Written by Holly Sawchuk; copy edited by Taisha Garby
When I was 12, I started at a new school. I was thrilled to learn they had a student newspaper, and even more thrilled to land the not-at-all-hotly-contested role of managing editor. Just the word editor felt like magic to me.
Written by Janis Cleugh; copy edited by Meagan Kus
The email came at the right time.
Written by David Marsh; copy edited by Stella Du
It was about 10 years ago that I fully confronted the idea that language always changes. I remember my stubborn reaction: Ugh. Does it have to?
Written by David Marsh; copy edited by Annette Gingrich
Most editors have a few horror stories from their work experiences. For some, though, horror stories are the work itself.
Written by Holly Sawchuk; copy edited by Janet Millar
Have you ever thought about what you would write in a memoir? Not your full life story, like an autobiography, but an exploration of a particular situation in your life, its emotional arc, and what it ultimately meant.
Written by Marta Orellana; copy edited by Meagan Kus
Editors find comfort in the stable predictability of grammatical rules, of univocal styles and definitions—with some exceptions to keep us on our toes. We turn to these to balance the everyday chaos in the world beyond the word. But what happens when the thread in the fabric of our daily lives is so forcefully yanked that our safety blankets are completely torn at their seams? Is our respite in linguistic structures enough to offset the surrealness of a world dizzied by a viral outbreak?
Written by Frances Peck; copy edited by Annette Gingrich
Review of “Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style” by Benjamin Dreyer (Random House, 2019).
Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style hit the shelves a year ago. Or perhaps I should say it briefly touched the shelves, seeing as copies sold as fast as they could be printed. Repeating the improbable success of the book Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss, Benjamin Dreyer’s guide sold umpteen copies and topped bestseller lists.
I’ve long followed Dreyer on Twitter, where he is natty, chatty, and sometimes catty. The same irresistible combination makes his book, from cover to cover, a trove of delights.
Written by Liz Warwick; copy edited by Annette Gingrich
The holiday season has arrived, and if you believe the media, people now spend their days buying presents, baking up delicious goodies, and listening to carols on repeat.
Missing from that picture is any mention of work, especially any last-minute calls from a client or boss asking you to tackle (or finish up) a project that requires working right up to, or even through, the holidays.
Dealing with eleventh-hour requests, at the holidays or anytime, starts long before the call comes. We all need to know our boundaries. Some people are willing to work 14 hours at a stretch to complete a job. Others aren’t. Those boundaries may change depending on the season and an editor’s time of life. But everyone needs them.
Written by Emily Salja; copy edited by Meagan Kus
When we think about editing poetry, we first have to think about what poetry is. This is something that poets and critics have debated for decades—what is poetry?
All writing, to an extent, comes from the heart—creative writing in particular—and poetry is one of those strange, elusive creatures that is stitched together mostly by heartstrings. Poetry is the least efficient way of conveying a message. It is the language of trauma and inarticulable feelings. In poetry, we write around things instead of at them. How do we edit something so personal?
Written by Jen Groundwater; copy edited by Lydia du Bois
In his lengthy poem “Halloween,” the beloved Scottish poet Robert Burns popularized the titular holiday name, describing what eighteenth-century Scots got up to on October 31:
Some merry, friendly, countra folks,
Together did convene,
To burn their nits, an’ pou their stocks,*
An’ haud their Halloween**
Fu’ blythe that night.***
