Verto Literary
Verto: To turn around / To change / To transform
An editorial consulting studio that works with authors, agents, and publishers to bring important stories and ideas to life.
“Verto came in at a crucial point in the process, helping us sift through volumes of material to see the story we wanted to tell. Gareth’s organization, vigor, and talent with structure and ideas gave us important direction on a very complicated project that was unfolding in real time.”
— New York Times journalists Cecilia Kang & Sheera Frenkel, authors of An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination
What we do
From idea to finished book. From rough draft to polished manuscript. From stuck to unstuck. We help writers transform their work so that it can find its greatest expression and the widest possible audience. We celebrate new voices and the desire to change the world through ideas and stories.
As writers and editors with decades of experience, we know how to quickly diagnose and solve problems—from conceptual architecture to narrative voice—so that authors can tackle what they set out to accomplish with energy and creativity.
Nonfiction
We help authors navigate the complex demands of argument, narrative, and pacing to craft a manuscript that is persuasive, moving, and downright impossible to put down. We evaluate research and reporting, provide big-picture editorial feedback, and offer detailed line editing to ensure clear, incisive writing.
Fiction
We assist authors with working drafts of short stories and novels. Are the characters intriguing and their actions compelling? Is the structure right for this particular narrative? Does the voice suit the material? Every piece of fiction is different, of course, and we help authors clarify what they are trying to do and say in their work, and how best to bring their vision to life. We provide both line editing and structural guidance.
Memoir
It can be a challenge to narrate one’s own story. We guide authors as they find the best angle, tone, and time frame for their personal essays and memoirs. Which parts of the narrative hold the real energy for both the author and the reader? Through broader development work, as well as fine tuning, we help authors structure and enhance personal writing so that readers will find it engrossing and affecting.
Proposals
We work with nonfiction writers and their agents to develop the ideas, storytelling, and chapter flow that make for a compelling and sellable proposal. Our collaborations can run from the discovery process—What is the “engine” driving the book? How should the narrative be framed?—to polishing a final version before it goes out to publishers. We anticipate the questions and concerns of editors before the proposal lands on their desk.
Coaching
We know that writing can feel overwhelming! We take on ambitious projects and, when needed, break them down into “one day at a time” steps that lead to concrete progress. We listen. We encourage. We get writers on track—and keep them there.
Sprint
We have a successful history of working with agents and Big 5 publishers to help writers complete high-stakes projects on (very) tight deadlines. (We do not take on ghostwriting assignments.)
“Alexis has an engineer’s understanding of structure, a psychiatrist’s grasp of human complexity, and a poet’s feel for language. Whenever we discussed pages I’d submitted, I felt she could see over the horizon line, past the narrative as it was and into what it might become. Thanks to her, my work has become stronger, and I have become a better writer. I recommend her wholeheartedly to anyone looking for a genuinely great editor.”
— Anthony Marra, New York Times bestselling author of Mercury Pictures Presents and A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
About
Gareth Cook
Editor in Chief
Gareth, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, has devoted his career to bringing important ideas into the public conversation. Before starting Verto, he was a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine and editor of “Mind Matters,” Scientific American’s psychology blog. Gareth got his start in journalism in Washington, D.C. with writing and editing jobs at Foreign Policy, U.S. News & World Report, and The Washington Monthly. He came to Boston to serve as news editor of The Boston Phoenix, the city’s late, great alternative weekly, and then moved to The Boston Globe, where he was an editor on the city desk before becoming the Globe’s science reporter. Gareth was one of the founders of the Globe’s Sunday Ideas section and served as its editor from 2007 to 2011. His writing has also appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times Book Review, NewYorker.com, Wired, and Scientific American. In 2005, Gareth was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for “explaining, with clarity and humanity, the complex scientific and ethical dimensions of stem cell research,” as well as the National Academies Communications Award. His work has twice been featured in Best American Science and Nature Writing, and he has appeared on NPR’s “Fresh Air,” “Science Friday,” “On Point,” and “Here and Now.” Gareth was also the series editor of The Best American Infographics. He lives in Boston.
