Hannah Gómez

Senior Editor, Cultural Accuracy and Sensitivity Editorial Services
Bestselling editor and head of KAA’s cultural accuracy editorial department

As the publishing industry’s first-ever in-house Senior Editor of Cultural Accuracy and Sensitivity Editorial Services, Hannah leads and manages our cultural accuracy editing services (also commonly referred to as sensitivity or authenticity reading). Her role includes developing and managing a robust community of targeted expert editors, performing cultural accuracy editing, and collaborating with authors, publishers, and literary agents to improve the quality and inclusivity of their books before they go to market. Her role and insights as Senior Editor of Cultural Accuracy and Sensitivity Editorial Services have been featured featured in the New York Times, Le Monde M, and USA Today, and she is also a contributing author to Publishers Weekly’s Book Publishing Almanac 2022: A Master Class in the Art of Bringing Books to Readers.

An experienced and versatile cultural accuracy editor with nearly a decade of professional experience, Hannah’s clients include a wide range of notable authors and Big-5 publishers, including Simon & Schuster, TOR, Hachette, HarperCollins, American Girl/Mattel, Penguin Random House, and Charlesbridge. She has collaborated with bestselling and award-winning authors like Julie Berry (Lovely War), Kristin Cashore (Winterkeep), Mark Oshiro (Anger Is a Gift), and Laura Ruby (The Shadow Cipher), among many others. As an audiobook proofreader, she has established herself as the point person for accents, dialect, and foreign language pronunciation.

After receiving her Master of Arts in Children’s Literature and Master of Library Science degrees at Simmons University, she worked as a school librarian for two years. She then pivoted into creative, editorial, ghostwriting, and advocacy work in and around the publishing industry, with roles at organizations like the Tucson Festival of Books, LA Times Book Prize, We Need Diverse Books, Book Riot, Scholastic Audio, and EBSCO Information Services. Her work has been translated to Swedish and Spanish.

Hannah is a PhD candidate in social, cultural, and critical theory of children’s and adolescent literature at the University of Arizona. She has served as adjunct faculty at Emporia State University and Simmons University in addition to teaching at UArizona. Learn more about her in her media kit.

Selected Publications

Children’s/YA

  • Sensitivity Editor, Mihi Ever After by Tae Keller (Henry Holt BFYR, 2022)
  • Sensitivity Editor, When You Joined Our Family by Harriet Evans (Little Tiger, 2022)
  • Sensitivity Editor, Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun by Jonny Garza Villa (Skyscape, 2021)
    • Pura Belpré Honor Book
  • Sensitivity Editor, Winterkeep by Kristin Cashore (Dial/PRH, 2021)
  • Author, Girls Survive: Maribel Versus the Volcano (Stone Arch Press/Capstone, 2020)
  • Sensitivity Editor, A Kid of Their Own by Megan Dowd Lambert (Charlesbridge, 2020)
  • Sensitivity Editor, A Smart Girl’s Guide: Making A Difference (American Girl/Mattel, 2020)
  • Audio QC, Mañanaland by Pam Muñoz Ryan (Scholastic, 2020)

    • New York Times Best 25 Books of the Year

  • Sensitivity Editor, Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys (original pub 2013, edited second edition paperback, 2020)
  • Sensitivity Editor, Lovely War by Julie Berry (Viking, 2019)
    • Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Winner, Audie Award, YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults, YALSA Amazing Audiobooks, and Goodreads Choice Award Nominee
  • Ghostwriter, JV Girls: Catching Confidence by Jake Maddox (Stone Arch Press/Capstone, 2018)
  • Ghostwriter, JV Boys: Rookie Runner by Jake Maddox (Stone Arch Press/Capstone, 2018)
  • Sensitivity Editor, Anger Is a Gift by Mark Oshiro (Tor, 2018)
    • Schneider Family Award Winner and LAMBDA Literary Award finalist
  • Sensitivity Editor, The Way the Light Bends by Cordelia Jensen (Philomel/PRH, 2018)
  • Sensitivity Editor, The Length of a String by Elissa Brent Weissman (Dial, 2018)
    • Sydney Taylor Award Honor
  • Sensitivity Editor, York: The Shadow Cipher by Laura Ruby (Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins, 2017)
  • Sensitivity Editor, Pinch Me by Gabrielle S. Prendergast (Orca, 2017)
  • Sensitivity Editor, Zero Repeat Forever by Gabrielle S. Prendergast (Simon & Schuster, 2017)
  • Sensitivity Editor, The Authentics by Abdi Nazemian (Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins, 2017)

Academic/scholarly

  • “Börden av att spegla” Swedish translation of “The Weight of Being a Mirror” by Thord Erikkson (Biblioteks Bladet, 2021)
  • “The Weight of Being a Mirror: A Librarian’s Short Autobiography”, Topographies of Whiteness, edited by Gina Schlesselman-Tarango (Library Juice Press, 2017)
  • “Decolonizing Nostalgia” (The Horn Book Magazine, 2016)
  • “This, That, Both, Neither: The Badging of Biracial Identity in Young Adult Realism” (The Journal of Research on Libraries and Young Adults, 2013)
    • Best Paper of the Year Winner

Narrative Nonfiction

  • Contributor, “Romance Has Broken My Dichotomous Key”, Black Love Matters edited by Jessica P. Pryde (Berkley, 2022)
  • Sensitivity Editor, The Intersectional Environmentalist by Leah Thomas (Voracious/Little, Brown, 2021)
  • Contributor, “What’s, Well, ‘Crazy’”, (Don’t) Call Me Crazy edited by Kelly Jensen (Algonquin Young Readers, 2018)
    • Spanish translation by María Celina Rojas for Spanish language edition (Argentina)

Memoir

  • Sensitivity Editor, My Broken Language by Quiara Alegría Hudes (One World, 2021)

Food/Cookbooks

  • Sensitivity Editor, The Simple Comforts Step by Step Instant Pot Cookbook by Jeffrey Eisner (Voracious/Little Brown, 2022)
  • Sensitivity Editor, Field Notes for Food Adventure by Brad Leone (Voracious/Little Brown, 2021)
    • NYT Bestseller, Food 52 Best Cookbook of the Year

Adult Fiction

  • Sensitivity Editor, The Throwback List by Lily Anderson (Hyperion Avenue, 2021)

Audiobook QC (all Scholastic)

  • Coming Up Cuban by Sonia Manzano (2022)

  • Mañanaland by Pam Muñoz Ryan (2020)

  • Illegal by Francisco X. Stork (2020)

  • Words on Fire by Jennifer A. Nielsen (2019)

  • Legends of the Sky: Dragon Daughter by Liz Flanagan (2019)

  • Revenge of the Invisible Boy (Goosebumps: SlappyWorld) by R.L. Stine (2019)

  • The Stars Below by David Baldacci (2019)

  • The Secret of Nightingale Wood by Lucy Strange (2017)

  • The Goldfish Boy by Lisa Thompson (2017)

  • The Harlem Charade by Natasha Anastasia Tarpley (2017)

  • Disappeared by Francisco X. Stork (2017)

  • The Lines We Cross by Randa Abdel-Fattah (2017)

  • Tomb of the Khan (Assassin’s Creed: The Last Descendants) by Matthew J. Kirby (2016)