Every aspiring writer needs a good editor.
Every accomplished writer deserves a good editor.
I’m an enthusiastic, meticulous editor and writer with many years of experience in developmental and substantive editing, rewriting, and copyediting, at magazines, trade publishers, and academic presses. I enjoy working directly with writers on their projects, from proposal through first drafts, crises of confidence, and rewrites, up until the last period or footnote is in place.
Also, for a flat fee, I offer expert and detailed evaluations of works in progress. Fiction, memoir, works from literary criticism to self-help to true crime: I’m comfortable with just about any subject, as long as it doesn’t involve equations.
“To write is human, to edit is divine.”—Stephen King
Stephen King may be somewhat overstating the case, but I believe the work of every writer, even the brilliant and/or prolific ones, benefits from an expert editor’s eye.
My theory—and maybe Stephen King would agree—is that the creative, generative part of the brain we use when writing is different from the critical, analytical part needed to edit. When one switches on, the other switches off. I know from my own writing that putting “the best words in the best order” is a tall order. Who gets it right the first time through?
After going back and revising, revising, revising, a writer may still need an editor; someone with a fresh perspective who understands what they are trying to say, who can help transform a promising but flawed text into a clean, clear, and possibly even beautiful piece of prose.
That’s what I have to offer.
