Do you need an editor?

* Raises hand, waves it around *

Hi everyone,

Happy New Year. And by that I mean holy $#!^ this year is off to a…. start. I hope you all are taking care. This is hard. What can be done, aside from holding each other close? Holding you all in my heart this afternoon, and I only hope it’s enough.

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Beauty. // medium format, torri blue

Now for some business:

I have just begun offering, officially, a range of editorial services.

I am taking on both long- and short-form projects across a spectrum of genres/forms (e.g. fiction, essay, poetry, academic, grant). I offer copyediting and proofreading as well as line and developmental edits.

Credentials, because they do matter here:

I am a published poet-scholar, essayist, and interdisciplinary researcher. I am also an MFA in Creative Writing candidate at the University of Guelph, where I am currently working on a hybrid thesis that interweaves fiction with poetry and creative nonfiction. I am fluent across genres and have done copyedits, line edits, and developmental edits on short- and long-form projects.

Additionally, my research and other writings have been published in a peer-reviewed journal, and I have written several successful grant proposals. I was a Fulbright graduate semifinalist for my work in poetics.

How does it work?

The scope and goals of my editorial involvement are decided by you. Per my (new!) editorial services page on my website:

When you reach out with an editorial inquiry, we’ll collaborate to customize your editorial experience. Do you want to jump right in? Would you like to have a call to discuss your project? You and I will partner to come up with a plan that suits your vision and your budget.

This is exciting for me. I have always loved editing—it’s like solving a puzzle—and supporting other writers in their art brings me such pleasure. At this point, I’ve been editing (in various settings and for many kinds of writers and mostly for the joy of it) for more than half my life. It feels like a good time to branch out and offer what I do more broadly.

For more on the services I am making available, you can find information here. You can also reply to this email with outstanding questions :) I do hope to hear from you. It would be a joy to read your work and help you get it where you want it to go.

An aside—I know that having other people poking around in your writing can feel quite threatening or overwhelming. I want you to know that if we work together, it is your vision for the work that matters most, and that is what I’m here to support—enthusiastically, generously, and with care. Thanks in advance for trusting me with your creative and intellectual work. PS: My promise to you: No Gen AI, not now, not ever!

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Let’s end with a little softness, shall we?

Lake Michigan // 35mm, torri blue

IF WE ARE NOT TAUGHT THE WORLD

We must learn it for ourselves.
So today when I woke to a dawn

so foggy, damp and sullen, I threw
the windows open, an invitation.

Oh, how long I swallowed the myth
to resist being changed is a virtue,

as though a rock in river current
can resist its own reformation.

The tumble and wear, as it happens, 
green growth thickening; the shimmering

bodies of fish with open, hungry mouths
in the rippling river moss that lengthens
 
in the sunlight.
Let me, too, be earth-mothered.

Morning dew, come settle on my windowsill.
Stain my floors, transfigure the space

I built myself, am building still.
Morning sun, come fade my belongings.

Come warp my doors ‘til they can be closed 
to nothing this world would offer.

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