Deborah Sosin – Editor

As a self-employed freelancer, I specialize in short- and long-form creative nonfiction, self-help and psychology titles, memoir, mindfulness and spirituality titles, and picture books. Because of my unusual combination of clinical and editorial expertise, I have developed a stellar reputation as a consultant and editor for self-help authors in the past several years.

Over my long career, I have tackled everything from ad copy to book-length manuscripts. I consult with individual authors as well as organizations from concept to completion of their projects, or at any stage in-between. I’ve helped novice and veteran nonfiction writers improve their work and get published through careful attention to macro issues such as structure, flow, audience, voice, and purpose; as well as micro issues such as grammar, punctuation, and redundancy. I view my role as a collaborator, coach, and cheerleader.

As an award-winning picture-book author, I consult with prospective or active children’s-lit writers who want help with project concepts, manuscript editing, and/or industry information. In addition, I offer personal coaching to help writers understand and work through writer’s block and other inner obstacles to creativity.

I am also an author, essayist, GrubStreet (Boston) instructor, and part-time psychotherapist. My clients have praised me over the years for being warm and approachable as well as exceptionally detail-oriented and perceptive about the big picture.

In the past, I served as publications director at Hebrew College, managing editor of the Lahey Health Journal of Medical Ethics, and manager of the copyediting and proofreading department at Publicom, Inc. I also worked at Houghton Mifflin Company and other trade houses; I now do occasional editing and proofreading for Little, Brown; Charlesbridge Publishing; and Candlewick Press.

My own publishing credentials include a mindfulness-themed picture book, Charlotte and the Quiet Place (Parallax Press, 2015), illustrated by Sara Woolley, which won the Gold INDIEFAB Medal and the Silver IPPY Award, among several honors. A self-help workbook titled Sober Starting Today: Powerful Mindfulness and CBT Tools to Help You Break Free from Addiction will be published by New Harbinger Publications in March 2024. My essays have appeared in The New York Times, Salon, Cognoscenti, Boston Globe Magazine, Brevity Blog, Journal News, The Writer's Chronicle, Writer's Digest, The Manifest-Station, Zone 3, two anthologies, and elsewhere. A scholarly paper on adolescent diary writing appeared in Adolescent Psychiatry.

IMPORTANT: Before you submit a request, please review the categories very carefully on this page https://blog.reedsy.com/guide/editing/. We will save lots of time if you are clear about where you are in your book's development and what the differences in services are.

Also, I am highly selective about the projects I bid on because I give each project the personalized care and attention it deserves. As a result, I charge premium rates but I'm told that the investment is well worth it to receive premium services.

SPRING 2024: Available for copyediting and proofreading, some editorial assessments. Currently unavailable for developmental editing.