Toni Weisskopf is a science fiction editor, and in 2006, she took over as the publisher of Baen Books after the passing of founder Jim Baen. Over the years, she has edited a number of anthologies, and in 1994, she won the Phoenix Award for excellence in Science Fiction.

Aberrant Dreams: I understand you were introduced to science fiction by your father. Do you remember some of the titles of the ones you feel laid the foundation for your successful career?
Toni Weisskopf: My dad, the astrophysicist Martin Weisskopf, is and was a big Andre Norton fan, so I consumed dozens of her adventures once I discovered science fiction (and you will note Baen publishes a lot of Andre Norton!). I found Robert A. Heinlein, H. Beam Piper, Isaac Asimov, Robert Sheckley, Robert Silverberg, dorky quest fantasies both new and old, Terry Carr anthologies—the whole eclectic range of science fiction—on his shelves. That wasn’t until after I’d read my parent’s mysteries, westerns and Landmark juvenile nonfiction, of course. I was resistant to the genre before the age of 9 or 10, I don’t know why, butLittle Fuzzy changed all that for me.

Aberrant Dreams: I see that this month you are releasing Norwell Page’s The Spider: City of Doom, which I think is wonderful. Baen is known as one of those delightful publishers that will go back to earlier times and bring into print some of the less well known wonders. The Spider goes way back doesn’t it? I remember reading Page’s But Without Horns when I was a kid and being scared silly over the science fiction horror masterpiece. Would you comment on this title and the Spider’s impact on contemporary superheroes and such (my understanding is that the Spider particularly influenced movies ranging from Sky Captain to the latest Batman).
Toni Weisskopf: That’s my understanding, too, from the Spider’s biggest advocate, Joel Frieman. He controls the Spider trademark and has been assiduous about keeping the Spider in print all these years, and available to new audiences. He was responsible for getting the striking new Jim Steranko covers and frontispieces for our editions. Any credit for the Spider should go to him. Also kudos to Chris Kalb, who runs a great Spider website and who shared his resources with Baen for a promotional CD we did for the books, and to Hank Davis, who was our editorial liaison for the titles.
 
Aberrant Dreams: In August Baen will reprint the Heinlein juvenile Between Planets. Didn’t you personally work with Robert Heinlein? Would you tell us a little about that?
Toni Weisskopf: The sum total of my “work with Robert Heinlein” came from a phone call when I was a freshly minted editorial assistant. Jim Baen knew I was a huge Heinlein fan, and asked Robert to say hello to me after one of their business calls. Heinlein spoke, I gibbered something unintelligible, and that was it. In later years I’ve had the privilege to publish a good bit of his work as it’s become available. I’m especially proud of the latest run of trade paperbacks we’ll be doing of his work. Bob Eggleton’s got the cover assignments, and they’ve been spectacular. As important, I think, as the run of Darrell K. Sweet covers for Del Rey in the ‘70s and ‘80s. We’re also including short intros by Bill Patterson, a Heinlein biographer, who’s locating the books in the Heinlein timeline for the reader, and afterwords by other enthusiastic Heinlein readers, who comment on the technology and impact the particular book had on them. The first of these is by Southern fan (and NASA scientist) Dr. Jim Woosley, for Farmer in the Sky, which was just released. Next we have Travis Taylor (another Huntsville NASA & DOD scientist) onBetween Planets in August, software engineer and entrepreneur Steve Hughes comments on The Rolling Stones in March 2009, and writer Sarah A. Hoyt is up for The Puppet Masters later in 2009.
 
Aberrant Dreams: The Phoenix award has been given to such greats as Manly Wade Wellman, Mary Elizabeth Councilman, Gerald W. Page, Hugh B. Cave, Michael Bishop, Wilson Tucker and you. Would you be so kind as to disclose exactly how that came about and the experience of receiving it?
Toni Weisskopf: Well, the ways of the Phoenix awards committees are mysterious. I certainly had no idea I was going to receive the award, or I wouldn’t have imbibed so much at dinner before the award ceremony, that’s for sure! I’d always liked the idea of the award (given to the science fiction professional who’s contributed a great deal to Southern fandom, and awarded each year by the committee of that year’s DeepSouthCon), and admired those who’d received it before me. I’m certainly in great company! Note I won my Rebel award (for a fan who’s done a great deal for Southern fandom) after my Phoenix. Even Jerry Page didn’t manage that trick!

