Joy Peskin is the editorial director at Farrar Straus Giroux (FSG) Books for Young Readers, an imprint at the Macmillan Children’s Group, where she manages a department of editors and edits her own titles–a career Peskin describes as “the best of both worlds.” The esteemed editor has worked at Penguin Random House (her first publishing job was at Puffin) and Scholastic prior to joining Macmillan in 2012.
Peskin knew she either wanted to pursue social work or publishing when she was in school, where she majored in sociology and edited her school’s paper. She was also a writer. She enrolled in the industry-regarded Columbia Publishing Course and landed a job at Course Crafters, an education development program for English learning.
Check out our full interview with Peskin, as she talks to So Booking Cool about children’s books of all ages, Viking’s executive editor Kendra Levin, her advice for aspiring executive editors and editorial directors, and more!