do. I fumed. I moped. I muttered. And then I worried. What if I can never find a fix? I floundered for several weeks until it hit me. Emily comes across a hopscotch game, and, spotting the abandoned chalk on the ground, gets the idea of creating her own door. 

This was the second time an editor had called for a major change in the story. A year or two earlier, an editor (we’ll call her R) had considered a previous draft of the story for another publisher (we eventually parted ways for other reasons). In this earlier iteration, after Emily draws her own door, she opens it and walks in. THE END. R told me that the story was “somehow incomplete. Something is missing,” she said. I bridled. How could it be ‘incomplete?’ I tried to keep my calm, saying something like, “Thank you, let me consider.” Inside, I was furious. 

Driving home, I realized that R was right. There was a final beat missing – another child needs to knock on Emily’s door and ask to come in. 

These two ‘fixes’ were critical in improving the story. And they are examples of what I think great editors do best. They don’t tell us what or how to write. They point out where the story needs fixing and let us, the authors, do the heavy lifting. 

I might add that my admiration (okay, my qualified admiration) for editors and revisions, goes back to my days (decades, really) as a scientist in academia. There were countless times when papers of mine were rejected, throwing me into a professorial fury. But often I found (after cooling off) that the editors’ calls for further experimentation, proper controls, additional statistics and references, were warranted and helped me improve the level of my publications. 

Back to our story. Yotam enlisted a fabulous illustrator, Orit Magia, and “Emily Saw a Door” appeared in Hebrew in 2023. Liza Fleissig and Ginger Harris (now my wonderful agents) fell in love with the story and sent it to Annie Kelley at Random House Studio, who promptly bought it together with Orit’s gorgeous illustrations. 

This time the fixes were of a more technical nature. The direction of the book and the artwork had to be reversed. And the translation? Not a problem. Don’t tell anyone, but the story was in English to begin with 😊

“Emily Saw a Door” launches in North America on February 24^th, and will subsequently appear in Chinese, Italian and Arabic. A miracle in my life. 

One final shoutout. I have been working with the awesome editor, Harold Underdown, for five years, on this, and other stories. I love when he signs off on a manuscript (who wouldn’t?). But whenever he asks for a revision (which is almost always) he gets one. Emily went through over fifty. Perhaps a hundred. I lost count.

The lessons of the story are clear. As authors, we tend to fall in love with our own writing. We have an idea for a story. We write a draft. And after a couple of revisions, we are convinced we have a masterpiece on our hands. I sent Emily out to agents and publishers long before it was ready. It was repeatedly rejected. I was lucky that several editors liked it enough to tell me what was missing. They opened the door for Emily. And for me. 

So the next time an editor asks for major changes, I suggest the three F’s. 

Fume

Flounder

Fix

Good luck with the journey!

Mel 

GIVEAWAY! Don’t forget to leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of EMILY SAW A DOOR! (US addresses only, winner announced 3/13/26)

When you enjoy a book, please support authors and illustrators by leaving online reviews. 😀