As a kid I was very lucky to have a father who worked as a magazine editor. Well, I mean, I can look back now and call it lucky. At the time I was to busy crying from the pages and pages of red ink that he would hand to me when I showed him a paper I had written for school. Dad never pulled a punch in those days, which I had considered unfair. I’m still in school! Why can’t he take it easy on me? But it was precisely because he didn’t pull his punches that I learned much earlier than my classmates how to construct a decent sentence, paragraph, and paper.  I also learned that spelling is ultimately a visual process. (That whole “sound it out” thing is a load of hogwash in the English language.)

Since that time, I have worked as an editor, myself, as well as an admin upon which various executives relied for fixing their memos. I also spent a good chunk of time with blossoming writers, as well as growing my own writing career– and from direct experience, I learned  how to pinpoint parts of a manuscript that need to be tightened, yes, but also to point out where a manuscript is strong, so that writers know to keep doing that.

In other words, over the years my father’s red ink has served me well, and now it will serve me once again.

I have set out a shingle as a freelance editor specifically for small- and independent-press fiction writers. This is very exciting for me, because I get to do two things that I love: read and support blossoming writers and geek out on grammar and spelling a bit.

If you are interested or just curious about my services, you can check out my editing services page here.

And meanwhile, I’ve got a gig, so if you don’t hear from me for a bit, it’s because I’ve got my red pen out.

See you on the other side!