Virginia Buckley met Gary Schmidt through Katherine Paterson--indirectly.
Schmidt called Buckley to interview her while he was working on a Twayne
biography of Katherine Paterson. Buckley has been Paterson's editor throughout
the writer's career, and ushered her to two Newbery Medals and a National Book
Award, among other accolades. Shortly after Schmidt interviewed Buckley, she received
a manuscript from him in a blue folder, with no letter. It was about a boy who
moves to his grandparents' home in New Hampshire and discovers the local legend
of a "sin eater," a person who could take on the sins of the
deceased.
Luckily, Buckley remembered Schmidt's name from their phone interview. "I sat down and read the manuscript, and I loved it!" Buckley said. So she called him. He had students in his office. "I said, 'This is Virginia Buckley,' and he said, 'Oh hi, Virginia!' And then it dawned on him, 'Oh, that Virginia Buckley!' All his students stopped to listen to the conversation," she recalled, laughing. Buckley published Schmidt's first novel, The Sin Eater, in 1996, "and I've been publishing him ever since." That includes Schmidt's two Newbery Honor books--Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy and The Wednesday Wars--and a Printz Honor (also for Lizzie Bright).
Buckley said she's been called "an old-fashioned editor" because she still goes through a manuscript page by page and writes an editorial letter 12-15 pages long. "I start from the beginning and check for discrepancies, give suggestions about the story line, and ask, 'Do we really need this scene here?' " she said. If a manuscript needs to be rewritten, she doesn't take it on. Schmidt is very responsive, according to Buckley: "I think we trust each other."
For this book, Buckley felt it was important to include the nine Audubon plates that open each of the chapters. "It gives the reader a reference to keep going back to. Without them, you don't get the full sense of the story." --J.M.B.