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Renetta M. DeBlase

Renetta is a professional editor with more than 30 years of editing experience.

About Me

After completing graduate studies at Rutgers University in the late 60's,I moved to New York and began to work in book publishing, first at Simon & Schuster and then at various university presses on a freelance basis. My specialties are the humanities, social sciences, law, and proposal work. While I was attending Rutgers I became interested in jazz because the Institute of jazz studies had just been founded and I then tried to help some musicians get concert engagements. I met Billy Taylor in 1967 and he asked me to do some promotional work for him, which I did from 1967 until 1972, and I also promoted Duke Ellington by offering him unlimited book proposals through my employer,Simon & Schuster. This was quite a feat because there was very little literature available about African American history, music, and culture. I am now busy promoting the beautiful audiobook about my experiences in promoting Dr. Taylor and Duke Ellington--titled With Stars in My Eyes and available through amazon.