On July 19, 2023, acclaimed romance authors Delancey Stewart, Marika Ray, Melanie Summers, and Kelly Collins joined me for the seventh episode of the Scene It First series, sponsored by Fictionary. In this series, I speak with bestselling, award-winning authors to talk about first scenes, share secrets of writing craft, and celebrate the stories that […]
On May 24, 2023, YA author Deborah Halverson joined me for the fifth episode of the Scene It First series, sponsored by Fictionary. In this series, I speak with bestselling, award-winning authors to talk about first scenes, share secrets of writing craft, and celebrate the stories that thrill and inspire us all. In this episode, […]
On April 26, 2023, I was thrilled to welcome fantasy author Marshall J. Moore to the fourth episode of Fictionary‘s Scene It First series, in which we speak with bestselling, award-winning authors to talk about first scenes, share secrets of writing craft, and celebrate the stories that thrill and inspire us all. In this episode, […]
Recently, I was happy to appear on Story Strategy Live to discuss style guides and style sheets with Nancy Smay and Dawn Alexander of Evident Ink, an editorial agency for whom I perform guest editing. You can view the Facebook Live session by clicking here. Nancy and Dawn are fantastic hosts, and I’d […]
Isolating in our homes during the COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly increased the amount of time we’re spending in virtual spaces for business, pleasure, and education. Before the pandemic, I had weekly meetings with clients on Google Hangouts and Skype, but since the shelter-in-place guidance I’ve seen a big increase in meetings via Zoom (not to […]
The other day I summed the word counts on my books-edited spreadsheet and saw that in the last two years I’ve edited over 3.5 million words. That’s a big number, the kind of number that’s impossible to fully imagine. Most of the books I copy edit or proofread range from 70,000 to 100,000 words, so […]
While there’s no substitute for a mentor of the flesh-and-blood variety, the five “book mentors” below provide indispensable advice on the processes, philosophy, and business of editing. (Note that these are not writing or style guides. Click here for my look at the major style guides.) The Business of Editing by Richard H. Adin A […]
In his wildly popular TED Talk video How Great Leaders Inspire Action, author Simon Sinek maintains that most businesses know what they do, and that some businesses even understand how they do it, but that few businesses truly understand why they do it. Why does your organization exist? he asks. Why do you get out of […]
My Four on the Floor interview with Kathe Koja appears below. I first discovered Koja’s writing in the early ’90s, when as a college student I visited a bookstore (remember those?) and picked up the Dell/Abyss paperback edition of her novel The Cipher. (If you’ve seen either this edition or the Abyss edition of her novel Bad Brains, you’ll likely […]
In their zeal to dive into the newest work by their favorite author, readers often flip quickly past the copyright page. After all, why pore over a bunch of legal information when the author’s voice is calling from just a few pages away? But the page, located on the back (or verso) of the title […]
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