Rachel Kramer Bussel chats with Kate Nitze, an editor who's been with MacAdam/Cage for three and a half years:

Mediabistro: What kinds of books to do you work on/are you looking for? Conversely, what kinds of books don't you want to see at all?

Nitze: I am looking for literary fiction with a strong, distinct narrative voice (Rose of No Man's Land); stories in which landscape or the natural world is an essential element (A Map of Glass); explorations of how characters react to violence, tragedy, and uncertain mysteries (The Housekeeper, The Bewildered); and, always, anything about the inner workings of families and relationships, especially unlikely ones (Dog).

As much as I am drawn to dark stories, I don't like in-your-face novels that try too hard to shock and exclude the reader. Rather, I like to be invited into a family's secrets or to share in a character's fears, regrets, and flaws.

I tend to prefer contemporary stories, rather than historical fiction, unless the historical piece focuses on a particular person or group of characters I can become close with, such as in the novel Mary, about Mary Todd Lincoln, that we are publishing this fall.