Emily Daluga (she/her) is a writer, editor at Chronicle Books, and aspiring crossroads demon. When she’s not working, she loves to hole up in cozy coffee shops to write, see musicals with her partner, take long walks through the city, and overanalyze bad horror movies. She firmly believes that all vampires should be queer and that Jennifer’s Body is a severely underrated movie, and will happily rant about either topic. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
A great question and one that is kind of ever-changing. But some of my top picks right now include Emergency Contact by Mary H.K Choi, Turtles All the Way Down by John Green, Watch Over Me by Nina LaCour, Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White, The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen, and On Writing by Stephen King. And I also have tattoos based on Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, so I’ve always got to include those as well!
Such a good question! Some of my all-time favorites are Crimson Peak, Jennifer’s Body, the entire Saw franchise, Grave Encounters (both 1 & 2), Get Out, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream, Halloween, and Zodiac!
For better or worse, I am a product of my teenager Twilight obsession and was aggressively Team Edward. While I definitely have more criticism of those stories now, I still turn to the movies as my go-to comfort films. Growing up, I also adored the books The Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause and Demon in My View by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. More recently, I’ve been obsessed with What We Do in the Shadows (both the show and the movie!), Only Lovers Left Alive, Fright Night (specifically the 2011 remake), and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. And I also will say that the song "Vampires Will Never Hurt You" by My Chemical Romance has some truly gorgeous storytelling in it!
I know that publishing can be a long road and a difficult one at points. It's so important for creators to find community to support them through everything. And I truly believe that publishing is all about finding the right people who find your story at the right time. So take your time to make your story shine as brightly as it can be before putting it out on submission. And on a craft level, I find reading lines and sections out loud can be so helfpul to make sure the voice just totally sings in your story. Best of luck on your writing journey!
While I'm honored when authors trust me with their work, I'm right now only very selectively taking on freelance work (not for acquisition) through Manuscript Academy and Reedsy. If you think I'd be a good editor for your project, feel free to reach out to me through either site if I have availability!
Unfortunately, there has been a recent influx in scammers are using AI to impersonate me and other publishing professionals to try and scam authors. So if you receive an email like this, please be weary! It's extremely rare that I would reach out to an author in this way, and when I do, it would always be from my official Chronicle email. If you receive such an email, feel free to contact me here or on my social media to confirm if the email is legit or a scam. I'm sorry scammers are doing this—it's just so awful!