As incoherent as I was accepting the Phoenix, I was given another chance at the podium that very evening, since my “friends,” and I use the term lightly, who administer the “Rubble” award, decided to honor me for my perhaps over-excessive use of initials in my fanzine signature. But I got back at them—when I married Hank Reinhardt, I didn’t delete the “Weisskopf” but added “Reinhardt,” giving me even more initials to annoy people with! Like the Phoenix and the Rebel, one keeps earning one’s Rubble even after the initial presentation…
 
Aberrant Dreams: Our mutual friend Gerald Page always speaks so well of you and yours, how did you meet Jerry and tell us a fun story about him. Be forewarned, we will post his response / reply.
Toni Weisskopf: This is a family magazine, right? Never mind… I’d been hearing stories about Hank and Jerry from the first convention I ever attended, MidSouthCon in Huntsville in 1980. I’m not sure I can even recall the first time I met Jerry—it seemed like he’d always been around fandom. I know by the time I attended Boshcon in 1981 I’d already had talks with him about books and authors, and why hadn’t I read James Branch Cabell yet? (I remedied the situation as soon as possible!)
 
Aberrant Dreams: What are the significant advantages to being an independent publisher?
Toni Weisskopf: Reaction time and editorial independence. I know that first one will be difficult for people who’ve been waiting a long time for first Jim Baen and now me to work our way through the slush pile, but once a decision has been made to buy a book, Baen has the scheduling flexibility to bring a title out faster than most of the other large science fiction lines—all of which are part of giant international mega-corporations. Editorial independence speaks for itself. Part of that, though, is not just being able to select the kinds of books we think will work for our readers, but also the ability to decide in what format to bring out a particular book without reference to anything but what’s best for that book. Which is one reason we’ve got a thriving eBook program that’s been on-going for more than a decade when large publishers are just now ramping up to take advantage of the “new” technology.
 
Aberrant Dreams: One of our readers asks the following: I'd like to know what motivates her to be an editor—I mean, besides the obvious money / career motivations. Is it partially a love of dealing with great authors, or maybe having some say as to what is published, some control in it, perhaps to have a hand in shaping a genre? Did she ever just want to write or did she always want to be a publisher / editor?
Toni Weisskopf: If control had been my motivation, I would be a lot more crazy than I am now! Working with great authors is one of the serious perks of the job, but you’d get more job satisfaction drawing intricate designs on cats’ claws than editing if you think you can “control” an author’s work. Heck, a lot of the time, authors can’t control their own magic—and creating a brilliant story is a magical thing, have no doubt. What I can do, and what I enjoy doing, is creating the proper home for a great story when it comes along and then making sure that story can find its audience. It’s more like matchmaking.

I never did myself feel the overwhelming urge to write fiction, though I have been writing nonfiction in the form of fanzines for more than twenty years. And, of course, there wasGreasy Grimy Gopher Guts, the definitive book of subversive children’s verse, that I put together with fellow science fiction editor Josepha Sherman. It went through three printings at August House, and we’re hoping if Josepha encourages them enthusiastically enough they’ll put it back in print again soon.

Science fiction is the genre I love, and I am glad to be a part of it, and glad to be in a position to make sure the kind of story-oriented classic science fiction still gets published and made available to the large audience it deserves. 
 
Aberrant Dreams: When you hire an editor, what are the specific talent and principles you look for?
Toni Weisskopf: Mostly attitude toward the genre and respect for both it and the authors. Even people who don’t write great or publishable stories are trying very hard, and I think that needs to be taken into account throughout the entire submission and editorial process.
 
Aberrant Dreams: You have a reputation of placing great value upon reader feedback. Can you think of an instance when reader feedback had a significant impact on something at Baen?
Toni Weisskopf: Chattanooga fan Tim Bolgeo is responsible for some of the early Honor Harrington hardcovers—he suggested the format and Jim agreed to try it. Our entire eARC program (where we make early versions of our novels available to diehard fans in electronic form for a premium price) is in response to reader demand. We’ve got a website (built by fan Rip Waechter (http://baen.sluishe.com/cgi/baen.cgi) where we are tallying reader’s requests for books and authors to come out in eBook form. I consult that regularly for titles to go after in my acquisitions for the program. We’ve had considerable support for an audio program at Baen and that’s the next thing we’ll be putting into development. Our new editor, Jim Minz, is spearheading that effort.
 
