Dori Harrell – Editor

2025 Awards

Four books and two short stories finaled in the Selah Awards (announced March 2025)! Congrats to Cherie Denna (memoir, coach and devo editor—Beloved Outcast); Karen Moderow (Bible studies, line editor—Job and Psalms); Cindy Sproles (novel, line editor—Coal Black Lies); and Sam Blumenthal (short stories, line editor).

2024 Awards

Christy Award—Star of Wonder (line editor). Congrats to Crystal Caudill!

Caleb Award—Heart in the Clouds (devo and line editor). Congrats to Jennifer Mistmorgan!

Book of the Year, Christian Market Book Awards—Beloved Outcast (coach, devo, line editor). Congrats to Cherie Denna!

Regal Summit Book Award—Every Night Has a Dawn (Reedsy book, author coach, devo, line editor). Congrats to Rachel Valencourt.

Two Rivers—Gold, Christian Book Awards (devo, line editor)—congrats to Mike Henry!

2023 Award Winners

Carol Awards

The Songs That Could Have Been (Congrats to Amanda Wen!)

Christy Awards

When Stone Wings Fly (Congrats to Karen Barnett!)

Selah Awards:

The Songs That Could Have Been (Congrats to Amanda Wen!)

Circle of Vengeance (Congrats to Ramona Richards!)

Firebird Book Awards:

Follow Me, Friend (Congrats to Cheryl Eriksen!) Follow Me, Friend also won the Writer's Digest 2022 Self-Published Book Awards. Go Cheryl!

Every year I have multiple authors on the major awards list!

Book editing is the most glamorous career in the world! (And eating red licorice while editing is even better ...) I edit full time for traditional publishers—including Kregel Publications and Our Daily Bread—and indie authors, and I served as managing editor of a Christian hybrid press for nearly five years, in which I oversaw a team of thirty-plus editors and typesetters. With more than 400 titles under my belt, I offer coaching, developmental editing, line editing, and copyediting. My authors, including independent ones, final in the major awards, and several books have gone on to win awards and/or become USA Today and Amazon bestsellers. A multiple-award-winning writer with more than a thousand published articles, I speak at writers' and editors' conferences nationwide. I also preview manuscripts for Kregel, plus I serve on the board of the Northwest Christian Writers Association, through which I offer multiple workshops.

I'm a hands-on editor, and my developmental edits cover the main elements of fiction (character, plot, pacing, structure, POV, theme, and voice) and anything else worth noting, and will have comments throughout the margin. With nonfiction, I cover author's message, author's goals, pacing, voice, and structure and format. With line editing and copyediting, I not only catch typos and other errors, but I apply the industry style guides (Chicago Manual of Style) so that your book reads as smoothly as any on a bookstore shelf. I take on a small number of new clients every year, and I'm particularly interested in working with authors who've studied their craft.

I graduated from the University of Washington with a double major in journalism and political science, and I'm a huge Seahawks fan—go Hawks! I look forward to chatting with you about your baby!