After working a variety of jobs over the decades — from irrigating tomatoes in Greece to being a Montessori pre-school teacher in Park City, Utah, from bookkeeping and administration for small business owners and nonprofits to managing a successful podcast called Deep Transformation: Self-Society-Spirit — I feel certain I’ve found my true vocation in editing.

 

Whenever I am offered a book to edit, my spirit soars at the prospect of diving in to yet another story of a life: a fabulous, inspiring memoir like Buffalo Dreamer; the heartfelt and humorous rags-to-riches story of the third woman to win the national Small Business Person of the Year Award; an intelligent presentation of hard-earned knowledge and wisdom so pertinent to our time, Dr. Seiffertt's book on Sustainable Health; or John Dupuy's excellent, award-winning book Integral Recovery.

 

I work easily with people, both directly and long distance, and enjoy the back and forth communication with my authors as we hone the content to its optimal state together. I’ve always enjoyed jobs where I have the opportunity to make order out of chaos — now my favorite job is helping new writers get their voices out to the world in the most meaningful, flowing, and polished way possible.

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I'm happy to let authors know whether the writing is cohesive or rambling out of hand, and when it would be a good idea to expand a point, delete a section, or move a chapter. I am blessed with good radar that sets off an alarm the moment anything sounds jarring, uncomfortable, repetitive, out of place, or irksome, so I can jump in and smooth it out or alert the author. The same thing happens with grammar. 

 

Editing makes me feel like a Victorian seamstress working on a dress dummy: just pull those stays tighter and tighter and eliminate the excess till the figure only retains what really counts, popping with curves and style.