To write, as you work through your early and late drafts, you will need a reader, and the more the perceptive and responsive the reader, the better. You’ll need support and someone to remind you, as I will here, that what you’re doing matters, is valuable even if the culture doesn’t always seem to reinforce this, but that someone should not lie to you either, or pull back from the fact that…

Writing is hard, particularly if you mean to do it professionally: It takes time, more time than these ever-accelerating days seem to have on offer. And it comes with second-guessing, doubt, necessary (and often refuge-giving) isolation, and of course rejection, sometimes a lot of rejection. I know this firsthand as a writer and as an editor, which is how I’ve earned my keep since I moved to New York out of college, looking to work in the publishing industry. I also teach writing, with special emphasis on revision and editing, because, like it or not, both are unavoidable parts of the process of writing and of publishing; and they do not have to hurt or not for long. 

I’m not the first to say that a good editor is first and foremost a careful and sensitive reader, but it bears repeating. An editor should be adventuresome too, open to a writer’s breaking and remaking the rules and to the joy of creative rebellion. I’ve had the good fortune of working with a long list of established and new voices over the years (see bio) on fiction and non, magazine and book-length work, and have been an enthusiastic partner in risk-taking and experimentation. 

What I am, for both the new and seasoned writer, is a willing muse, mentor, friend in the process of making a work whole and original. I can draw out your courage both to do the work and to allow it to change as it evolves. I can dig into the developmental part and aid in the idea- and world-building, and am a very engaged and experienced line editor. 

Above all, I’m interested in discovering the writer’s intentions in a given work and helping to improve and clarify these, refining via revision all the way to a distinctive vision and voice, the writer’s not mine. 

I may be the editor, teacher, or writing coach for you. And if I am not the right match, perhaps I can suggest other routes to making your work all it is meant to be.

Your friend in writing – Amy Grace