I’ve been a book person forever, but becoming an editor took some doing. As a high school student, I figured out that proofreading my essays before turning them in improved my chance of getting an A. That was a start. As an English major, I learned to spend more time planning, writing, and revising my papers. My grades improved because I turned in revisions instead of rough drafts.

Graduate school demanded total immersion in the written word.  I read and discussed great literature in my seminars, prepared reports, and drafted research papers. As a teaching assistant, I taught lower-level students how to write academic essays. Working with my students to structure and draft their papers helped me become a better editor.  I learned to look past my students' surface errors and run-on sentences and to focus on the writing itself. I called that new way of reading "deep reading." Only through "deep reading" could I help my students with focus, structure, development, and voice.

This “deep reading” technique served me well in editing and revising my seminar papers. I would sometimes write a draft that lacked a clear thesis- and topic-sentence backbone to hold it together. So I would create an outline and flesh it out with material from my earlier draft. Of course, the paper usually required one more revision to rework paragraphs, adding transitions where needed for coherence.

I particularly enjoyed the final phase of editing my work, which I realize now was a blend of copyediting and line editing. I enjoyed reshaping sentences, improving the rhythm and flow of sentences, and reducing wordiness and repetition. I sailed through the editing/proofreading phase of the writing process, thanks to all those hours spent with student writers.

After earning my doctorate in English, I continued to teach writing and literature classes for eight more years. During that time, I began editing for students and colleagues during teaching breaks.  In 2004, I moved to the Puget Sound area where I earned an ESL certificate and taught English language skills to non-native speakers.

Since 2006, I have operated a freelance editing service.  During these years, I honed my editing skills, completed editing, proofreading, and developmental editing courses, joined local and national writing guilds, taught a proofreading course at North Seattle Community College, and helped hundreds of writers with their writing projects. With my assistance, many of them went on to publish their books, articles, or stories.

These days most of my clients come to me with book-length manuscripts they plan to self-publish though I still edit the occasional handbook, newsletter, or report. Last fall, I copyedited curriculum materials for a new social studies unit on climate change.

 

Click here for my resume.