Five-Minute Friday: Jenni Hill
Name: Jenni Hill
Day job: Junior Editor at Solaris Books. We publish a really wide range of fantasy, horror and science fiction novels. I’ve been at it for two years and it still makes me ridiculously happy when I see ‘my’ books I’ve edited in bookshops, or spot people reading them on the tube.
Extra-curricular: Reading books and comics, writing, gaming, watching anime, learning to skate with the goal of playing roller derby soon! (Somebody needs to pitch me a book about rollergirls. I mean now.)
Favourite book of all time: What, I only get one? That’s, like, fascism, man.
Literary pet peeves: When fantasy authors don’t get the credit they deserve because they’re writing ‘genre’ fiction. Similarly, when ‘literary’ authors write science fiction, fantasy or horror and refuse to acknowledge that’s what they’ve written.
Writers who repeatedly fail the Bechdel test, I mean, it’s not a hard and fast rule, but repeatedly failing it makes me, as an editor, really doubt the power of a writer’s imagination.
Guilty pleasure: My very guilty pleasure is YA fiction – awful books I remember from when I was 14, and better YA books published more recently. There is no justice in the world when Stephanie Meyer has more fans than Suzanne Collins or Sarah Rees Brennan. There has been vague talk of my company starting a YA fiction imprint, so I guess I can call it ‘research’, right?
Three favourite authors: Terry Pratchett, Angela Carter and G. Willow Wilson. But the line-up changes, often.
Favourite fictional character: Katniss from The Hunger Games, Tyrion Lannister from A Game of Thrones, Vetinari from the Discworld books or Katchoo from Strangers in Paradise.
Other recommended reading: I picked up Mohsin Hamid‘s The Reluctant Fundamentalist on World Book Night and can’t recommend it enough. I really rate Juliet McKenna and Eric Brown too, both are authors I’ve had the pleasure of working with.
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I’ve heard about The Reluctant Fundamentalist before. Maybe this is a sign I should add it to my TBR list.
Judy, South Africa