Page 59 - Star Wars Insider (Special Edition 2019)

INTERVIEW
Telling
Tales
Elizabeth Schaefer has written Star
Wars stories that have captured
children’s imaginations around the
word for Disney Lucasfi lm Press
while also working as a creative
director for licensed publishing at Del
Rey. She shares her experiences in
Star Wars publishing.
INTER VIEW: JONATHAN WILKINS
SWI2019_058_061_ElizabethSchaefer.indd 59
SWI2019_058_061_ElizabethSchaefer.indd 59
Star Wars Insider: As creative director at
Del Rey, what does your job entail?
Elizabeth Schaefer: One of the greatest parts
of this job is that there is no typical day. One
morning I might be writing up a pitch for a new
novel, the next I’ll be reading the first pass of
a manuscript, and the next I’ll be working with
publicity to promote our latest publication.
But what I tell my confused family members at
Christmas is: my job is to connect great authors
with amazing franchises, and then help both
those groups create the best novel possible.
What was your first experience of Star Wars?
I literally cannot remember a time when I hadn’t
seen Star Wars. My brother and I would watch
our copies of the 1995 VHS releases over and over
and over again. I remember one morning we
woke up really early to watch Return of the Jedi
(1983 ) for the billionth time. I warned my
brother that watching might wake our parents
up, and he said, “Then we’ll do it real quiet-like.”
This was the funniest thing I had ever heard in
my 8-year-old life, and I still remember it today!
How does the process from idea to novel
typically work? Does the idea come from
Del Rey or Lucasfilm? At what point is
the author chosen and hired?
The people at Lucasfilm are such great
collaborators, and ideas usually fl ow both
ways. We’ll start talking with them about the
preliminary idea for a novel and develop it
to the point where we have a good sense of
the characters and tone. That way, we can
approach an author who is a perfect fi t for
the material. The author then takes the
concept and transforms it into a real story
with a fleshed out outline, then manuscript.
Star Wars on screen is such a visual experience.
Why do you think it works so well in prose?
The Star Wars galaxy is so rich and complex.
There are literally billions of worlds and
millennia of history to explore. With such
diversity of characters and locations, there
are always new worlds and stories to discover.
STAR WARS INSIDER / 59
30/10/2018 11:57
30/10/2018 11:57