✏️🛠️ There’s a Rhythm to Editing—You’ve Just Got to Listen: A Conversation With John Freeman

We spoke to the award-winning author and editor about moving between magazine and book editing, making art outside of the algorithm and hunting for good stories like a truffle pig.

Photo by Matteo Galletti; collage by Yunuen Bonaparte | Story edited by Jesse Sposato

During my first internship at an American literary magazine in the 2010s, the lit culture website Literary Hub launched. A lifelong lover of literature, I was intrigued and it quickly became one of my go-to daily reads. From my desk in Milan, Italy, I would browse the site and dive deep into stories of American literature I would never have known otherwise. On my trips overseas around that time, I would leave half my suitcase empty, eschewing the basic clothing needed to survive so I could fill my luggage with magazines and vinyl (another obsession) on my way back. Being part of the literary magazine scene was my biggest dream, one that still lingers today. So, when John Freeman — someone who embodies my career aspirations and who had a hand in creating the lit mag I love so much — agreed to sit down with me so I could pick his brain about editing, I jumped at the opportunity.

Freeman has been the driving force behind some of the most prosperous publishing endeavors in the U.S. over the last 15 years. From 2009 to 2013, he served as editor-in-chief of U.K.-based quarterly journal Granta, where he had previously worked as an American editor. In 2014, he helped establish Literary Hub, where he worked as executive editor until 2020. And while still there, he started his own publication, Freeman’s, in 2015. A cross between a magazine and a book, Freeman’s has introduced innumerable authors from around the world to the global literary scene through its releases: one per year, always with a particular theme, allowing American readers to discover new voices in translation and bringing fresh American writing overseas.

In 2021, Freeman changed hats again, this time becoming executive editor of the historic Knopf publishing house in New York. This new role was among the reasons why, after almost 10 years, he decided to put an end to his literary creation by publishing one last issue titled “Conclusions,” in October 2023. Freeman was recently in Milan to launch the Italian translation of this last effort during the Book Pride fair. During his visit, we sat down to discuss the ups and downs of starting over, the never-ending quest for new voices and how ear is essential to editing.