Norton Editor Wants "Books from Cooks and Chefs Who Love Words"
For Melanie Tortoroli, it’s about the writing, the storytelling, and the voice.
When legendary cookbook editor Maria Guarnaschelli retired, her publisher, Norton, needed a replacement. Maria mentored Melanie Tortoroli, who rose from editorial assistant to assistant editor. In 2012, Melanie left to become an editor at Viking/Penguin and then moved to Amazon in 2017 as a senior editor. Norton called her back that same year.
In 2023, she became a vice president, and, in 2024, Norton promoted her to Executive Editor. She inherited Maria’s list of authors and she also takes on non-food-related, non-fiction books. Maria died in 2021.
Melanie’s books include J. Kenji López-Alt's The Wok and Every Night Is Pizza Night. She has forthcoming books from Stella Parks, Clarissa Wei, Mayukh Sen, and Fuchsia Dunlop.
Here’s Melanie on how she works and what she wants from potential authors:
Q. How hard is it to follow Maria Guarnaschelli?
A. She was my mentor. Not in the traditional sense, but if she were alive, she would take credit for any success I had and that would be fine with me.
I learned by being thrown into the deep end. She had strong opinions, but she was always right. She’d say, ‘Let’s take a 3-hour lunch, go to an Indian buffet, and talk about our authors.’ She took meetings in person. And I was granted such access to her authors from day one.
It really was a classic apprenticeship. I got to watch, listen and learn good writing, including how to write a good recipe. It involved a lot of understanding of the role of an editor, how to negotiate the book, the presentation and the marketing.
Q. How do you spend most of your time at work?
A. A lot of meetings. Norton has an infamous editorial meeting on Wednesday. We get together — it’s the president, the marketing people, it’s all hands on deck. It starts at 10 a.m. and goes for at least two hours. I get lots of feedback from people who are not necessarily cooks.
I read everyone’s proposal, discuss the idea, the author, and how much do we want to invest, because we’re an employee-owned company. It’s not just the company’s money. It’s my money. Not everyone agrees, but we get really smart feedback that we bring back to authors and agents.
I wish I could have more time to read on the job. We do have no-meeting Mondays and Fridays to read and edit and do the quiet work. Plus, I have the regular maintenance of production schedules, interior design meetings, conversations with sales and publicity meetings and strategizing with authors. It’s different threads of conversations are happening all the time.
It’s sort of like being in college forever. I want to be learning on every project.
Q. Where do you look for new talent?
A. A lot of it is through agents. They find people who already have a following, and who are talented writers. It’s also referrals, finding out what might be trendy, or a need for a certain kind of book.
I’m reading and looking all the time for writers. I’m always absorbing. I go to bookstores all the time to see what’s on the shelves. There’s constant scouting and talking to colleagues and younger people about what excites them. I have constant ongoing openness.