A loss for the literary community
Master Editor Stephen Stratford
I’m still reeling from the sad, sad news that on Sunday 21st November, Stephen Stratford died suddenly. Just like that we lost one of New Zealand’s best known editors. Many have heard me speak of Stephen as my star editor for The Telling Time. This article in The Spinoff gives a glimpse of the man he was and in particular his role as editor. For anyone who loves reading it showcases the integral role an editor plays — a role often not illuminated enough when discussing the merits of a finished novel or work of non-fiction. It leaves you in no doubt about the importance of editing, and how punctuation and grammar are bit-players.
For me, the article reminds me of Stephen’s sharp sense of humour and dry wit. He was indeed a master fact checker, and I still smile about the time he sent the call out to Twitter on the serious matter of whether men’s Y-front underwear existed in 1950’s New Zealand. We had a laugh about this and I remember feeling grateful to the historian at the Christchurch museum who confirmed that indeed they were a thing (to suffer Stephen’s mirth was not pleasant!) Stephen ensured my words were true to their locations and social mores of the time. I’ll be forever grateful that he picked up that the Dally club in Auckland had already shifted by 1989 to its current location on New North Road (in my ‘manuscript’ I still had it located on K-road). The article highlights how suspension of disbelief is vital and how a rookie error can trip readers up, and worse have them toss your novel aside in disgust.
Stephen was a friend as well as my editor. We met through his wife, Sarah Frazer. In the early 1990’s, Sarah and I travelled in a bright green Combi van, ‘Turtle”, along with two other friends, Raewyn Rasch and Jilly Hanna. We toured for six weeks around southern Europe and our combined interest in food meant we cooked up a culinary storm. The markets in Italy and Spain provided a treasure trove of ingredients that we then whipped up in Turtle’s tiny kitchen. We often talked about producing a recipe book. We should have. We talked a lot on that trip!
Words were so important to Stephen and yet in conversation he tended to use them sparingly — get him talking about music though and his eyes gleamed! Graham Lay refers to this in his interview about Stephen on RNZ. Like so many authors who had the privilege of Stephen editing their work, I too feel grateful. Stephen took my words and made them the very best they could possibly be without stripping out my unique voice. He went the extra distance and relished nutting out what was complicated and making it simple. For The Telling Time he devised a system for the use of Croatian language scattered through the novel — where and when to use it — so that it made sense and wasn’t heavy handed. It was Stephen who taught me what a crucial role editing plays to the finished product. I was guilty of placing emphasis on punctuation and grammar. In one of my earlier blog posts I described what I’d learnt from working with Stephen. Punctuation and grammar are merely the lipstick, the final lick of colour and the secret to good editing lies in the foundation layers. RIP Stephen Stratford, you were a master craftsman and will be sorely missed.
