Duncan Murrell - Editor
Editor of NYT bestsellers published by Grand Central, Algonquin, Warner, Nelson. I am also a contributing editor at Harper's Magazine.
Request a quote
Overview
"I was fortunate to find an extraordinary freelance editor in Duncan, without whose creativity and vision this idea would not have gone very far, and without whose hard work and insight this book would never have been finished. What he does is an art, and as I and many other authors will attest, he is one of that art's finest practitioners. He gave me the confidence that I really could be a writer." -- Robert Hicks, New York Times bestselling author of THE WIDOW OF THE SOUTH, A SEPARATE COUNTRY, and THE ORPHAN MOTHER.
I love helping people tell their stories!
I began in editing as a newspaper journalist, but quickly moved to book publishing and work I had long dreamed of doing. For five years I was an acquisitions editor at Algonquin Books and edited some of the company's most successful, bestselling books in both fiction and nonfiction. I began freelance editing (and writing) in 2002, and during the ensuing decade I edited many books of fiction and nonfiction for trade publishers, academic publishers, agents, and individual authors. I edited New York Times bestselling novels published by Warner, Grand Central, and Thomas Nelson. In addition to fiction, I've worked with authors and publishers on books of journalism, history, science, art, and music. For five years I was the director of the writing program at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, where I taught editing, publishing, and writing for undergraduates and graduate students. I've been a visiting professor in creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and I continue to teach and host writing workshops.
I'm also a contributing writer and contributing editor at Harper's Magazine and The Oxford American magazine, and a writer for the Huffington Post Highline, the Virginia Quarterly Review, Men's Health, and other magazines. Writing has complemented my editing career by giving me an intimate experience of the writer's struggles. This experience has forced me to develop empathy and patience to go with clear-eyed, exacting editing.
I dive deep into manuscripts and ignore nothing. I don't take shortcuts, and every mark or comment I make on a manuscript has been carefully written for that book. I think the author's own intentions for a book are the most important criteria for an editor.
I think grammar and usage are exceedingly important, requiring a different kind of attention from the editor. I edit even the finest, smallest detail if I think working on it will help the writer to say what they want to say.
I work quickly. I respond to messages promptly. I do what I say I'm going to do and I'm always on time. I love to hear from my authors and will always make time to talk. I think that being an editor also means having a sympathetic ear and a willingness to help authors navigate the publishing world without losing their minds.
Languages
English (UK)
English (US)
Non-Fiction
Biographies & Memoirs
History
Sports & Outdoors
Fiction
Historical Fiction
Literary Fiction
Certifications
- Master of Science in Journalism, Northwestern University
- Master of Fine Arts, fiction, Bennington College
- Bachelor of Arts, history, Cornell University
- Certificate in Copyediting, U.C. Berkeley
Work experience
Executive Editor, Editorial Consultant, and Chief Storyteller
Self-employed
July, 2002
–
Present
(over 20 years)
• More than 1 million books in print. New York Times bestsellers: The Widow of the South, A Separate Country, The Orphan Mother
• I work with authors to develop their ideas into publishable books and manuscripts, often through many drafts.
• As a developmental editor, I edit manuscripts and proposals for structure, clarity, style, mechanics, and flow. I am also a line editor and copy editor. (Often all the kinds of editing come into play on the same project.)
• I help authors and would-be authors through the process of publication, from book/article proposal through publication and beyond, and into content marketing, book trailers, and networking. My editing specialities include fiction (literary, historical, crime), American history, 18th-20th century world literature, literary criticism, true crime, religions, political science, sports performance, biological sciences and natural history.
Contributing Editor
Harper's Magazine
July, 2005
–
Present
(over 17 years)
• Reported and wrote longform works of narrative nonfiction on a variety of emerging regional and global issues, including the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, termites, and Latinx immigration into the American South.
Senior Editor
Algonquin Books
December, 1997
–
July, 2002
(over 4 years)
• Nearly 1 million books in print under the Algonquin imprint. Acquired, developed, and edited works of fiction, nonfiction, and photography, including national bestsellers (Last Child in the Woods, by Richard Louv; Gap Creek and Brave Enemies, by Robert Morgan; Godforsaken Sea by Derek Lundy).
