Marian Wood, a veteran editor and former v-p and publisher of an eponymous imprint at Penguin Random House, died over the weekend. PRH said Wood maintained "one of the most illustrious careers in publishing," having started in the business in the 1970s.
Wood, who retired in 2018, had been at Henry Holt before joining G.P. Putnam's Sons in 1999, to run Marian Wood Books. (Wood had also had her own imprint at Holt.) She was well-known as the editor of bestselling author Sue Grafton; it was a relationship, PRH noted, that "started all the way back with A is for Alibi, and ended only with Sue’s too-early death just after Y is for Yesterday was published."
Among the other notable novelists Wood worked with are Hilary Mantel, Karen Joy Fowler, Philip Kerr, and Daniel Woodrell. On the nonfiction side, her authors included National Book Award-finalist T.H. Watkins and Philip Caputo. She also edited poets like Karl Kirchway and Linda Bierds.
PRH called Wood, who spent the final phase of her career editing from her home on Long Island's North Fork, "a model of what an editor should be: a discoverer of talent, an astute and sensitive critic, and a ferocious advocate for her authors." The publisher added: "As her author Philip Kerr once wrote to her: 'I know that the book will be all the better for having you on the case. This is what they mean by a Marian Wood book. Long may they continue.' She will be missed."
