Testimonials

“Catherine Frank and I have made five books together, each one improved by her wise touch, and me a better author for the experience, book after book. To be edited by Catherine is to know publishing at its best.”

“I was extremely lucky to work with Catherine when she acquired my chapter book series, and we got to work together over four books. From the start, I was confident in her guidance and direction; she clearly articulated the strengths of the project, while suggesting concrete ways to improve it. Catherine is a skilled editor with a keen eye–finding weak spots in the plots, making sure the characters are consistent, helping to mine the humor, and working with me to shape the structural arc of each book. Her notes are pointed, but gentle. When I disagreed with or didn’t understand an editorial note, her guidance was respectful. In addition to her skillful editing of each book, she also helped shape the series overall, drawing on her extensive editorial experience to offer suggestions that strengthened it for the age group, genre, and competitive market. I highly recommend working with Catherine!”

“Catherine’s editorial eye is remarkable! She has a knack for zeroing in on the heart of a story—that combination of emotional engagement, suspense, and satisfaction that keep readers turning pages. And she has the kindness and tact to sustain an author through the hard work of revision.”

“Catherine is a genius at what she does. It’s as simple as that. I’ve worked with a lot of fantastic editors during my career, and still, I was absolutely gobsmacked by her wisdom and skill. She took a manuscript that I thought was pretty good, and transformed it into something so much better. I can think of at least one glorious book review that resulted much more from Catherine’s insight than my own. If you get the chance to work with her, do it.”

“After working with Catherine on three middle grade books, I’m convinced that she knows book-magic. She has that rare editorial quality (superpower, really) of being able to see through the cinder block walls that I inevitably construct in my drafts and identify the heart–the very truth of the character or scene or story or sentence–when I couldn’t even see it myself. And if that’s not magic, I don’t know what is.”

“Over the course of my career, I’ve been fortunate to work with excellent editors across a wide range of publishers, and Catherine is truly the best of the best. As a professional, she sees both the forest and the trees of a story in ways that bring all the pieces together–from plot to character to theme to heart–into a beautiful, organic whole. As a person, she’s funny, warm, honest, intelligent, and incredibly insightful. Catherine truly makes every page better, every time. I’d work with her again in a heartbeat.”

“I loved working with Catherine. She is the kind of editor you dream of: generous and kind yet thorough and specific. She pushed me in the best way– my novel grew in complexity and heart under her care. She got back to me right away. She helped me keep track of the many strands of my story. She encouraged me when I got discouraged. She really understands narrative. I would jump at the chance to work on another project with her.”

Before we were introduced, Catherine was described to us as a “world-class editor.” After working with her, we whole-heartedly agree. Catherine’s industry expertise and story insight have proven invaluable to our middle-grade adventure series. It should also be noted that she’s an absolute pleasure to work with.