• Built working relationships around the country with agencies, academic institutions, and publications in the search for new authors
• Developed expertise in developmental editing, long-term project development, line editing, copy editing, and book promotion
Portfolio (24 selected works)
Gap Creek
Robert Morgan
The National Bestseller. A New York Times Notable Book. There is a most unusual woman living in Gap Creek. Julie Marmon works hard, "hard as a man" they say, so hard that at times she's not sure she can stop. People depend on her. She is just a teenager when her brother dies in her arms. The following year, she marries Hank and moves down into the valley. Julie and Hank discover that the moder... read more
The Widow of the South
Robert Hicks
Carnton Plantation, 1894: Carrie McGavock is an old woman who tends the graves of the almost 1,500 soldiers buried there. As she walks among the dead, an elderly man appears--the same soldier she met that fateful day long ago. Today, he asks if the cemetery has room for one more.Based on an extraordinary true story, this brilliant, meticulously researched novel flashes back to 1864 and the aft... read more
A Separate Country
Robert Hicks
Set in New Orleans in the years after the Civil War, A Separate Country is based on the incredible life of John Bell Hood, arguably one of the most controversial generals of the Confederate Army--and one of its most tragic figures. Robert E. Lee promoted him to major general after the Battle of Antietam. But the Civil War would mark him forever. At Gettysburg, he lost the use of his left arm. ... read more
The Orphan Mother: A Novel
Robert Hicks
An epic account of one remarkable woman's quest for justice for her son after the Civil War from the New York Times bestselling author and "master storyteller" of The Widow of the South (San Francisco Chronicle). In the years following the Civil War, Mariah Reddick, former slave to Carrie McGavock--the "Widow of the South"--has quietly built a new life for herself as a midwife to the women of ... read more
"The best book ever written about the terrifying business of single-handed sailing--. Lundy tells a harrowing tale, as tight and gripping as The Perfect Storm or Into Thin Air."--San Francisco ChronicleA chilling account of the world's most dangerous sailing race, the Vendée Globe, Godforsaken Sea is at once a hair-raising adventure story, a graceful evocation of the sailing life, and a though... read more
She was the first woman to address the U.S. Congress, the first to operate a brokerage firm on Wall Street, and the first to run for president. She's the woman Gloria Steinem called "the most controversial suffragist of them all." In this extensively researched biography, journalist Mary Gabriel has written a comprehensive account of one of American history's most unusual and fascinating women... read more
Midnight Assassin: A Murder in America's Heartland (Bur Oak Book)
Patricia L. Bryan, Thomas Wolf
On the night of December 1,1900, Iowa farmer John Hossack was attacked and killed while he slept at home beside his wife, Margaret. On April 11, 1901, after five days of testimony before an all-male jury, Margaret Hossack was found guilty of his murder and sentenced to life in prison. One year later, she was released on bail to await a retrial; jurors at this second trial could not reach a dec... read more
Wrapped in Rain
Charles Martin
From the author of The Mountain Between Us and the New York Times bestseller Where the River Ends.“Martin spins an engaging story about healing and the triumph of love . . . Filled with delightful local color.” —Publishers Weekly"Tucker, I want to tell you a secret." Miss Ella curled my hand into a fist and showed it to me."Life is a battle, but you can't fight it with your fists. You got to f... read more
The Essential Klezmer
Seth Rogovoy
You can hear it in the hottest clubs in New York, the hippest rooms in New Orleans, Chicago, and San Francisco, and in top concert halls around the world. It's a joyous sound that echoes the past. It's Old World meets New World. It's secular and sacred. It's traditional and experimental. It's played by classical violinist Itzhak Perlman (his all-klezmer album in his all-time best-seller!), the... read more
The Truest Pleasure
Robert Morgan
A “wondrous” novel of a marriage in the Appalachian Mountains, from the New York Times–bestselling author of Gap Creek (San Antonio Express-News). Ginny and Tom have a lot in common—a love of the land, and fathers who fought in the Civil War. Tom’s father died, but Ginny’s father came back to western North Carolina to hold on to the farm and turn a profit. Ginny’s was a childhood of relative s... read more
This Rock
Robert Morgan
From the author of Gap Creek-an international best-seller and winner of the Southern Book Critics Circle Award-comes the gripping story of two brothers struggling against each other and the confines of their mountain world in 1920s Appalachia. The Powell brothers-Muir and Moody-are as different as Cain and Abel. Muir is an innocent, a shy young man with big dreams. Moody, the older and wilder ... read more
Brave Enemies
Robert Morgan
As the War for Independence wore on into the 1780s, unrest ruled the Carolinas. Settlers who had cleared the land after the Cherokees withdrew were being mustered for battle as British forces pillaged their hard-won farms. Robert Morgan's stunning novel tells a story of two people caught in the chaos raging in the wilderness.After sixteen-year-old Josie Summers murders her abusive stepfather, ... read more
Smartbomb
Heather Chaplin, Aaron Ruby
"A history of video games, presented through sharp profiles of their creators." —The New York Times Book Review What started as a game of Pong, with little blips dancing across a computer screen, has evolved into a multi-billion-dollar industry that is changing the future, making inroads into virtually all aspects of our culture.Who are the minds behind this revolution? How did it happen? Wher... read more
Spirits of Just Men
Charles D. Thompson Jr.
