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| photo by Michelle Seixas |
Susan Schader has
worked as a freelance Story Analyst/Story and Development Consultant/Editor on
feature film and television projects for companies such as DreamWorks, New
Regency Productions, Village Roadshow, DeLuca Productions, Donner-Shuler-Donner
Productions, Icon Films, Jagged Films, Showtime, Lifetime, Turner Pictures,
among others, including private clients and international film brokers and
producers (covering such film festivals as Cannes, Berlin, Toronto, etc.). She
was Assistant to filmmaker Albert Brooks on Defending Your Life, from
project’s inception (scripting writing and editing), pre-production, and casting,
to production and post-production, publicity and marketing research.
In the publishing
industry in New York and San Francisco, she worked as a Developmental Editor,
developing, co-authoring, editing major college textbooks, including all
ancillary and audio-visual materials, from planning through publication) for
Harper & Row (now Harper Collins) Publishers. She also served as a Marketing Analyst,
Research and Development, Harper College Division East. As a freelancer, she did
developmental/substantive editing, copyediting, research, proofreading,
redlining for such major publishing houses as Prentice-Hall, McGraw-Hill Book
Company, and Abrams.
She has a
background in graphic design and photography as well, and has loved “Words
& Images,” which is also the title of her blog at sschader.blogspot.com.
She is currently writing a Middle Grade novel
-- a new creative challenge.
For information on Susan's rates and services, check out the Story Services 4 Writers gite here.
What is the last good book you read?
The debut novel of Brit Bennett, entitled The Mothers, which is due out this fall but I had the chance
to read in advance. It’s a coming-of-age story about two young African-American
teenagers and the book’s central question as Ms. Bennett describes it is, “how
girls grow into women when the female figures who are supposed to usher you
into womanhood aren’t there. How girls come of age with that absence. And it’s
about how communities are shaped by loss… how in moments of grief, community
can be both a source of comfort and a source of oppression.” It’s beautifully
written, touching, and timely.
Who are your favorite writers?
That question is hard to answer given that
I read so much “professionally” that I rarely read for my own pleasure. When I
can sneak in a read for “fun,” I tend gravitate toward crime/detective tales. I
don’t know what that says about me,
although I hope that instead of indicating I have a penchant for dark,
dastardly deeds, it suggests that solving a crime or mystery is rather like
solving the puzzle of what’s missing in a manuscript or screenplay, what needs
to be there or needs to be removed to make the narrative soar. I do like the
writing of the Scottish writer, Ian Rankin, who has penned the Detective Rankin
novels. One of my all time favorite novels is Harper Lee’s, To Kill A Mockingbird, and my favorite
children’s book is, Charlotte’s Web,
by E.B. White, which I’ve seen described as a nearly perfect book. I agree with
that assessment.
