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Despite their voluminous monthly output, Ace and Roc are run by a surprisingly small team. Over the remainder of this week we're going to introduce you to the tightly knit group of people behind the Imprints, from the Editor-in-Chief to the Editorial Assistants. Or, more accurately, allow them to introduce themselves.

Susan Allison, Berkley Editorial Director

My science fiction reading began with A Wrinkle in Time, which I expect I knew nearly by heart, and then with all the Andre Norton and Robert Heinlein novels I could find in the library. Later there was Dune and Stranger in a Strange Land, the science fiction that everyone was reading, but I really had no awareness of science fiction as a community until I went to work as Jim Baen's assistant in the late 1970s. I came to Berkley in 1982, and was Editor-in-Chief first of Ace and then of Ace and Roc. Ginjer Buchanan has now taken over as Editor in Chief of Ace and Roc, but I still work with a number of wonderful authors, including William Gibson, Stephen R. Donaldson, Guy Gavriel Kay, Joe Haldeman, Robin McKinley and Patricia A. McKillip.

Ginjer Buchanan, Editor-in-Chief, Ace/Roc

Often at Writers Conferences, people want to know how to break into publishing as an editor. I always say that there is no one way, and that my career path proves that.

I was a social worker for 15 years before I began working for Putnam Berkley. Though I grew up to acquire an MSW degree, I had as a child always read fiction voraciously, thanks to the Carnegie Free library system in Pittsburgh. And my tastes had run to fantastic literature--CS Lewis, E. Nesbitt, Edward Eager (a particular favorite) PL Travers, and, as I got older, Ray Bradbury, Shirley Jackson, and HP Lovecraft. Then I got older still, and became a card-carrying science fiction and fantasy fan--one of those people who go to conventions, meet authors, attend panels, buy books, and discuss the genre in hallways and at late-night room parties. My social circle was largely made up of other fans, from all over the country. In fact I met the man who was to become my husband through science fiction fandom.