Roots of an Editor: Ellen Datlow

Jan Edwards interviewed Ellen Datlow for a series of "Roots" interviews that appear in the magazine Dark Horizons, in issue 51 published in 2007. Ellen, a New Yorker, gained a BA in English Literature, and began at the roots of the game, building on hard work and dedication to become editor of Omni magazine and Omni Online from 1981 to 1998, and oversaw Event Horizon: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Webzine from September 1998 to December 1999. Ellen was also editor of SCI-FICTION until 2005. She had edited and/or co-edited approaching 50 anthologies. She has won seven World Fantasy Awards; two Bram Stoker Awards; an International Horror Guild Award; a Locus Award; and two Hugo Awards. The following is an extract from the original interview. (Photo of Ellen Datlow by Peter Coleborn)

JE: What story first sparked your imagination and led you into a career in the fantasy field?

ED: I don’t remember just one but there were fairy tales and Greek myths that I read when I was young and also the Mushroom Planet series of books by Eleanor Cameron. Later it was The Twilight Zone (original series) – I was too young to stay up for them so my mom told me the stories the next day (or sometimes, my sister and I watched from the direct line along the hallway from our bedroom to my parents’, where we could see the TV if we weren’t caught).

What was your earliest ambition? Did you always know that you would work with books or writers in some way?

I wanted to be a veterinarian because I love animals and I thought it would be wonderful to be around them all the time. Of course, as a child, I didn’t realize that [1] I’d have to take maths and science courses (ick) and [2] I’d be around a lot of sick and dying animals – those two things put me off the idea pretty quickly (especially the maths part). Then I wanted to work in a bookstore because I loved being around books and reading them. I knew nothing about how one would work with writers when I was young. In fact, I’m not really sure how I discovered that editors existed and that one could work for a publisher and help produce books. But somehow the connection was made and by my early twenties I wanted to get into editorial work in book publishing.

What where you first jobs before you became an editor?

Nothing very interesting before publishing: putting together cardboard boxes; bakery one summer; working in the university library in college; working in the Nizo-Braun camera factory in various jobs (machine room, assembly line-which was so boring I asked to do something else after a few days, helping in the kitchen) outside of Munich for several months after college.

You were born in New York, and still live in Manhattan. Do you feel that it was life in a big city that prompted you to explore the more colourful side of the human imagination?

I grew up in the Bronx until I was eight and hung around my block with a bunch of friends where we did things that kids do now in the suburbs. Play, build snow tunnels (yes, there was enough snow in the Bronx sometimes). My dad pulled me down the streets in a sled. I climbed bus poles (I was a tomboy), my friends and I practiced blowing bubbles with bubble gum. We practiced whistling (the only way I’ve been able to do it is the two fingers screech with the pinky and forefinger – you know? The taxi cab hailing whistle you sometimes see in movies. My father owned a luncheonette kitty corner across the street from where I lived and even after we moved to the suburbs when I was eight, we’d come to the luncheonette for lunch every Saturday (my sister and I went to music school that day) and I’d read all the comic books in the store, from Little Lulu and Superman to Classics Illustrated and the ones with creepy crawlies on the covers (I don’t remember the titles). So to answer your question – bet you thought I wasn’t going to get to it – I don’t know if it was the city per se that prompted my interest but certainly my upbringing encouraged it in some ways.

What was you first editing job?

You mean editorial job? Then I was as editorial assistant at Charterhouse, an imprint of David McKay (neither which exist any more). If you mean actually editing, it was Arbor House, which at the time was owned by the monster Don Fine. No one lasted very long there and the six months or so I worked there I went from answering the phone to editing a couple of novels and doing publicity. But my first real editing job was at Omni magazine, when I was hired as Associate Fiction Editor by Ben Bova, and worked with Bob Sheckley.

You edit both novels and short fiction. Do you have a preference? And can you remember which was the first story you selected for your first anthology?

I much prefer to edit short fiction. I’ve done it longer and I think I’m better at it. Well, since I started editing at Omni way before editing any anthologies, the first stories I selected and edited there once I was promoted to Fiction Editor were ‘Eyes I Dare not Meet in Dreams’ by Dan Simmons, ‘Burning Chrome’ by William Gibson, and ‘Petra’ by Greg Bear. Before that, of course, I was not yet buying the fiction myself but I was reading and editing all of it, including ‘Johnny Mnemonic’ and ‘Hinterlands’ by Gibson.

Anthologies have been scarce outside of fantasy and science fiction for many years. But in recent times the publishing houses have started to bring out more anthologies, especially in the YA ranges. How encouraging do you think this is for the future of fiction in general and fantasy in particular?

I’m not sure. Terri Windling and I have had luck selling a series of Young Adult anthologies to Viking – we get good money for them and they sell very well. Will Viking continue to support them? Who knows? It’s always a struggle to sell another anthology. I did an original horror anthology for Tor (The Dark) and it did well enough for them to commission a second from me (Inferno, out in December). If that one does well enough, I hope they’ll have me do another. I’ve got feelers out about some other anthologies – horror and fantasy ones. I don’t think mainstream publishing has much impact on genre publishing with regard to anthologies.

(c) Jan Edwards / Dark Horizons