Spirits of Just Men tells the story of moonshine in 1930s America, as seen through the remarkable location of Franklin County, Virginia, a place that many still refer to as the "moonshine capital of the world." Charles D. Thompson Jr. chronicles the Great Moonshine Conspiracy Trial of 1935, which made national news and exposed the far-reaching and pervasive tendrils of Appalachia's local moons... read more
At Sea in the City
William Kornblum
New York is a city of few boundaries, a city of well-known streets and blocks that ramble on and on, into our literature, dreams, and nightmares. We know the city by the byways that split it, streets like Broadway and Madison and Flatbush and Delancey. From those streets, peering down the blocks and up at the top floors, the city seems immense and endless. And though the land itself may end at... read more
Running North
Ann Mariah Cook
“This remarkable chronicle of the grueling Yukon Quest remains a vivid illustration of the soaring potential of both human and canine character” (Booklist).What happens when a woman and her husband move their family from New Hampshire to Alaska to train a team of purebred Siberian Huskies for the world’s toughest dogsled race, the Yukon Quest? They endure thousands of miles of lonely training ... read more
In A Dark Place in the Jungle, writer Linda Spalding travels to Borneo's threatened jungles on the trail of orangutan researcher Birute galdikas. What she finds is an unholy mix of foreign scientists, government workers, tourists, loggers, descendants of Dayak headhunters, Javanese gold miners, and half-tame orangutans. Galdikas, along with Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall. Formed the famed trio o... read more
Southern Dogs and Their People
Roberta Gamble
There's nothing more cherished by Southerners than their dogs. Dogs, and their Southern keepers, know when it's time to eat and when it's time to be quiet. Both know when to move slow and when to bare teeth. In Southern literature, dogs have taken prominent roles as muses and characters, confessors and conspirators. Southerners love their dogs almost as much as their mammas, and Southern Dogs ... read more
Though usually plain, sometimes humble, wooden churches are something special. With no fancy accoutrements - the flying buttresses, the mountains of organ pipe, the marble floors, the windows of stained glass - wooden churches distinguish themselves through the people who built them, the people who preach in them, and the place they assume in the civic, moral, and spiritual life of the communi... read more
The Jew Store
Stella Suberman
This debut memoir about a Jewish family pursuing the American Dream in the early twentieth century South is “vividly told and captivating in its humanity” (Kirkus Reviews).In small town America, in 1920, the ubiquitous dry goods store—selling suits and coats, shoes and hats, work clothes and school clothes, yard goods and notions—was usually owned by Jews and often referred to as “the Jew stor... read more
Humans suffer from numerous parasitic foodborne zoonoses, many of which are caused by helminths. The helminth zoonoses of concern in this book were once limited to diseases of animals, but have now become transmissible to humans. This book reviews not only the prevalence and distribution of these zoonoses, including available health and economic impact data, but highlights gaps in our knowledg... read more
A Golfer's Education
Darren Kilfara
Darren Kilfara's scheme to study abroad at St. Andrews University in Scotland-allegedly, to write a thesis on the history of golf-was foolproof. He would enroll at the school, go to a couple of classes, earn a year's worth of university credit, and become eligible for a year-long student pass to the famed golf courses of St. Andrews, the birthplace of the game, for the low, low price of $150. ... read more
She has been called "the next great sports superstar." She's a world-champion sprinter and a national-champion basketball player. She has been considered the next great hope for American track and field since she was fourteen. At sixteen, she made the U.S. Olympic team. Nike has created a shoe for her, Annie Leibovitz has photographed her, and the world is watching to see if she'll be the firs... read more
Duncan has 34 reviews
Professionalism
Professionalism
Quality
Quality
Value
Value
Communication & Punctuality
Communication & Punctuality
Yesterday Duncan’s eagerly awaited editorial evaluation of my novel arrived in my inbox. Following his directions, I read the editorial letter several times and made a few notes. Next, I read the manuscript’s marginal comments. I spent the rest of the day processing his detailed editorial roadmap describing how I could better organize the novel’s contents and characters. Duncan, a no-nonsense, ...
Read more
Edie Williams, March 2023
A very to-the-point reviewer who will tell you the strengths and weaknesses of your manuscript. Honest without being too blunt, Duncan was critical of issues he found in my story line while also being complementary of other things so I didn't feel overwhelmed or discouraged. He was willing to answer questions personally and even discuss ideas about ways to improve the book. I highly recommend ...
Read more
Gwen McPhail, October 2022
I was aware of how my work would be received in religious communities. Duncan provided an entirely professional assessment despite any reservations he may have had. Everything he picked up was something I already had concerns about, so I know that he was thorough and thoughtful. His comments were the impetus for relatively minor changes that have had a significant effect.
Darren McLeod, May 2022
Duncan was amazing reviewing my manuscript and was able to steer it in a direction that fits the era and the history in the story.
Richelle Reed, March 2022
Working with Duncan was empowering, encouraging and made me a better, more thoughtful writer. His editing notes were clear, concise and insightful and his developmental revisions were comprehensive and made for more developed characters, more engaging settings, a more workable story line and ultimately, a far superior novel. His process for providing feedback is straightforward and well-organiz...
Read more
Staley Krause, December 2021
Explore the Reedsy Community
Reedsy is a community of top publishing professionals. Join Reedsy today to browse 1000+ profiles.
Sarah Giles
Professional non-fiction copy editor and proofreader with 20+ years' experience. Clients include Hodder & Stoughton and HarperCollins.
Alton, UK
Rufus Purdy
Friendly and experienced editor/literary agent, based in Brighton. Several of my clients have gone on to land book deals and find agents.
Brighton, UK
