Grace Barnes – Editor

I'm a book editor and copy editor who works with publishers, agents, and other literary firms on project-based work, in addition to serving individual clients ranging from first-time memoirists to Pulitzer-winning journalists. On a regular basis, I provide book doctoring and developmental editing services to individual clients and clients that come to me by way of a top-tier literary consultancy, develop editorial content for a boutique literary PR firm that contracts with the Big Five and a handful of prestigious indies, copy edit manuscripts for a variety of publishers, and workshop book proposals for agents as well as my own clients.

I've held full-time roles in National Geographic's book division, at Politico (where I was a copy editor), and at a historic regional publisher. As an independent editor, I've worked across genres and on projects in all stages of the editorial process. I have a sophisticated understanding of the contemporary publishing landscape and the qualities that attract agents, in-house editors, and readers.

I particularly enjoy working on engaging nonfiction, literary fiction, and memoir. I'm a thoughtful, scrupulous editor who seeks to make the writing and publishing processes less daunting by offering clear, valuable, and carefully considered feedback and edits. I strive to make authors feel supported, and my goal is always to enhance a writer's voice, not to inject my own. Whether I'm working with a writer to troubleshoot a plot issue in a novel or to determine the best way to incorporate research into a political nonfiction project, I'm deeply invested in the subject. Authors who work with me can expect me to take their work as seriously as they do.