Robert Weil (editor)

Weil graduated from Yale College with a B.A. in History in 1977, and originally considered teaching high school before beginning his publishing career with Times Books in 1978 as an Editorial Assistant.[2] Two and a half years later he moved to the former Omni Magazine. With Omni Magazine he introduced a book division and packaged and agented science books to publishers before becoming Senior Editor at St. Martin's Press in 1988, a division of Macmillan Publishers.[3] Weil's acquisitions included Michael Wallis's Route 66, Henry Roth's tetralogy of novels called The Mercy of a Rude Stream, Oliver Stone's autobiographical novel A Child's Night Dream, and John Bayley's Elegy for Iris.[4]

In 1998, Weil moved to W.W. Norton & Company as an Executive Editor.[5] His acquisition of most of the Patricia Highsmith backlist, which included several new volumes, in 1999, helped launch the Highsmith renaissance in the U.S. and the 2015 film Carol starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, based on the novel The Price of Salt, as well as Highsmith's diaries, published in 2021.[6] Weil also worked for several years with Paul McCartney (and Paul Muldoon[7]) on the editing of McCartney's book The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, published in 2021.[8]

In 2011, Weil was named the Editor-in-Chief and Publishing Director of Liveright Publishing Corporation.[9] Per a 2021 profile in Publishers Weekly, "The relaunched imprint released its first books in 2012. It started with two full-time staffers and a list of about 20 books per year, and has grown to eight staffers and about 40 books annually."[10] During Weil's tenure as Editor-in-Chief, Liveright received four Pulitzer Prizes (among nine finalists)[11] as well as a National Book Award (among eight nominees).[12] The current staff of Liveright includes Peter J. Simon, Peter Miller, Gina Iaquinta, Nick Curley, Haley Bracken, Clio Hamilton, Fanta Diallo, Maria Connors, and Kadiatou Keita.

Beyond editing, Weil frequently lectures on writing, publishing history, and the state of American culture and literature. He has spoken in Munich, Guadalajara, Miami, Chicago, and at Yale University, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Nebraska, among others. He has also written on books and publishing for various publications including The Washington Post and ArtForum.

• Ronald Collins, An Interview with Robert Weil, Washington Independent Review of Books (April 5, 2016)
• Virtual Memories Show 261: Robert Weil
• Robert Weil on Publishing Tinderbox
• Robert Weil on Publishing Nelson Mandela's Letters from Prison
• Liveright to Publish Nelson Mandela's Prison Letters
• An Interview with Robert Weil
• Liveright Publishing Corporation
• Robert Weil on publishing German literature
• Liveright and Robert Weil to Publish The Complete Works of Primo Levi
• Michael Dirda discusses the Complete Works of Primo Levi and Robert Weil's publishing career
• C-SPAN BookTV interview with Robert Weil
• Frank B. Wilderson III on his book Afropessimism and working with Robert Weil