Alice Mayhew

Alice E. Mayhew (June 14, 1932 – February 4, 2020) was an American editor who was vice president and editorial director for Simon & Schuster. Mayhew edited many notable authors, which include Bob Woodward, President Jimmy Carter, Doris Kearns Goodwin, David Brooks, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Mayhew was known for publishing books about Washington, D.C., such as All the President's Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein using a genre which is known as a political narrative, a subgenre of creative nonfiction.

Life and career Mayhew was born in 1932 in Brooklyn, New York City, the daughter of Alice and Leonard S. Mayhew. She was raised in the Bronx. She worked at Simon & Schuster since at least the mid 1970s. Books she edited are recognized as having made news through seven presidencies. Mayhew was well-known for working with authors to create narrative or creative nonfiction works, especially those focused on history, politics and Washington, D.C. In 2018, ten years later, Bob Woodward also thanked Alice Mayhew in the acknowledgments of his book, Fear: Trump in the White House in 2018. Woodward mentions that Mayhew has been his editor at Simon & Schuster for 46 years and this is their 19th book together. He credits Mayhew's "brilliant engagement on the concept for the book, the pace, structure and tone." When released Fear: Trump in the White House became the fastest opener in Simon & Schuster, selling one million copies in its first week of publication.

Attorney Robert Barnett, who has represented a number of her clients, described this style to The New York Times: "She's great at taking things that are in the daily reporting cycle and putting them into book form with new material that goes beyond what you get daily. These are books that look back, but not years later."

Not much is known about Mayhew's personal biography. She was described as a diminutive woman with a raspy voice and was known to be tough and rigorous. Carl Bernstein Frances FitzGerald J. Anthony Lukas Sally Bedell Smith Stephen E. Ambrose Steven Brill Taylor Branch Walter Isaacson