(The Subversive Copy Editor)
(The Subversive Copy Editor)
It’s clear from the chatter online that many of you already have the sixteenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, and that you love it. But, you know, at some point you’re going to have to open it. Cracking…
When friend and neighbor Clairan Ferrono joined my quilting group years ago, I remember the rest of us cocking eyebrows at the new gal’s weird choices of color, her oddly shaped pieces, and her inability to quilt in straight lines.…
The first summer I was legally able to work, I applied for a job as a telemarketer. I dressed up, went to the dubious address downtown, found the dog-eared little walk-up suite, and was told by a man in a…
Years ago, I was nearly driven mad by a writer who repeated the same wonky sentence structure relentlessly. It went something like this: The subject has A, B, and its C is D. Or The subject is similar to A,…
There was a certain amount of push back to my statement the other day that good copyeditors are “creative.”
I know I’ve never seen an ad for a copyeditor that listed creativity or cleverness as the required qualifications. But not everyone understands that our work offers a great deal of potential for . . . fun.
Today, I’d like to welcome Clifford Garstang, editor of the soon-to-debut online literary magazine Prime Number published by Press 53. Cliff is the author of In an Uncharted Country, a novel in stories published last year by Press 53, and…
Last week I handled something badly at work, and I’m still beating myself up about it.
Last year I had a problem with ants in my kitchen, but at the hardware store there were several different kinds of poison and each package said, “Will kill this kind of ant, but not that kind.” So I went back home to figure out what kind I had.
If you’re new to copyediting, consider these snippets of advice.