Celebrating a month of editing

reflections on my editing and mentoring service

I am grateful to all my clients, workshop participants and supporters. It’s been just over a month since I started freelancing again, after many years before when I was a freelance translator for the Federal government and other clients.

What’s different about being a freelance editor in the fields of poetry, visual poetry, prose and hybrid work is that I am working in creative fields which I love and have some knowledge of. When I was a translator, I would suddenly find myself having to learn about a type of Caribbean dance music or a desk-top publishing system used by the House of Commons. Some of this was fascinating, but a lot of it bored me to the point of tears.

This year, with the editing service so far, I have had the pleasure of working with artists, poets and fiction writers to help them craft compelling and unique work.

I am also working on several reviews for various poetry and fiction collections. These take time to write and to place with literary journals. These are my main activities these days.

As part of my editing service and the workshops that I offer, I give clients access to an ever-expanding list of resources by means of a Google doc. That means that all my clients will always have access to it, as it changes and grows.

Many of these resources have come from my years as a writer, editor, visual poet and publisher. They are related to poetry, prose, visual poetry and hybrid work.

For example, the document includes links to two crowd-sourced lists of visual poetry resources: one is a list of tools that can be used to make visual poetry, while the other is a list of presses and journals that publish visual poetry.

As I learn, I like to share my knowledge. I also like to lift up and amplify others, especially those who are systematically excluded from literary and arts canons. This means that I include forthcoming workshops and other activities related to the crafts of writing and making. Just yesterday, I learned how to make a table of contents in the Google doc :).

Thank you to all those who have kindly written testimonials about my editing, and to those who have helped me to promote this service. If you would like to refer someone to me, or need an editor yourself, please contact me for more information at amanda at amandaearl dot com.

More details and testimonials are available here.