Kate Rodemann
Director of Nonfiction
Over the past two decades, Kate has helped journalists, novelists, and scholars develop projects ranging from investigative deep-dives and personal essays to ambitious narratives and biographies. She began her editing career at Texas Monthly magazine, where a celebrated literary tradition and esteem for place made her fall in love with the power of story: to move individuals, change communities, and influence policy. She fed her passion for shaping wide-reaching stories at Highline, the digital longform site for HuffPost. Her projects—which have won numerous National Magazine Awards, been optioned for film and television, and received wide acclaim from critics and lawmakers—have covered wrongful convictions, con men, spiritual awakenings, musical legacies, medical discoveries, education and business initiatives, the beauty of barbecue, and everything in between. Kate has a heart for thoughtful, well-reported storytelling—and an avowed commitment to those who craft it. Raised in Madrid, she lives in Austin.
Alexis Washam
Director of Fiction
Alexis Washam spent the first 18 years of her career as an editor at Penguin and Random House, most recently as the editorial director of Hogarth, a literary imprint with an emphasis on international writers. Guided by her passion for voice-driven, immersive storytelling, she has edited a wide range of fiction and nonfiction, including Normal People by Sally Rooney, The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell, Good Morning, Destroyer of Men’s Souls by Nina Renata Aron, and The Dinner by Herman Koch.
Alexis started at Viking Penguin in 2004, where she worked with the Nobel Prize winner J.M. Coetzee and the bestselling mystery writer Craig Johnson, among many others. She later became a senior editor for Crown Trade Paperbacks, before participating in Crown’s launch of Hogarth in 2012. At Hogarth, she published books by Margaret Atwood, Melissa Broder, Mariana Enriquez, Han Kang, Alexandra Kleeman, Anthony Marra, Eimear McBride, Jo Nesbo, Regina Porter, Anne Tyler, and Jeanette Winterson. Hogarth’s authors have won or been nominated for the National Book Award, the Man Booker Prize, the International Man Booker Prize, the NBCC John Leonard Prize, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Alexis lives in Portland, Oregon.
Pete Beatty
Senior Editor
Pete Beatty is a writer, editor, and teacher in Birmingham, Alabama. He has worked in publishing since 2005 at the University of Chicago Press, Bloomsbury, the University of Alabama Press, and Open Road Media, where he acquired, edited, and developed award-winning nonfiction on subjects ranging from the opioid crisis to baseball infographics. He is also the author of the novel Cuyahoga (Scribner, 2020), which was longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel and deemed a “breezy fable of empire, class and ecocide” by the New York Times Book Review. His writing has also appeared in Vulture, GQ, Vice, and elsewhere.
Chaz Curet
Associate Editor
Chaz Curet is a writer and editor with over a decade of experience in publishing. Previously, as an editor and project manager at Plympton, he oversaw the literary studio’s many innovative publishing ventures, including Recovering the Classics, a children’s series called Did You Know?, and Plympton’s New York Public Library fiction and nonfiction shorts collection. He has also served as an educational technology curriculum writer and as a fiction and poetry editor at various literary magazines. He earned his BA in English from Stanford University and his MFA in Fiction from Syracuse University, where he taught both academic and creative writing.
Jenny Fran Davis
Assistant Editor
Jenny Fran Davis holds a BA in English from Wesleyan and an MFA from the University of Iowa, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. A writer and editor of both fiction and narrative nonfiction, her essays have been published in Los Angeles Review of Books, Washington Square Review, and Speculative Nonfiction. She's the author of a novel for teenagers, Everything Must Go, and her first novel for adults, Dykette, is forthcoming from Henry Holt in May 2023. She lives in Brooklyn.
Eli Mennerick
Assistant Editor
Eli Mennerick is a recent graduate of Yale University, where he studied English literature and nonfiction writing. He spent much of his time at Yale editing and writing for The New Journal, an undergraduate long-form journalism magazine. During his term as managing editor, The New Journal won the Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Award for best student magazine in the Northeast. He was Verto’s 2021 summer intern. Eli grew up in St. Louis and spent the last five years in New Haven.
Siena Capone
Editorial Assistant
Siena Capone is a recent graduate of Brown University, where she earned a B.A. in Literary Arts. At Brown, she was the narrative managing editor of post-, the undergraduate creative nonfiction magazine. Her honors thesis, an exploration of the kaleidoscopic world of fashion titled “Velvet Continent,” was a collection of poetry and cultural criticism. Siena’s work has been featured in a number of publications, including Fashionista, The Round, and the Brown Political Review. She lives in Birmingham, Michigan.
Greg Klee
Design Consultant
A Boston-based graphic designer, Greg Klee is the Deputy Design Director at the Boston Globe, where his work has been recognized numerous times by the Society of Publication Designers.