Page Created: 09/18/10. Last Update: 09/22/10. Last Google Group Page Update: 05/28/10.
JIM MINZ
MEETING SUMMARY:
Meeting Date: August 9, 2003.
Meeting Site: Bennett's Books, Wyckoff, New Jersey.
Official Attendance: 30.
Meeting Program: Talk by Science Fiction Editor.
Notes:
Meeting Memories:
Newsletter Account:
The following account is reprinted with permission from THE STARSHIP EXPRESS Copyright 2003 Philip J De Parto:
The August meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County was held at Bennett's Books in Wyckoff, New Jersey on Saturday, August 9, 2003. Editor Jim Minz of Tor Books was the featured speaker.
The meeting was preceded by The Final Frontier's discussion of the works of Stephen Brust and was moderated by Todd Ehrenfels with the assistance of Philip De Parto. Phil tended to lead when the focus was on the Vlad Taltos books, Todd, when other works were in the spotlight. The event was well attended and appeared to keep the audience's attention.
Jim Minz has worked at Tor Books since 1993. He was bitten by the science fiction bug at a young age, reading his brother's copy of THE LORD OF THE RINGS while he was in third grade.
He continued to read fantasy and science fiction for many years, but never gave a thought to becoming professionally involved in the field. He was going to college to become and engineer when he struck up a conversation with a classmate named John Klevel. Mr Klevel was working as an intern for Jim Frenkel, who had relocated to Wisconsin and was employed as a consulting editor for Tor Books. Young Mr Minz was brought into the Frenkel circle, initially as an unpaid intern, and later as a paid assistant.
Mr Frenkel was wearing several hats at the time. He supplemented his duties for Tor Books with free lance packaging and agenting work. Among the deals the two Jims worked on was the annual THE YEAR'S BEST FANTASY AND HORROR edited by Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow. Mr Minz recalled that this was always a hectic, frenzied package to put together because Ms Windling would wait until the last possible minute to send in her selections just in case some brilliant piece of fantasy came to her attention just before the deadline. Our speaker then had the herculean task of tracking down the authors and their agents and handling both the editorial and contractual processes in a very short window of opportunity.
Mr Minz spent four years working for Mr Frenkel. He was one of five people in the state of Wisconsin making a living as a science fiction professional when he learned of an opening at Tor Books in New York. He was wondering if he knew anyone who might be interested in the position when his wife suggested that he apply for it himself. He took her hands in his and said, "ARE YOU CRAZY?" She replied that although a move to New York would be expensive and frightening, it was where he needed to be, and so the move was made.
He settled in as an assistant to David Hartwell at Tor in 1997. He primarily edits science fiction and fantasy, but has also worked on a smattering of horror, western, suspense, mystery, and thriller fiction at Tor and sister imprints Orb and Forge.
Mr Minz stated that before working at Tor, it had never occurred to him how many different people are required to get a book published. Agents, copy editors, and legal people are just a few of the parties involved in making a book happen. Despite the legitimate concerns of all these people, he is glad to be at a publisher whose philosophy is that it is the author's book, no matter how wrong they want to be.
Mr Minz considers himself to be very fortunate in his choice of profession. He loves reading, loves writers, and loves genre publishing. He feels that the best genre writers can hold their own against any mainstream author and cited Gene Wolfe as an example.
Our guest also fielded questions about the changing nature of publishing, including conglomeratization, the growth of superstores and their publishing arms, and electronic publishing. For example, Tor Books had originally licensed a hundred titles to Peanut Press for e-publishing but has now brought all alternative publishing formats in house.
Jim Minz was a friendly and informative guest, and spoke about many other topics than we can list in this space. The Association thanks him for sharing his time and expertise with the group.