A little about me
I have edited or written novels, nonfiction books, memoirs, screenplays, stage plays, radio plays, TV scripts & concepts, dramatic coaching, short stories, children’s stories, speeches, presentations, dissertations, articles, essays, criticism, reviews, papers, grants, blogs, newsletters, poetry..., and even an occasional love letter!
I have edited 100+ books for academic and commercial publishers (University of California Press, Stanford University Press, Cornell University Press, Oxford University Press, HarperCollins Publishers, Warner Books, Sierra Club Books, University of California Art Museum, Lawrence Hall of Science, Wadsworth Publishing Company, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Films, etc.), edited 100+ doctoral dissertations and master’s theses, and edited, rewritten, or ghostwritten countless creative projects for and with individual clients.
As an EDITOR, I usually read your writing aloud to you, in person or online. In that way, you can respond immediately to all my questions and suggestions, and we can fix things as we go along. I also copyedit the manuscript during this phase, correcting grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. I usually do not read manuscripts in advance, but prefer to share my reactions with you as they occur. On occasion, I edit material in the old-fashioned way, without the presence of the author. As Plato said, however, a book is a dead man (or woman), in the sense that it cannot answer questions put to it, so I prefer, whenever possible, to work with live clients. On the other hand, if you strongly prefer the traditional method, I recommend that we have one hands-on session so that you can show me exactly what you want me to do—and not do. After that I can proceed alone.
As a WRITER (or co-writer, acknowledged or not), I work with you in numerous ways, depending on what works best for you. One method is to interview you with a recorder running, and then have the recording transcribed, which gives us the first draft of material. (Half an hour of conversation yields about 20 double-spaced pages of raw text; thus a 2-hour session generates about 80 raw pages of text, and a 3-hour session generates about 120 pages of raw text, far more than anyone could ever write.) Of course, you can always talk to a recorder yourself, but most people prefer talking to another person, and it doesn't hurt if that other person asks intelligent and penetrating questions, which may take the conversation in interesting unanticipated directions. Sometimes clients prefer to talk to me, and I write as we go. Other clients may prefer to bring in a rough draft, and we rewrite that. Or we may craft an outline together, you write at home from that, and we edit your draft together. In some cases, we may use all of these methods..., or any others we devise.
As a DESKTOP PUBLISHER, I prepare page layouts for book projects that I have edited or helped to write. After that, all you need to do is get the book printed on demand and/or turned into an e-book. Alternatively, I can help you to submit the book to agents or publishers... or the screenplay or stage play to agents or producers.
Current feather in my own cap: My author-approved stage adaptation of THE CLOWN, a novel by Heinrich Böll, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972, will be published and produced in London during the coming year.
(identities of private clients are kept confidential)
Books I Have Edited