Aberrant Dreams: Another of our readers asks about your interests in swords, was that an interest you shared with Mr. Hank Reinhardt?
Toni Weisskopf: Indeed it was. When we started dating, I’d just (finally!) finished The Book of the Sword by Richard Burton. Very soon after, Hank recommended Ewart Oakeshott’s history, The Archaeology of Weapons, which has much more about actual swords and a lot less speculative etymology! I’d always liked bladed weapons, but growing up in the benighted Seventies, there weren’t a lot of real swords to be had unless you wanted either something un-tempered and flimsy to hang or the wall, or an antique too expensive to actually use. Hank of course solved that problem for us all by creating Museum Replicas with his partner Bill Adams. I was always the girl who carried a knife at school. You weren’t supposed to, of course, not in Brooklyn public schools, but the teachers all knew I had it and when they needed scissors there I was with my Swiss Army knife!

Baen will be publishing Reinhardt’s Book of the Sword in the summer of 2009. Hank had finished a first draft, and some friends of his and I are polishing it up so that we can share Hank’s years of experimentation and scholarship about weapons and how they were and are used.

Aberrant Dreams: How much of Hank's love for space adventure and historical adventure did you share with him? Jerry told me Hank was buried with a copy ofPlanet Stories that you had a hard time replacing.
Toni Weisskopf: You can directly attribute the new Baen Leigh Brackett eBook collections to Hank’s influence. He always said she was my toughest competition; I was just glad she was dead before we started dating, or I’d have had to kill her myself… Same with Ava Gardner, come to think of it! Hank never did aim low.

Hank loved grand adventure, and so do I. He was a big Jack Vance fan, and so am I, though Baen hasn’t published him in a long time (most of his work is in print with other publishers, I’m glad to say).

Hank managed to keep his boyish sense of wonder through all of his 73 years, and some of those years that was not perhaps the easiest thing to do. It was something I admired him tremendously for. He didn’t let his adult, informed—and therefore cynical— understanding of the world get in the way of hope.

Aberrant Dreams: What is the future of science fiction as you see it?
Toni Weisskopf: I think we’re headed for a dark and stormy period of Western civilization. Part of what science fiction is supposed to do is prepare us for the future, and I think it’s going to be harder and harder to both keep on top of the ever-accelerating changes in technology and science and maintain an optimistic sense of humanity and our potential. But nobody ever said science fiction was easy. Cheap, but not easy.

Aberrant Dreams: Who are some writers whose manuscripts you always look forward to receiving?
Toni Weisskopf: Dave Drake is one—I’ve just received a new Lt. Leary / Adele Mundy adventure, and I’m dying to get to it. David Weber, John Ringo, Lois Bujold, Eric Flint, Wen Spencer. I really enjoy Mercedes Lackey’s urban and historical fantasies (though her science fiction is good, too, she hasn’t written a lot of that lately), and Tom Kratman’s hard-hitting adventures are getting better with each book and have always been stimulating. Mark Van Name is doing some very exciting things with heroic space adventure, Michael Z. Williamson is developing an interesting universe closer to our time and space, and Paul Chafe, when he can steal the time away from the Canadian army, is becoming a leading entry for best new hard science fiction author. And speaking of hard science fiction, James P. Hogan always has interesting and iconoclastic takes on cutting edge science, and Steve White does his own twists on familiar science fiction tropes. Sarah Hoyt is developing her own unique take on urban science fiction, and British author John Lambshead is developing his craft by quantum leaps. Travis Taylor, the above-mentioned rocket scientist, is a crazy mix of Doc Smith and A.E. Van Vogt, with real speculative science behind all his stories. Sharon Lee & Steve Miller, authors of the Liaden series, have just turned in a gothic fantasy with elves in two volumes that I found really great to read. What can I say? I like all our authors!

Aberrant Dreams: What at Baen are you most excited about right now?
Toni Weisskopf: The chance to expand our line into new media, like eBooks and audio downloads. I think it’s a chance to spread the word and develop new audiences.

Aberrant Dreams: Think of a question you would like to be asked, ask it of yourself and answer.
Toni Weisskopf: Ha—that’s too much like work. Editors make other people work…