Leigh W. – Editor

I launched my career in “words” when I took third place in the school spelling bee as a fifth grader, then won the bee for my school in eighth grade.

I have a PhD in comparative literature from Indiana University and taught college literature and composition classes for almost 30 years.

I started out copyediting for a scholarly journal and later worked on academic papers (and dissertations). Then I moved into copyediting scholarly books (in the humanities and social sciences) and, recently, popular writing like literary fiction, thrillers, and science fiction.

I know first-hand a writer’s “suffering,” having written and published my own book. But I’m not that English professor with a red pen who lurks in all of our pasts! I’m always sensitive to anyone whose writing I’m editing or critiquing.

As an editor, I read through the writing and highlight issues. I polish out the errors and give the writer personalized suggestions to enhance the content. I make suggestions to help the writer see the potential in their work.

One of my talents: I can spot an error by glancing at a page. I honed my writing skills during graduate school, and read hundreds of student essays as a college teacher. Maybe there is a streak of perfectionism in me, too, that makes me want to solve the puzzle of grammar and take care of every little detail.

Here are a few testimonials from the authors of books I copyedited:

• "We appreciate your thorough and insightful comments as well as your kind advice overall in every chapter."

• "I would like to take this opportunity to thank the editor for the great job – several authors, including myself, have found the comments very helpful in this last stage of improving the book."

• "Clearly a very smart copyeditor. Excellent queries. I added a few comments on first couple of pages; please extrapolate but keep up the excellent work.”