She made abundantly clear that she was rejecting a given poem or story, not the writer herself. Though her office was awash in manuscripts from the slush pile, she assiduously followed up on each of “her” authors, writing to them to encourage them to submit if she hadn’t heard from them in a while, even sending them ideas for stories.
But she never suggested other writers to emulate or tried to nudge one writer to be like another. She prided herself on giving unwavering support and encouraging her writers to submit work even as they dealt with divorce, illness, institutionalization. She herself worked from hospital beds through her many surgeries and ailments, so she had no problem sending page proofs to Elizabeth Hardwick in the hospital just days after giving birth to her daughter Harriet.
Katharine advanced her authors money, sent them books, introduced them to each other, introduced them to their future husbands, turned dry spells into rushing rivers, suggested now-classic stories and essays. In one instance, she inquired about getting a divorced poet an annulment so she could marry her Catholic fiancé—the editor as a full-service consultant for all writers’ troubles.
White called out the best from her authors through her relentless attention to them—her criticism was her love language. As she wrote to one potential contributor from whom she asked for major revisions, “your story is too good not to have it perfect.”
See also:
Books: Dylan Thomas' Laugharne, 4 February 2022
Books: Mansfield on Joyce, 27 December 2019
Books: The Paris correspondent starts his day, 30 April 2016
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