“I think you’ll find most regular freelancers have an editor who acts as a “sponsor” of sorts for their work.” So I wrote in an email to Musings reader Rose Russo back in March, when she astutely observed that much of my freelancing work over the years had been commissioned by one editor.

And today I’d like to talk to you about the editor who has played that role in my life. The lovely Sarah Oakes: editor of the Sun Herald and Sunday Age’s Sunday Life magazine, and former editor of Cleo and Girlfriend.

I first met Sarah back in 2006, when I applied for the position of Deputy Editor of Girlfriend magazine, a position which (rightly) ended up going to Girl With A Satchel’s Erica Bartle. I didn’t have any much experience working at glossy magazines at the time, but I must have written a good cover letter, complete with an analysis of everything I liked about the magazine, and strong opinions on the sort of sassy/Sassy, feministy content I thought the mag should be publishing.

So I got called in for an interview. And let me tell you, it was one of the worst interviews of my life. I stumbled on the first question - ”Tell me about yourself” (I’ve never been very good at summing up my somewhat confusing and non-linear career path) - and I don’t think either Sarah or her co-interviewer were overly impressed with my flustered, rambling self.

Fortunately, the interview process also involved submitting five pitches for the magazine, and while I far from sold myself in our meeting, Sarah liked them enough that she commissioned me to write one of them up. I did a good job on it, pitched another one, and before long I was a regular contributor. 

When Sarah moved to Cleo in 2008, I became a regular contributor there; and when Sarah moved to Sunday Life in 2010, I followed her there as well.

Sarah differs from what we might traditionally think of as a mentor in some fairly obvious ways. She isn’t some abstract avatar of an idealised “future me” (she’s an editor, after all, and I’m pretty firmly down the “writing” path at the moment), and we don’t sit around plotting my future career moves over coffee. She’s only a few years older than I am. Our professional relationship isn’t based on favours, so much as it is that my interests as a writer and her interests as an editor are pretty well aligned.

But in other, more important ways, Sarah is pretty much the perfect mentor - and certainly the type of person you want to have on your mentoring team. She “gets” what I’m trying to do and the kinds of stories I like to work on more than anyone else I’ve worked with. (And special bonus - they’re the kinds of stories she likes to publish, too!) She’s opened up new writing markets for me as she’s moved between different magazine genres by giving me her stamp of credibility - not just in the publications she’s edited, but in their equivalents across the industry. She gave me the gift of Tina Fey.

So what are the lessons in all this for you other mediaites out there? I think the most obvious one is that while there are real benefits to connecting with other people who do exactly what you do (commiseration, support, tips from other people who’ve been there, done that), if you’re looking for sponsor - and you probably should be, they’re important - you’re probably going to have more luck if you stop looking at Number One Person Who Does Exactly What You Do, and start looking at the people who hire the people who do exactly what you want to do. Editors. Agents. Publishers.

I’m not saying this is easy. Editors in my experience tend to be pretty practical people, at least in the professional context. They only want to engage with you if they like your work and want to hire you. Then again, the advantage they have over other writers is that, well, they want to hire you. And they’re probably less likely to feel threatened: where the writer-writer relationship can often be competitive, the writer-editor relationship is by its nature symbiotic.

What’s the best way to build this kind of relationship? Writing for the same editor again and again and again. There’s a lot to be said for being able to include a long list of publications after your name, but my experience suggests that it’s the repeat work that really counts, and that allows you to build a relationship with both that publication’s staff and their readers. (See Zoe Foster or Benjamin Law for examples of how to do this really, really well.)

I’m not saying you need to be Machiavellian about this - certainly, when I walked out of Pacific Magazines in 2006, I never imagined that the woman I made an idiot of myself in front of would go on to become one of my biggest supporters. My working relationship with Sarah isn’t something either of us calculated, but something that evolved over years of us being on the same editorial page.

So, my advice for you, if you’re a writer seeking a “sponsor”? Seek out the people who like and “get” what you do, and stick with them.

And a big thank you to Sarah. My working life would be a lot less interesting without you.

Image: Famous librarian.

Related: It’s mentoring week here at Musings of an Inappropriate Woman
Mentoring week: Putting together your mentoring dream team
Mentoring week: Do men and women mentor differently?