I’ve been an editor for over five years. I have edited three magazines, Women in Higher Education, The National Teaching and Learning Forum, and Disability Acts.
Women in Higher Education is a feminist newsletter with an over 30-year history of covering anything and everything about women in higher education from students to faculty and staff to administrators. The National Teaching and Learning Forum is another education newsletter that covers college teaching and learning including pedagogy, innovative assignments, technology, personal experiences, and tips and strategies for instructors to name only a few. Additionally, I was the managing editor of Disability Acts, a magazine, run by dedicated volunteers, that published disability essays by disabled people for everyone. (The magazine was shuttered in 2021.)
As an editor, I evaluated pitches, assigned articles, planned issues, worked with regular and guest writers to revise, refine, and polish their articles, edited articles, wrote assignments and editor’s columns for two magazines, and worked with copy editors and production managers to get each issue ready for publication.
These editing skills became the basis for my freelance developmental editing. I have worked with a variety of authors, both academics and nonfiction writers, to help them transform their manuscripts into the best books that they can be.
You might be asking, What the heck is a developmental editor? Well, a development editor is someone who comes in before a manuscript goes to the press to get it ready for publication. They offer a variety of writing support. They evaluate the manuscript as a whole to make sure everything fits together, argument and narrative, evaluates structure of the manuscript and suggest restructuring, examines prose for readability and flow, and points out weaknesses in the manuscript and how to improve them.
A developmental editor offers a close reading of the manuscript to see what works and what might not, providing comments and suggestions in the document and offering a thorough summary and analysis of the manuscript as a whole.
I am currently taking on developmental editing clients. Please feel free to contact me about your projects and ask about rates.