Writers and Editors

I've been asked to provide a mini-bio so this site doesn't look so impersonal. I'll start with second grade, when I said to Judy Wolf's father: "I can spell hippopotamus. Can you?" There's a little bit of a know-it-all in most editors, but some of us decide fixing other people's writing isn't enough, and take up writing, too.

I've had a wonderful career combining writing and editing and created this site to help others find similarly interesting work.

I was hooked on editing at UCLA, where my Freshman English teacher left a badly written writing sample on our desk at the start of each class and asked us to edit or rewrite it. I could hardly wait to get to class (and recommend this as a way of making Freshman English less boring).

In graduate school at Stanford, I graded papers for Wallace Stegner's American fiction course and began editing professors' books and papers (who knew one could get paid for this?).

Graduate school (especially eighteenth-century literature) was NOT my thing, so after two years I accepted a free ride to New York City in a single-engine plane, thinking I'd lead the life of Holly Golightly.

In book publishing, I got a job working for Joan Kahn (mystery editor) and Elizabeth Lawrence (literary editor) at Harper & Row. From there I became an editor in a new department, where I helped Tom McCormack launch Perennial Library. These jobs were as low-paying then as they still are, but those were wonderful mentors, who absolutely insisted that I learn the book business from every angle.

Fawcett, a mass market paperback publisher, hired me to edit its Premier line, books geared to the high school and college market. During my four years there, Premier published about half originals (especially documentary histories and literary anthologies) and half reprints.

I had a well-rounded experience in book publishing at a time when the bean counters and corporate honchos weren't calling all the shots, Correcting Selectrics were the rage, and most people still bought books in bookstores or from one of the book clubs.

Publishing never paid well, so when my daughter was born I went freelance, adding writing to my repertoire because it was more fun and paid better. I began by writing food and feature stories for New York magazine and when I left New York for Washington DC supported my stay-at-home Mom position by doing a lot of freelance features for the Washington Post and other publications.

Once launched as an independent writer-editor, I never turned back. But I learned that although I might do some projects for love alone, I needed a base in projects that would pay the mortgage.

I began doing the kind of work that Washington provides in huge quantities: editing and rewriting reports and other kinds of documents and writing a gazillion executive summaries, largely for the World Bank and similar organizations. One particularly interesting (and exhausting) assignment was to write regular summaries of a four-week "virtual conference" on land reform, an online discussion sponsored by the World Bank and open to the world. I also summarized many evaluations — what people thought was right and WRONG with various organizations and projects — which was interesting because evaluations often dealt with the nitty gritty.

I had begun editing literary anthologies watching my daughter at the sandboxes of New York, and kept doing that. I also began writing books — in particular, helping individuals tell their life story and helping organizations tell theirs.

I find the long form (books especially) more satisfying both intellectually and financially. I've drifted into writing more about health care and medical research than other subjects, because the material is so interesting and important.

Writing a history of the NIH Clinical Center made me a convert to the history of medicine. I am currently doing interviews for a history of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Maryland. Fascinating material.

One of the greatest pleasures of my career has been a workshop I lead at the Writer's Center in Bethesda, MD: Life Stories and Legacy Writing. By emphasizing that people are to write honestly about their lives and not for publication, I've read and heard some of the most wonderful writing ever — because people are not writing to dumbed-down women's magazine formulas but to really examine their lives and experiences (what good writing is really about). It's as entertaining as going to the movies and a lot cheaper than group therapy.

Part of the reason I've been lucky in the work I've been able to do is that I have been an energetic joiner of organizations. I highly recommend this, because honestly, most of my plum jobs have come through friends I met through these organizations. And I've preserved my sanity and avoided a lot of wasted time and effort by being able to talk shop with fellow writers and editors.

And I know I am not alone. One year when I was asked to speak at the annual conference of the American Society of Journalists & Authors, I provided a handout evaluating various organizations for writers and editors, and it disappeared in a flash.

This website is, I hope, a useful version of that handout. At some point, when I am not so swamped with work, I will provide more of an evaluation of the organizations listed here (those I am in a position to evaluate anyway).

I will also be posting here the wonderful advice Sarah Wernick posted on her website, especially the "So you want to write a book" section. Sarah died in 2007, and her husband Willie Lockeretz has agreed that it probably makes sense to move those useful pieces here, rather than keep her website going posthumously. Again: as soon as I have time (and meanwhile, you can still go to her site). Sarah's one of the many good friends I made joining a writer's organization. I urge you go to out and make friends with other writers and editors. Growing up, I was always accused of being nosy. ("Why do you want to know that?") Now many of my friends are nosy, too.

Take classes. Acquire skills. Find out what you don't know and learn it. Read as many good books as you can, before books become obsolete (may it never happen). And mingle with your fellow wordsmiths.