A Talk With Miranda Horner

A 30th Anniversary Interview

Miranda Horner was always a pleasure to work with. It seemed that, with few exceptions, she was always upbeat no matter what the situation. She is one of those people that's always quick to laugh at jokes, always interested in what's going on, and always concerned about other people.

Add in the fact that she's a really superb editor, and you understand why I liked working with her. She was my editor on A Guide to the Astral Plane, and, although she didn't do a lot of Planescape work, she leapt right in with both feet and did a great job. (She's also worked with us at Malhavoc.)

Miranda started at TSR in the mid-1990s amid what seemed like a flood of people from West End Games (Ed Stark, Steven Brown, Bill Olmesdahl, and Miranda) coming to the company. My first memory of her is of hearing her laugh over the cubicle walls, which was infectious. Miranda became good friends with Sue and worked with her on the Dragonlance team. Later, both ended up working on the Wizards of the Coast website team together as well.

I'm really happy I could get Miranda to take time from her amazingly busy schedule to answer a few questions in honor of the 30th (31st) Anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons.

Monte Cook: How did you start playing roleplaying games?

Miranda Horner: I was more of a gold-box gamer at first: I played the AD&D computer games (as well as many, many other computer games before and since then). I also read a fair amount of the fiction before I had a gaming group.

Monte: Before coming to TSR, you worked for West End Games. How did you get your start at WEG, and how did that eventually lead to you making the trek to Lake Geneva?

Miranda: While I was in college getting my degree in English literature, I worked in a bookstore. To help promote sales, I contacted several game companies to ask for whatever free marketing stuff they had (like posters and bookmarks). I also asked for prize support for some in-store game days. Because of this and due to my trips to Gen Con, I met several people from different companies. When an opening for an editor opened up at WEG, they brought it up to me. Shortly thereafter, my husband and I headed out to work there. Not too long after that, several positions opened up at TSR, and a couple of our WEG people (Ed Stark and Bill Olmesdahl) ended up with jobs there. Since they also needed editors, I applied. I had a ton of fun the day I flew out for the interview, to tell the truth. It was nice seeing some of the people I knew from Gen Con ([designer] Bill Connors, for instance), and it was great meeting new people! I was excited and happy when [Director of Creative Services] Tim Brown called with a job offer not long after the interview.

Monte: What were your impressions of TSR and the staff, both as a new hire and as you got to know your way around?

From left: Stan!, Sue Cook, Anne Brown, Harold Johnson, Ed Stark, Miranda Horner (as pixie), Bill Olmesdahl, Carrie Bebris, and Roger E. Moore (Illus. Stan!)

Miranda: Everyone was so friendly! They put me in a cube next to [editor] Anne Brown and near Bill Connors, and I found that if I had any quick questions to ask about how things worked at TSR, I could go bother one of them. Also, since I ended up in [product group leader] Steve Winter's [AD&D Core] group, I could go bug him about things, too. I have to admit that giving me a small, quick project [The Silver Key adventure] as my first one was very helpful since it allowed me to go through TSR's process fairly quickly. That way, after I went through the process, I could help other new hires as they went through the process for the first time. (And there were a lot of new hires after I came on board.) It wasn't long before I felt as if I had an extended family at TSR.

Monte: How was TSR different from West End? How were they the same?

Miranda: First of all, TSR had a larger creative staff, and they had full-time designers, which WEG didn't. So, at TSR, I could just walk down a hall and go ask a designer a question about his or her manuscript. Also, the process of getting a manuscript scheduled and through editing was different in a variety of ways too numerous to mention here. Both places had great people working at them, though!

Monte: Although you worked with TSR/Wizards for a long time, when you think back what's the most memorable period?

Miranda: There are [several] phases in my time there, and I enjoyed each one for different reasons. I think, though, that I'd have to put my time on the Dragonlance team as the most memorable. I started on that team when Harold Johnson was in charge. [Editor] Sue Cook was Harold's second-in-command, and it was great working with her closely on these projects. When we got out to Seattle, the team's members changed a bit and seemed to work more closely together overall. [Game designer] Stan! was on the team (and I'd worked with him at WEG, when he was in the art department), and then [designer] Steve Miller rejoined the Dragonlance team from his WEG position. Sue was in charge as the brand manager. It felt to me, at least, that we also had a closer relationship to the book department at that point, and that was helpful to everyone involved. Adding [authors] Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman to the mix allowed us to have those Dragonlance summits*, which also helped ensure that everyone was on the same page in terms of story arcs. We all worked crazy-long hours during that phase, and while I'm sure I took a few years off my life with the workaholic willingness I had to make sure things came out right for the fans, I also had the full support of the rest of my team and Sue's excellent leadership skills, which made doing what I did a heck of a lot more fun than it was work! (Working on games should be fun, after all!)

Monte: You spent a lot of time working with the Dragonlance team.

