Janet Hutchings began her career as editor and publisher at the Doubleday Book Clubs, where she was given opportunities to read for the Mystery Guild, to which almost every mystery or crime novel waiting to be published in America would be submitted for possible inclusion. This experience greatly enhanced Hutchings’ passion for mysteries, and later she became Mystery Editor for Walker & Company and published a series of anthologies of stories from" Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine". The connection gave her the opportunity of meeting Eleanor Sullivan at the "EQMM "50th Anniversary Party in 1991 and later being interviewed as a possible successor to the magazine's editor. After Eleanor Sullivan died in 1991, she succeeded as editor of" EQMM "and has held the position since then.