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What matters most

You’ve done the hard work; now, let me help it shine! Whether it’s helping clean up flow or catching honest errors, I want to work with you to polish up your project so it can be the best it can be. But why should you pick me over other editors? Although my professional background is in journalism, my double major in English and Philosophy left me well suited to various fields and genres. English deepened my love and appreciation for the literary and well written, while Philosophy imparted a robust (if, to many, surprising) interest in well-articulated concepts and rigorous critical thinking. I also have a mind for both the creative and the technical: On the one hand, I pride myself on finding good turns of phrase, enjoy creative problem solving, and always love a good story; on the other hand, I aim for precision and concision and understand science, statistics, and so on better than many. I also don’t just edit “by ear”—that is, editing based only on how grammar sounds. (It...
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Recent posts

Happy to be back

I like to joke that that copy editing is the nerdiest part of publishing and certainly the geekiest kind of editing. So why do I do it? What do I get out of it? Aside from being an unabashed nerd myself, I enjoy a good puzzle. I always have. Who doesn't like cross-referencing facts? Who doesn't love checking tenses and pronouns? Who doesn't enjoy sifting through line after line, hunting for errors and missteps, and verifying style rules? Okay, maybe a lot of people don't, but I do. It's a puzzle every time; examining every piece, checking the gems for flaws, mending and finessing the handiwork of others as gently but rigorously as possible... Image by surut wattanamaetee For a while, I tried other kinds of editing, but copy editing has always been the most satisfying—I get lost in it, adore it. So it's little wonder I've wandered back into it after other careers didn't pan out. I've previously considered freelancing as a copy editor (hence setting...
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Medit: Everything wrong with "interesting"

I had a English professor who would roll her eyes at students who said "interesting" when discussing reading assignments: "I think this passage is so interesting " or "This poem is more interesting than the others" or what have you. She'd needle the students with "What does that even mean?" It's lost its meaning, the accusation goes; it's vacuous, it offers no substance, it does little if any work, and so on. Before writing this post, I reflected on this word's problems  over on Twitter . The trouble is finding good alternatives, which has baffled me in the past, likely because I hadn't really bothered to figure it all out. As such, I decided to blog about it! It's important to note that it isn't necessarily  wrong  to say "interesting." It's just better to avoid it if one can. I still use it now and then in conversation, and I'm sure you will, too, even after reading this post. It signals wha...
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Review: FTL, Y'all!, eds. Trotman and Lafrenais

This past summer, I read FTL, Y'all! Tales From the Age of the $200 Warp Drive , a sci-fi anthology of graphic short stories edited by C. Spike Trotman and Amanda Lafrenais. Because I finished it less recently than not, I'll keep this review short. Perhaps most of all, I loved the diversity and representation among these stories. People of color, LGBTQ, protagonists from various backgrounds with varied goals, and more. The stories were imaginative, too, with no two quite like each other. All good for an anthology in my opinion. That said, it is an anthology, so it has its ups and downs; not all stories in it are created equal. While on the one hand, that's the basis of its variety, it underpins both its rewards—and its short comings. There were a good many stories I genuinely loved, and even among the ones I loved less, there were several I still found thought provoking and felt were still very much worth having read. And those I really didn't click with? It may ...
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