Miranda: It was fun, and it was busy. We had a great R&D Dragonlance team. Sue fostered a supportive, constructive, and enthusiastic atmosphere among us, and we all brought a bunch of positive aspects to the group, too, because of it. It sounds like others in past Creative Services/R&D teams have also experienced a similar situation, and I really hope that current and future teams there have the opportunity to work together in such a manner. It really brings out the best in each team member, which is bound to impact the team's products in a positive way.

Monte: While you also worked with Wizards' online team, you spent most of your time at TSR/Wizards as an editor. Give us some insight as to that kind of work.

Miranda: With regards to the project at hand, I got a manuscript and worked on it (this included copyediting and developing it as needed [and bugging the designer as needed]), checked the art order (including adding in any references that the designer didn't) and worked with the art director, checked the map order against the manuscript and worked with the cartographers, went over the galleys, and made sure the cover copy was good. I also attended meetings about products, read other products for debriefings, attended meetings about larger design/editing issues, attended meetings about industry-based stuff, playtested stuff, read mailing lists, occasionally coordinated projects, handled a newsletter (from creation through final issue), checked various manuscripts for continuity-based issues, tried to stay on top of novels and other products coming out from the company, and much more. Most of this latter stuff happened in Seattle, but some of it was in place before we moved. In short, I had plenty to do, and not all of it directly involved the actual product that I had to get through the pipeline. It was almost always fun, but I sometimes came into work lacking sleep, and so did many others around me.

Monte: Since you experienced it first hand, how about a funny or interesting story involving the buyout of TSR or the move to Washington?

From left: Bill Slavicsek (standing), Michele Carter, Monte Cook, Monte Cook, Steven Schend, Michele Vukovich, Sue Cook, Carrie Bebris, Mary Kirchoff, Keith Strohm, Cindi Rice, Steve Winter, Dale Donovan, Ed Stark, Thomas Reid, Skip Williams, Stan!, David Wise, Bill Connors, and Bruce Heard.

Miranda: A lot was going on during the buyout. I remember all of us pulling Gen Con [1997] together while still trying to get projects done and while trying to get ready for the move across the country. Many of us had a last picnic near Lake Geneva, too. (I think I have some pictures of it around here somewhere.) That was sad, since we all felt like a family at TSR.

Monte: What did you think of Wizards when you first arrived? How was it different from TSR?

Miranda: First of all, it was brighter inside the office at Wizards, and it was bigger. There was a nicely landscaped "mana pool" outside that I could go sit at (with galleys or printouts of my current project) when the day was as bright as it was inside the building. However, the cubes were smaller, and they weren't set up in such a way that I had my little editorial retreat like I did in Wisconsin. I also ended up on the Spine (the central hallway that ran the length of the building), so if I didn't have my music cranked up (via headphones), I'd hear all kinds of interesting conversations. We did have access to the outside world on the machines we were using, so that was good. (I had been on a 386 PC when I started at TSR, then I moved to a Mac with no Internet access just before we moved to Seattle.) I could start interacting more with the fans because of the access I was now given.

Also, due to the way the teams were structured, more meetings occurred, which was both good and bad. While we worked more closely with other teams throughout Wizards, we also spent more time working more closely with other teams throughout Wizards. So, I felt like I had a bit more input on how products got made, but it was at the expense of time spent on my current project.

Monte: Will you share with us a story about editing for D&D?

Miranda: When we moved out to Seattle, I started compiling a list of amusing typos that I found in various manuscripts. As time passed, other people submitted typos to my list, too. Because I kept the list, Julia Martin (of the Wizards Online Media team) was able to take a few of those typos and have Stan! illustrate them for the website. I hope they gave people a few giggles. I guess this just goes to show you that you shouldn't trust your spellchecker alone, and that you can find a use for everything eventually.

Monte: You left Wizards of the Coast a few years ago. What have you been doing since?

Miranda: [My husband] Shaun and I left Wizards and came back to the Kansas City area shortly after his father was diagnosed with a particularly nasty cancer. Happily, I was able to pick up some contract work from Online Media almost immediately thanks to both Julia Martin and [former Online Media Director] Wanda Gregory. Shaun, too, had been working at Wizards of the Coast in the Organized Play department, so he ended up with some contract work as well. We've both been working with Online Media and Organized Play on various projects over the years, and I hope to continue doing work for Online Media for as long as the opportunities are there! I also take on some extra freelance projects from time to time.

* Dragonlance Summits: In late 1997, the top writers, editors, and managers of the Dragonlance novel and roleplaying game teams all got together at Wizards of the Coast for a days-long series of meetings to plan out the War of Souls storyline, which was to include both fiction and game products. It was the first time since the Dragonlance Chronicles Trilogy and DL module series that authors Weis and Hickman joined with the roleplaying team to craft a unified story arc. The "summit" concept worked so well that the annual meetings continued, and the idea was adopted by other product line teams as well. —Ed.

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