Reimagining Dr. Seuss: An Interview with Cat Reynolds

By Lily Stetson

A graduate of Fordham English, Cat Reynolds is currently an editor for Random House Children’s Books, working exclusively with Dr. Seuss. The famous books are producing the same love even 100 years later. Maintaining the appeal that has garnered millions of fans is something Reynolds is very passionate about. 

As a Fordham student, Reynolds was very interested in many different fields. She worked for a few companies as an intern, ranging from a theater publicity company to a literary agency. Soon after, she landed an internship with Sesame Street, working in Sesame Workshop, where she would begin her career as a publisher. “Eventually, I graduated a semester early in December 2018 and worked for Sesame Workshop part-time, basically refused to leave, and was hired full-time a couple of months later,” says Reynolds. She spent three years with Sesame, writing stories like Washy Wash!, and working with both the publishing and themed entertainment and partnership teams. 

By the end of Reynold’s time at Sesame, she was exclusively working with books. This passion led her to her current job as an editor of Dr. Seuss books. A part of her job is to look at market trends and see what is popular amongst children today. “Dr. Seuss is a very beloved story brand. You have to be able to find new ways to keep a brand that has such amazing staying power and introduce that to new children.” Reynolds loves to find ways to create new stories or retell existing ones to keep audiences from each generation engaged. One of these ways is with soundbooks that tell the classic stories in multiple different voices.

Reynolds is thrilled that there is a place in her career at Dr. Seuss where she can exercise her English and writing skills. “It’s really interesting to write for licensed brands and brands in general because they have such an established voice, and so you have to understand the characters and what the characters might say.” She became a member of the Creative Writing Concentration at Fordham during her sophomore year, where she acquired talents she uses every day. Specifically, she took many poetry classes where she learned about rhythm, meter, and rhymes. Writing for Dr. Seuss employs all of this knowledge. “I think those skills that I learned from Fordham have really helped me both as a writer and an editor.”

When Reynolds started as an English major, she understood just how broad of a major it was. Fortunately, she found that Fordham English emphasizes publishing, which helped to narrow down her job goals. “I had never thought about publishing as a job because I never thought about how books got into my hands. Fordham did a really great job about awareness for that industry.” 

At Fordham, she was the managing editor of The Comma, a literary magazine with a publishing component and a community of passionate writers. This extracurricular solidified Reynolds’ love for editing and publishing. “I got the happy experience of reading pieces and determining if they fit within The Comma brand, and giving feedback to peers in a way that was constructive and kind, but direct.” Reynolds’ experience also prepared her for working with other editors and writers, which is a large part of the job today. 

As a publisher, Reynolds’ team of editors is small, but she also gets to work with many other branches of Random House, like marketing, sales, or publicity. “It’s a really collaborative field. I think sometimes we think of writing and editing as pretty solitary activities, but I think they’re very collaborative, and you work with a lot of people.” For example, marketing could see a trend that the editorial side has not and would bring that to their attention. The different departments of Dr. Seuss are meaningful in the help they provide each other in order to produce so many important stories. 

Reynolds has greatly cherished the contributions she has made to the world of books and the lives’ of children. Her love of writing and books has created a very meaningful and important career for her by keeping Dr. Seuss’ stories alive for the new generations.