Meg Storey - Editor
Developmental editor, copy editor, and proofreader with fifteen years of experience working on literary fiction.
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Overview
I began working as a freelance copy editor and proofreader in 2004. My first clients included the academic journal Literature and Medicine and the literary magazine Tin House. In 2005, I became an assistant editor at Tin House Books and quickly moved on to acquisitions and developmental editing. Over my career I have edited novels and short story collections and copy edited novels, short stories, articles, essays, and poetry. During my time at Tin House Books, novels I edited won the Giller Prize, the Goldberg Prize for Debut Fiction, and the Oregon Book Award for Fiction. As copy editor of Tin House magazine, I worked on the writing of authors as varied as Alice Munro, Etgar Keret, Ursula K. Le Guin, Anthony Doerr, Tayari Jones, Karen Russell, and Jim Shepard.
In my freelance work, I offer developmental editing for those who want feedback regarding the big-picture elements of their manuscript, line and copy editing for those who feel the overall work is ready but needs another set of eyes to refine the details, and proofreading for those who feel their book needs a final polish before going to the printer.
“I’m more than happy to tell pretty much anyone that my experience being edited by Meg Storey at Tin House Books was the best of my publishing experiences. I’ve been edited by five different editors at four different houses, and I imagine I’m a pretty annoying author to edit given that by the time a manuscript gets to my editor, it’s been gone over and gone over by not only me but also by my first and last reader, my husband, Jim Shepard, who’s the best close reader in the universe. So, to be my editor, you really have to make your case, and I've never felt more challenged and taken care of than by Meg. She’s whip-smart and generous, and manages to reveal to an author the author’s best version of herself as a writer. She has helped me travel the road I was on faster and better than I could manage on my own. She’s like my own turbo-charged sports car, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the places she’s taken me.”
--Karen Shepard, author of The Celestials and Kiss Me Someone“Meg is an incisive, subtle, and meticulous editor--someone who makes manuscripts into books.”
--Sean Michaels, author of the Giller Prize-winningUs Conductors
“Meg is incredible. As a copy editor and editor, she sweats every last tiny detail—nothing escapes her—and at the same time manages to fully grasp plot, character, tone, and consistency. Countless authors have come back to me humbled, thanking Meg for making their work as good as it can be.”
--Rob Spillman, editor of Tin House magazine
Languages
English (US)
Non-Fiction
Biographies & Memoirs
Fiction
Literary Fiction
Short Story
Work experience
Freelance Editor
Self-employed
January, 2017
–
Present
(about 6 years)
Work closely with individual authors and publishing companies at all levels of the editorial process, including developmental, line, and copy editing, as well as proofreading, with the goal of making the work as strong as possible while staying true to the writer’s voice and intention.
Copy Editor
Tin House magazine
July, 2011
–
May, 2019
(almost 8 years)
Executed line and copy edits on short stories, nonfiction essays, and poetry for quarterly literary magazine.
Proofreader
Tin House magazine
May, 2005
–
June, 2011
(about 6 years)
Proofread short stories and nonfiction essays for quarterly literary magazine.
Acquisitions Editor
Tin House Books
April, 2005
–
December, 2016
(over 11 years)
Acquired fiction and nonfiction titles for an independent literary press. Worked closely with authors from the developmental editing stage through the publication of a book. Communicated with authors, designers, and agents. Oversaw production of books.
Editorial Associate
Literature and Medicine
January, 2004
–
May, 2007
(over 3 years)
Executed line edits, copy edits, and fact-checking of essays for academic journal published biannually by the Johns Hopkins University Press. Communicated with editors-in-chief and authors regarding edits. Proofread final copy.
Portfolio (16 selected works)
Kiss Me Someone: Stories
Karen Shepard
A New York Times Book Review Editors' ChoiceA Best Book of Fall at The Washington Post, BuzzFeed, BUST, and more"Dark yet sensitive explorations of family and love—of all kinds—from a masterful writer. The women at the centers of these stories are sharp-edged and complicated and irresistible; you won’t be able to look away." —Celeste NgBold and unapologetic, Karen Shepard’s Kiss Me Someone is ... read more
Little Sister: A Novel
Barbara Gowdy
A New York Times Book Review Editor's ChoiceOne of Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2017"[A] supernatural domestic thriller and a crackling tour de force." —The New York TimesThunderstorms are rolling across the summer sky. Every time one breaks, Rose Bowan loses consciousness and has vivid, realistic dreams about being in another woman's body. Is Rose merely dreaming? Or is she, in fact, inhabit... read more
After James
Michael Helm
For fans of Joshua Cohen and Ben Lerner, After James captures the dystopian strangeness of our current world.A neuroscientist walks out of her life and isolates herself in the woods, intending to blow the whistle on a pharmaceutical company and its creativity drug gone wrong. A recently orphaned graduate school dropout is hired as a “literary detective” to decode the work of a mysterious Inter... read more
Ghosts of Bergen County
Dana Cann
Set in New York City and New Jersey on the cusp of the financial crisis, Ghosts of Bergen County is a literary mystery with supernatural elements. Gil Ferko is a private-equity lieutenant who commutes to Manhattan from the New Jersey suburbs. His wife, Mary Beth, has become a shut-in since a hit-and-run accident killed their infant daughter. When Ferko reconnects with Jen Yoder, a former high ... read more
Trompe l'Oeil: A Novel
