Publishing Process

Beverly Horowitz's letter to Robert Cormier 26 March 1998

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This one-page typed letter, with Tenderness handwritten and underlined near the top, is from the vice president of Bantam Doubleday Dell congratulating Cormier on his inclusion on the New York Public Library's "Books for the Teen Age" reading list.

Karen Wojtyla's letter to Robert Cormier 9 April 1996

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In this one page typed, Cormier's Bantam editor Karen Wojtyla confirms receipt of his revisions to  Tenderness. She encourages Cormier on his progress with the novel and informs him of the timeline for bound and unbound galleys.

Robert Cormier's letter to Karen 20 May 1996

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This two-page letter to Karen Wojtylas details his response to the copy editor's comments on Tenderness. The changes frequently address word choice, names, ages, and quote attributions.

Tenderness Reader's Companion Packet

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This Reader's Companion includes a biography of Cormier, an interview with him, a summary of Tenderness, and suggested discussion questions. Included with the companion is a promotional letter from the editor, Craig Virden, who talks about the monstrous protagonist that still garners compassion and the book's gritty, mature content, and accompanying "sophisticated" design of the book. In his interview, Cormier talks about the importance of characters for achieving realism in his writing and mentions a writer's need to be able to write from all perspectives regardless of gender or ethnicity. He also reveals a fear of indifference. Discussion questions focus on character motives, reader response, social and cultural phenomena, and written craft (plot structure, point-of-view, setting, irony).

Delacorte Books for Young Readers Reading Group Guide

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This draft version of Delacorte Press's reading guide for Robert Cormier's novel Tenderness presents the final 16 discussion questions and five others that were not selected for the publisher's Reader's Companion. The questions range from fairly straightforward, plot-driven questions to deeper questions of theology, morality, and literary themes in the novel. The five questions not selected address morality, sociopathology, the nature of love, the use of the term "monster," and the novel's adaptability to film. The draft includes the introduction to the novel, a list of other books by Cormier, and a short biography of the author.

Robert Cormier's letter to Trenton Keim 5 May 2000

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In this letter, presumably responding to a student, Robert Cormier shares his sources of inspiration for Tenderness that came from the news and his adolescence. He shares that Wickburg is a fictionalized version of Worcester, MA and encourages the recipient to keep reading.

RELATED LINKS:

Rules of Maintainance: The Writer-Editor Relationship. In this article by Chels Knorr (2018 March 3) in Clear Voice, the author summarizes a handful of "rules" for both writers and editors with an eye toward helping both manage a positive and constructive relationship.

Teaching Controversial Young Adult Literature with the Common Core. In this scholarly article in Wisconsin English Journal (2013), by Katie Rybakova, Amy Piotrowski, and Ellie Harper the authors discuss three novels and point to literacy research  that argues for student choice in reading materials. 

Publishing Process