I had the very great good fortune to be able to work on my first three books with Lorna Owen, and part of the joy of working with her is the way the manuscript changes: no mere cosmetic fixes here. Her equal sensitivity towards style and meaning and her acute engagement with the structure of a text is reflected in her editorial notes, which offer insights that allow you to strengthen the writing at its foundations.
—Helen Oyeyemi, author of What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

I’ve worked with Lorna on two different manuscripts and she made both of them much stronger. I tend to revise and revise and revise before seeking feedback, and so Lorna took on very polished, if also very flawed, manuscripts. Those can be the hardest to critique as, on the surface, they appear nearly finished. But Lorna recognized what I was aiming for in my work, not just what was there on the page, and she offered feedback that helped me recognize where the manuscript was falling short.

As someone who acquired books for a major house, she has an eye for what editors look for. Her written feedback was incisive and insightful, her approach direct yet tactful. Where this led to more questions, she fielded them thoughtfully and helped me find resolutions to the problems that we had identified. Lorna rocks!
—David Wright Faladé, author of Black Cloud Rising

I’ve been truly fortunate to have Lorna Owen read early drafts of my books; her insights and contributions have been enormously valuable.
—Elif Shafak, author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World, shortlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize

Lorna Owen is a brilliant reader and editor, whose services provide the kind of tender loving care and attention to prose and narrative that houses unfortunately often skip over. In other words, she is a real find. I recommend her highly.
—Oscar Hijuelos (1951-2013), winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and author of Thoughts Without Cigarettes: A Memoir

Lorna Owen is much more than an editor. With an unfailing instinct for what is and isn’t required, she can shape unwieldy manuscripts into coherent stories. Her perfectionism will not tolerate grammatical or typographical errors. At the end, your manuscript is a much better book than you would ever have expected.
—Karl von der Heyden, author of Surviving Berlin

Lorna Owen did excellent editorial work when she was in this imprint. Now she works freelance and has been a boon to writers, in helping them put their manuscripts in such order that the authors have found a publisher. I still miss her not being in this office.
—Nan Talese, publisher and editorial director, Nan A. Talese/ Knopf Doubleday