For the May edition of JRW’s Writing Show, “River of Dust: The Gritty Truth about Editing,” held on May 30 at the Children’s Museum of Richmond, debut novelist Virginia Pye and her editor Nancy Zafris discussed the importance and intricacies of editing. Zafris—an award-winning author, manuscript consultant, and series editor for the Flannery O’Connor award for short fiction—visited Richmond from Ohio to share her expertise. Moderator Patty Smith, a local writer and teacher, steered the discussion towards subjects such as the role of editors, the importance of plot, and how to know what to let go and what to keep.
Pye explained that her novel, River of Dust, selected as an Indie Next Pick for May 2013, has been through at least twenty drafts. By the end of the editing process, only the first twenty and last twenty pages of her original manuscript remained. More