Penguin Imprint Focus: Meet the Staff at Roc and Ace

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Having introduced you to the Editorial Director and Editor-in-Chief, we now move on to the Senior Editor and Associate Editor at Roc and Ace.

Anne Sowards, Senior Editor

I taught myself to read at the age of four, started with fairy tales, moved on to my dad's science fiction collection, and haven't stopped since! I've been with Ace since 1996 and Roc since December 2003. Some of the wonderful authors I work with include Jim Butcher, Patricia Briggs, Jack Campbell, Karen Chance, and Anne Bishop. When I'm not reading, I catch up on TV, listen to Chinese rap, and spend way too much time playing video games.

Random facts about me:

* I have naturally curly hair.
* When last tested, I could type 75 words per minute. (OK, that sounded more impressive in my head.)
* My family only had a black and white TV until I was a teenager. I can't tell you how shocked I was the first time I realized what the Sesame Street puppets looked like in color.
* My right eye is nearsighted and my left eye is farsighted.
* I have six sisters (five living) and one brother. My doctor tells me the odds of having seven girls in one family are astronomical-take that, medical science!
* I have lived in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Utah, California, and (currently) New York.
* I studied the piano for ten years and my absolute favorite piece was Aufschwung (Soaring) from Robert Schumann's Fantasiestücke, Op. 12.
* I was the only child in my family who would eat mushrooms or olives. Nothing could induce me to eat my father's butternut squash and raisins, though. Or his Harvard beets.
* Though I can be persuaded otherwise by really terrific storytelling, normally I am squicked out by books involving cannibalism. Or incest. Or circuses.

Favorite books from my childhood:

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
The Oz books by L. Frank Baum
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Mushroom Planet books by Eleanor Cameron
D'Aulaires' Book of Norse Myths by Ingri D'Aulaire and Edgar Parin D'Aulaire
Half Magic by Edward Eager
The Far Side of Evil by Sylvia Louise Engdahl
The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Favorite videogames thus far:

(Keep in mind I started playing videogames late in life and have yet to upgrade to the new consoles. I have an Xbox and a GameCube.)

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Lego Star Wars (the original trilogy)

Foreign places I have visited:

Ireland, Belize (twice), Niagara Falls and Toronto in Canada, Beijing and Shanghai in China (plus day trips to Suzhou and Hangzhou as well).

Want to listen to some Chinese rap?

Try Jay Chou. His albums are an addictive mixture of rap and ballads. No, I have no idea what the lyrics mean but that's what the internet is for!

Jessica Wade, Associate Editor

Hi. I'm Jessica Wade, associate editor at Ace and Roc. I started working at Ace/Roc in 2004 and I love my job. Where else do you get to talk about werewolves, vampires, and whether the term half-elf should be hyphenated for a living? I always loved to read way past my bedtime and I still read omnivorously: fantasy, young adult novels, mysteries, history, you name it. Some of my fabulous authors include Glen Cook, John Levitt, Jeanne C. Stein, Elizabeth Bear, and Diana Pharoah Francis.

In real life, I live in Manhattan, where (when not reading a manuscript) I am partial to, in no particular order: trashy TV, the BBC News, The Week magazine, green tea ice cream, actual tea, cats, and pretending I know how to knit... (ok, so apparently I enjoy the same things as your stereotypical maiden aunt). I also have dual US/UK citizenship (my parents are English) and if you want to know a fun factoid about me---my great-grandfather came to America on the Titanic. He survived, wrote a book about the Titanic, and then moved back to England. Hence the citizenship. And the tea.

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