Beth Rashbaum
bethrashbaum@gmail.com | www.bethrashbaum.com
My publishing career includes stints at Bantam Dell/Random House, Little, Brown and Co., Avon Books, and Macmillan Publishing Co. I edit nonfiction only, but within that boundary everything from memoir to biography and autobiography, history, popular science, investigative journalism, psychology, and health and wellness. I also edit and write proposals, and was co-author, with Olga Silverstein, of The Courage to Raise Good Men.
My specialty is in-depth re-working of the text, including re-structuring, re-writing, heavy line editing, and cutting. But I also know when to step back and apply only the most delicate of touches if the quality of the writing merits such light treatment.
Recent editing projects include 2024 Bancroft Prize-winner, Fire and Rain: Nixon and Kissinger and the Wars in Southeast Asia by Carolyn Woods Eisenberg; Weathering: The Extraordinary Stress of Ordinary Life in an Unjust Society by Arline Geronimus; House of Sticks by Ly Tran; Competition Overdose: How Free Market Mythology Transformed Us from Citizen Kings to Market Servants by Maurice E. Stucke and Ariel Ezrachi; Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief by David Kessler; Pulitzer Prize Finalist, The Evolution of Beauty, by Richard O. Prum.
I have worked on Pulitzer Prize–winners and finalists, Bancroft Prize-winners, National Book Award finalists, and many New York Times bestsellers, including: Both/And, Huma Abedin; In Pieces, Sally Field; The Choice, Dr. Edith Eva Eger; The Four Tendencies and Better Than Before, Gretchen Rubin; Provence 1970, Luke Barr; House in the Sky, Amanda Lindhout; The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow; The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, Alice Schroeder; Little Heathens, Mildred Kalish; Peace, Love & Healing, Bernie Siegel, M.D. (ghosted); Revolution from Within, Gloria Steinem; The Trial of Socrates, I. F. Stone.
Other authors I’ve worked with include Heather Ann Thompson, David Willman, Daniel Coyle, Elizabeth Hess, William Ury, Timothy McCall, M.D., Masha Gessen, Eileen Welsome, Jerald Walker, Blanche Wiesen Cook, Candace B. Pert, Yaffa Eliach, John Edgar Wideman, and Ethel Spector Person.
“Beth Rashbaum . . . entered this project at a critical time. Over an extended period, she helped me pare down a too cumbersome, detailed manuscript, while skillfully retaining the intertwined threads that kept this a coherent narrative. Beth’s professionalism in the art of writing is matched by her profound attention to content. She was constantly alert to factual mistakes and did not hesitate to verify claims when they seemed unsupported or contradictory.”
“Thank you for your brilliant, hard-working, detail-oriented mind, for the generous gift of your skill and for giving me - many times over my dead body - the education that I did not have. You have been relentlessly supportive and deeply kind. You never pulled your punches or backed away from my defensive reactions.”
“Beth Rashbaum is a magician with words.”
“Beth Rashbaum has a relentless eye for excellence, and her editorial suggestions and insights improved every page of my work.”
“Beth turned her lack of scientific background into an asset, diving into our prose and providing invaluable input and guidance regarding both clarity and theme. [She] stuck with the manuscript, and did it in good cheer, whether the discussion centered around the placement of a comma or the impossibility of embedding a negative curvature surface axisymmetrically in flat space.”
“Beth Rashbaum was an insightful, meticulous, and dedicated editorial partner. She became passionately engaged with the topic, and her perceptive comments challenged me to make my arguments more clearly and effectively. She was a pleasure to work with, and I am looking forward to the next opportunity!”