Susanna J. Sturgis: Writer • Editor • Born-Again Horsegirl

Could you use an editor?

Wait; back up a step. What is an editor anyway, and why would I want one?

An editor is a midwife, a coach, a cleaning lady. If you've completed a draft (or, if you're like me, several drafts), I can provide the critique and counsel that help bring your story, article, book, or booklet into the world. If your draft won't jell, if you're stalled or blocked and getting more frustrated by the minute, I can ask the questions and offer the suggestions that get you back on track. If you're almost there but want an editorial eye to review your work for organization and clarity, I can provide it. And if your work is ready for prime time, I can do the down-and-dirty copyedit that polishes the prose — and catches the gaffes that you don't want to find in the published version.

I'm equally happy editing on screen (MS Word preferred) or the old-fashioned way, on paper. My current clients include two major trade publishers, a university press, and several individual writers. My stint as features editor for a weekly newspaper involved developing stories from scratch and working with both experienced writers and novices. My focus is on fiction (including fantasy and science fiction) and general nonfiction, especially history, biography, current events, personal essays, and memoirs.

Résumé

I do have a résumé. These days I mostly update it and trot it out for clients who want a copy for their files. If you'd like to see it, please use the "Contact" page to request a copy. While you wait, stroll around this website. If you think we're a match, we probably will be. Let's talk.

Writing Tips

Bottom line: The key to writing is writing. If you want to write, write. Keep a journal. Tell stories. Someone, or something, piss you off or make you think? Write your response; see where it goes. Write press releases, brochures, flyers, or pamphlets for an organization or project you believe in. Write reviews or feature stories for a local newspaper or newsletter. Each piece will challenge you, and by meeting those challenges you will learn to write. Experiment. Play. Don't be afraid of detours, tangents, and wild goose chases. In your spare time, read — all kinds of stuff, fiction, nonfiction, newspapers, poetry, advertisements, the backs of cereal boxes . . .

Find a copy of Marge Piercy's wonderful poem "For the Young Who Want To." Read it, post it on the fridge (or the mirror), read it again.

How-to books can't teach you how to write, but they can keep you going long enough to teach yourself. If you hit a snag or reach a crossroads or want to test your vocation, try Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. After I finished my first novel, I hit a sludgy period. In retrospect, hey, it was a no-brainer: for more than twenty-five years my goal above all goals was to finish a novel; I'd finished a novel — what next? Walking the Artist's Way, I began to understand where I was going, where I could go.

The right path for you is the one that gets you to where you're going. The secret is you can't just sit in a chair and trace the route with your finger: you have to get up and walk it, wheel it, run it, work it.

Rates

Reasonable, and probably less than you think.

§§§

"I think writing really helps you heal yourself.
I think if you write long enough,
you will be a healthy person. That is,
if you write what you need to write,
as opposed to what will make money,
or what will make fame."

Alice Walker

That wisdom appears in David Bradley's thoughtful, thought-provoking essay on Walker and her work that appeared in the New York Times Magazine for January 8, 1984. Deepest thanks to Debbie Morris for putting that issue in my hands all those years ago, when we were colleagues at Lammas Bookstore in Washington, D.C. The words described the path I was already on, though at the time my feet had barely found it, and I didn't know it was a path.

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