First, you have to love animals. That’s not debatable. You have to love them devotedly, probably more than you love a lot of people, and that’s not just because most of the people you know are writers and writers are needy bitches (your words). Maybe you own a dog or a cat, or both, and they’re even in your professional headshot. People think that’s weird, and it is but, frankly, this is who you are and you really think the world would be better if more people took head shots with a soulful dog or an annoyed cat.

And you have to be private. This also seems by design, but it’s not. And it doesn’t mean you’re unfriendly. You’re actually a very giving person, would drop anything for someone, the kind of person to immediately stop whatever you’re doing and reply, “Call me,” when a friend texts, “Do you have a moment to talk?” But there’s a guarded privacy to you that even you can’t quite explain. Not that it matters. People love you anyway.

Oh, also, you have to know people. That doesn’t mean you have to like people, but you have to know them; in fact, you know people so well that it gives you pretty good reason for keeping your distance. This, of course, helps you as an editor, because you’re able to understand characters in a draft better than the author does, and you can clearly see the story that the author wants to tell. You have that incredible talent to step into their world and make it better, and much of that is because of your gifted/cursed empathy. Author after author is baffled at your talent, and all of them find it intimidating, but the ones that love books nearly as much as you do end up appreciating it.

You have to love humor and, my God, how you love to laugh. You have the kind of waiting smile-laugh that makes people happy, and when people post pictures of you after you’ve passed, you’re often laughing with them. It’s hard not to remember you without smiling. And I do think that’s what you would have wanted.

You have to care, and you have to care about so many things and so deeply that, frankly, it’s exhausting, but you can’t help yourself. And because you’re so smart and observant and because you care, you’re ahead of everyone else in the field. Like that one time when publishing took steps to acknowledge the work of writers of color, and you had already started an entire imprint dedicated to marginalized voices a year earlier. That’s the kind of thing you do. Quiet, effective, determined. Work that matters.

You have to have more friends than you know what to do with, and occasionally you fight with them but, because you’re you, they come back, and you let them back in.

You have to you live so that future books will be dedicated to you. And you understand that this means living forever.

And this is the hardest thing, but it’s truly the most important if you want to be a good editor. Just like you do in a draft, you have to make the world a better place. You have to live and work in a way that that, without you, things feel incomplete, something missing, the story unfinished. Chantelle, none of these are the right words without you.

EA

Donations in Chantelle’s memory can be made to the Virginia C. Piper Center for Creative Writing at ASU.