Today’s podcast episode is a Member of the Month episode, where we get to know one of our fellow NAIWE members.
Our guest today is George De Stefano.
George De Stefano is a New York–based writer and editor specializing in culture and politics. He is the author of An Offer We Can’t Refuse: The Mafia in the Mind of America (Farrar, Straus, Giroux) and a contributor to numerous other books, including the Routledge History of Italian Americans; Mafia Movies (University of Toronto); The Essential Sopranos Reader (University of Kentucky Presses); and Reggae, Rasta, and Revolution (Schirmer Trade Books). His forthcoming book is Gumbo Italiano: How the Sicilians Made New Orleans. His writing has appeared in The Nation, Newsday, Film Comment, The Advocate, The Italian American Review, Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, and the online publications PopMatters, Rootsworld, the New York Journal of Books, La Voce di New York, and I-Italy. He also is a freelance editor for academic and trade publishers of books and journals, and for nonprofit organizations.
Q: Please share a little of your professional history with our readers.
I began my professional life as a journalist, reporting and writing feature articles for a weekly paper in Connecticut. I then became the arts editor of a New Haven weekly while also contributing articles and reviews to such publications as The Nation, Cineaste, Film Comment, the Advocate, Newsweek, and other newspapers and magazines. In the late 1980s, I went to social work school because I wanted to contribute to the fight against AIDS. I then worked in public health for 25 years while continuing to freelance. I published my first book while employed by a public health department. After leaving full-time employment in 2013, I began my editing business, GdS Editorial Services, while also working on my own writing.
Q: How and when did you make this business a reality?
In September 2013, I set up my editing business, GdS Editorial Services.
Q: What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far in your career?
That there is a dialectic between writing and editing: one informs the other. Editing other writers’ works, helping them say what they want to say as effectively as possible has made me a better writer. I read my own work much more closely and critically.
Q: Are you working on any personal writing projects at this time?
I am now finishing my nonfiction book, Gumbo Italiano: How the Sicilians Made New Orleans.
Q: Are you working on any special projects you’d like to tell us about?
I am just finishing my book and getting the manuscript in shape to go to my editor.
Q: What are some of the teachers, books, or authors who have influenced your professional life in a positive way?
I have been an avid reader since I was a child. My mother often would say that when she wanted a break from her homemaking duties, she’d give me a book to read and then I’d be out of her hair for hours. When I became a writer, I retained the reading habit I’d acquired as a child. Novels, short stories, books about history, politics, culture—I devoured them all. From them, I learned invaluable lessons about craft and how writing can have an impact on readers and the world.
Q: As a seasoned professional, what advice would you offer an independent writer or editor who is just beginning a career?
Read a lot—widely and critically. Take an editing course or two and join professional organizations like NAIWE that can help newbies build their careers. Be patient, too, because building a successful career takes time.
Q: What inspires you?
Great literature and intelligent critical writing about it in such publications as the London Review of Books and the New York Review of Books. The arts, especially music, and especially jazz, with its dialectic of freedom and discipline. The lives of great fighters for freedom and social justice. The constant and unstinting support from my partner, Rob.
Q: How has your membership in NAIWE benefited you professionally?
My NAIWE website has exposed my writing and editorial services to a wider audience. I’ve also gotten excellent tips and advice from other members of NAIWE about the craft and business of editing.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like to share?
I am so looking forward to a return to some degree of normal life after two years of a pandemic hell. I can’t wait to go to restaurants again, to jazz clubs, plays, and travel.
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