seon manley

Seon Manley was the oldest daughter of the mayor of Stamford, CT, and had a sister, Gogo Lewis. 

Their mother died of tuberculosis when Seon was a very small child in New York City. The great trauma of witnessing her mother's death at a young age was re-engineered in her 20s to 40s as a writer of mysteries and anthologist of women's writers. Simply put, she was before her time.

After Seon's mother died, she and her sister, Gogo, lived with their grandparents on the upper west side of Manhattan. They were all extremely devoted to each other. Sadly, the girls' father, who remarried, decided to send Seon and Gogo to boarding school in their teens. This created isolation and going inward within both girls. They were each other's champions, and books were their great escape.

Seon was a machine. She would wake up at 6am each morning, make a cup of coffee, and then sit down at her desk and dictate her anthologies for two hours, Monday through Friday. These old IBM tapes were sent to a woman named Betty who would transcribe them.

Each of Seon's books went through writing, rough draft, early edit, submission, gallery edit, and final submission. Each book had 25 to 30 images, which Seon and Gogo hand selected.

The sisters researched, compiled, and handled all copyright agreements. In their heyday, they produced two books a year for publication.

Since there was no such thing as social media at the time, Seon and Gogo relied on five things to advertise their books: good reviews, word of mouth, caring librarians, Publisher's Weekly Magazine, and friends & associates in publishing.

Seon Manley and her husband would throw publishing parties for each book Seon published, inspiring her daughter Shivaun to create this website in memory of her mother, the fantastic Seon Manley.