Interview conducted by Keith Goddard.
A career as an editor is often a solo adventure, especially if you’re a freelancer. So, we thought one way to better connect with fellow editors was to ask them the Five Ws: who, what, where, when, and why. Read on for some thought-provoking, enlightening tidbits from those of us who choose to work with words to earn our keep.
Please tell us a little about yourself, the kind of work you do (and where you live), and how long you’ve been an editor.
I have lived in New York State, on Long Island, since 1987, so I have mostly lost the Texas accent I grew up with. I have been an editor for 39 years now, and I have been self-employed for 28 of those years.
My first career was as a reporter for a mid-size newspaper in Texas. I loved that work, especially because in the early 1980s, I dreamed of exposing corruption to bring about justice, like my journalist heroes Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. But because the job, which I held for two years, required plenty of night shifts, and I was starting a family, I realized I’d need a work schedule that was more baby-friendly. I moved to a day job in publishing, starting out as an in-house production editor for a small Colorado publisher of books on the theatre arts: anthologies of plays and monologues, and reference works on stagecraft, directing, costuming, and playwriting. Editing was so much fun, I found, because I could learn about all sorts of things that I as an introvert would never do, such as producing dramas and acting.
Then I moved on to other in-house publishing jobs, both in New York City. The first was for one of the Big Five publishers. As a production editor there, I got to work on non-fiction and novels, some of whose authors I still follow online to keep up with what they’re writing. The second job was for a medical publisher. Because my academic degree is in journalism and I hadn’t worked in medical publishing before, the managing editor told me during the hiring interview that she thought I might have to take some courses about the field. But I quickly learned on the job. While there, I developed a reputation for being skilled at editing medical-book manuscripts written by multilingual authors whose English needed polishing.
By the time I was ready at the end of 1994 to give birth to my second child, I wanted to try freelancing because I was hugely tired of office politics and of commuting by train into New York City. So two weeks after that child’s birth—yes, two weeks!—I started freelancing full time. At first my clients were all former employers. But when contacts from those companies moved on to jobs for other publishers, they took me virtually with them and referred their new employers to me. Over the years, I continued to increase my skills as a medical editor, to the point that I stopped editing fiction and non-fiction and was editing medical-journal manuscripts for authors around the world. By this point, medical journals often refer manuscript authors to me because they’ve reviewed enough of the manuscripts that I edit to inspire a high level of trust in my work. In 2008, I earned certification as an editor in the life sciences, which further convinced authors that they can trust my science-editing skills. I still edit some projects for science publishers too.
By now, my three children are all adults, and I have three grandchildren. I survived the first 25 years of freelancing in the kitchen of my home, where family members loved to congregate for chats. And then in 2021, I moved into a beautiful little office (12×12 feet) in my backyard that my cabinetmaker mate and sons designed and built for me. (A Facebook photo album shows the construction of my office.) Ah, the joy of a quiet space for working!
Who: If you could edit one famous author, living or dead, who would it be?
I’d want to edit for both Woodward and Bernstein.
What: What is the one thing that has helped you the most in your career as an editor?
Having colleagues around the world! I may work physically by myself, but I’m never alone.
I can consult editors from so many locations via Facebook, Twitter, Mastodon, LinkedIn, and several professional organizations: ACES: The Society for Editing, the American Medical Writers Association (who have plenty of members who are medical editors like me), the Board of Editors in the Life Sciences, the Council of Science Editors, and the Editorial Freelancers Association. I also talk with them through email discussion lists, including Copyediting-L, for which I serve as the list owner.
What do we editors discuss?
- Is the fee the client wants to pay me too low for the work I’m doing?
- Where does such-and-such style guide talk about issues focusing on grammar/capitalization/punctuation/permissions/italics/abbreviations and acronyms/reference lists/number usage/tables and figures?
- What’s the best software for accomplishing the task I’m focused on?
- Can I get a tact check on this email I’m planning to send to a publisher/an author/a supplier?
- What kind of additional professional training should I seek, and where can I find it?
There is a special group of editors I’ve counted on since 2015: the Quad, a mastermind group. In addition to me, its members are Laura Poole, Amy J. Schneider, Erin Brenner, Sarah Grey, Lori Paximadis, and Adrienne Montgomerie. We’re in contact pretty much seven days a week through Slack. We help each other figure out work issues and editing issues, we make each other laugh, we share our successes, and we’re there with support when life gets tough. (You can see a video about us here.)
Where: If you could work anywhere in the world as an editor, where would that be?
If I could, I’d love to spend time working from Canada, Europe, China, and Japan. I would happily drink in so many different cultures. And maybe I’d get to meet some of my authors in person!
When: Was there ever a time in your life when you seriously questioned your career choice?
Not once did I ever question my decision to become an editor. This work has never been boring, though it didn’t pay as much as I wanted it to until I went freelance. And for 28 years now, I have deeply loved being a self-employed editor. I’m my own boss, and I set my own fees and my own work schedule. What could be better than getting paid to read?!
Why: Why did you choose to become an editor? Or, should we ask: Why did editing choose you?
Ever since I learned to read as a small child, I have read to live. Yeah, breathing is supposedly necessary for life, but I have always felt most alive when I read. I read when I first wake up, to see what’s going on in the world. I read throughout the day to keep up with what’s going on in the editing universe. I read to earn a living and to help authors present their ideas as clearly as possible. And then I read before bedtime to make sure there’s nothing I’ve missed earlier in the day.
And, of course, we just had to ask the inevitable how: How would you sum up your motto?
It is a privilege to be entrusted with polishing an author’s work. But that doesn’t mean we should work for low rates or be paid low salaries, so always work to educate clients and employers about the value of the work editors do.
Keith Goddard is the editor-in-chief of BoldFace.
This article was copy edited by Katherine Morton (MBA, BA), a Certified Copy Editor with global clients.
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