This week Rachel Kramer Bussel talks to Amy Hundley, former intern, now editor at Grove, Atlantic:

Mediabistro: What kind of advice can you offer authors or agents who are submitting work to you?

Hundley: For writers, I'd say don't be overly influenced by the writers you admire. You can't better them, so why try? Write yourself out of the tyranny of influence until you find your own voice. As to agents, all I can think of is that a phone call preceding a submission is always nice, particularly since we're small enough that people being out of the office can really affect the time frame of an acquisition.

Hundley: I feel that we're in a time of market adjustment, which is both exciting and frustrating. Hardcover fiction is having a really hard time-particularly unknown authors. The marketplace is very crowded, and returns are an eternal bête noire. The silver lining is that that it seems that book reviews are finally taking paperback original fiction seriously.

Mediabistro: Can you comment on any trends you've noticed recently in publishing lately?

Nonfiction seems to be reorienting itself since September 11, in that people are buying books to understand a world that suddenly seems smaller and more frightening-but there's been too much publishing on the same topical, news-driven areas so a lot of the books are struggling. I think we're all learning as we go. My colleagues and I try as much as possible to research the marketplace so we don't end up buying the same book idea two other houses already have.

More here.