Nancy Reisman
Set against a backdrop of Rome, Renaissance artworks, and images of Mary Magdalene, Trompe l'Oeil portrays the ripple effects of a family tragedy and the ways in which its members perceive and misperceive themselves and each other.During a vacation in Rome, the Murphy family experiences a life-altering tragedy. In the immediate aftermath, James, Nora, and their children find solace in their Ma... read more
Tin House Magazine
Us Conductors: A Novel
Sean Michaels
Us Conductors is the story of the man who created the most magical musical instrument in the world, the theremin. It's a tale of electricity and espionage, jazz and kung-fu, Harlem and Siberia, and the way even doomed love can keep you alive.Locked in a cabin aboard a ship bearing him back to Russia and away from the love of his life, Lev Sergeyvich Termen begins to type his story: a tale of e... read more
The Wilds
Julia Elliott
Teetering between the ridiculous and the sublime, The Wilds blends Southern gothic strangeness with dystopian absurdities, sci-fi speculations, and fairy-tale transformations. At an obscure South Carolina nursing home, a lost world reemerges as a disabled elderly woman undergoes newfangled brain-restoration procedures and begins to explore her environment with the assistance of strap-on robot ... read more
Wyoming
JP Gritton
A cross between Daniel Woodrell and Annie Proulx, Wyoming is about the stubborn grip of inertia and whether or not it is possible to live without accepting oneself. It’s 1988 and Shelley Cooper is in trouble. He’s broke, he’s been fired from his construction job, and his ex-wife has left him for their next door neighbor and a new life in Kansas City. The only opportunity on his horizon is fift... read more
The Boatmaker
John Benditt
Part fable, part allegory, The Boatmaker is the haunting and passionate story of a voyage of self-discovery.A fierce and complicated man wakes from a fever dream compelled to build a boat and sail away from the isolated island where he was born. Encountering the wider world for the first time, the reluctant hero falls into a destructive love affair, is swept up into a fanatical religious movem... read more
Inspired by the midnineties squat evictions on New York's Lower East Side, Cari Luna's gritty debut novel vividly imagines the lives of five squatters, showing readers a life that few people, including New Yorkers who passed the squats every day, know about or understand. In the midnineties, New York’s Lower East Side contained a city within its shadows: a community of squatters who staked the... read more
The Sleep Garden
Jim Krusoe
The Sleep Garden explores and pushes the boundaries between fact and imagination, real and surreal, and life and the afterlife.In an underground apartment building called “the Burrow”--essentially purgatory—“twilight souls” inhabit the space between life and death. Interwoven with their stories are those of inhabitants of the living world: a retired sea captain, a psychotic former child actor ... read more
The Last Taxi Driver
Lee Durkee
"A wild, funny, poetic fever-dream that will change the way you think about America." --George Saunders Written by a former cabbie, The Last Taxi Driver is equal parts Bukowski and Portis, and an homage to a dying American industry.The Last Taxi Driver is a darkly comic novel about a day in the life of an exhausted, middle-aged hackie about to lose his job to Uber, his girlfriend to lethargy, ... read more
The Scamp: A Novel
Jennifer Pashley
Mysterious, chilling, and told a breakneck pace, The Scamp will thrill readers of Daniel Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone and Roxane Gay’s An Untamed State.Rayelle Reed can’t escape in her small town, where everyone knows everything and not enough: All the guys she slept with, but not the ones she loved. The baby she had out of wedlock with the pastor’s son, and how the baby died, but not the grief an... read more
Polar Vortex
Shani Mootoo
"Polar Vortex is a powerful, fraught, and inventive exploration of the impossibility of ever really knowing the people we come to love. Told in urgent, incandescent prose and effortlessly spinning in and out of time, the book is an intimate and starkly honest examination of the complexities of sexual identity, lust, shame, regret, and how we, no matter where we come from or how we identify, ar... read more
Just Pervs
Jess Taylor
Two sex addicts meet and fall in love. A woman catches her husband cheating on her with their dog and escapes to her sister's horse farm. Four friends—fellow pervs—grow up and drift apart, pining for each other in silence until one of them is murdered.In Jess Taylor's sophomore story collection, contemporary views of female sexuality are subverted, and women are given agency over their desires... read more
Meg has 5 reviews
Professionalism
Professionalism
Quality
Quality
Value
Value
Communication & Punctuality
Communication & Punctuality
I loved working with Meg. She gave me detailed notes on how to improve, what to consider, and what could be cut or expanded. I truly felt that she took her time and thought carefully about each character and the overall story. She was prompt to respond and listened to my concerns openly. I 100% recommended her skills and expertise and hope to work with her again in the near future!
Enma Karina Elias, July 2020
I determined that I needed a professional editor to critique the novel I'd been working on for some time, a work based to a great extent upon familial history. Up until then, the individuals who'd read the work provided helpful comments, but often they found it difficult to separate me or my family's history from the work, and no one, myself included, could claim any experience as a professiona...
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Zander Strong, June 2020
Meg was super. She was very precise regarding what my expectations were and met them in every capacity. I look forward to working with her again.
Bill Kessler, May 2020
Meg provided me with an editorial assessment of my short story. The assessment was thorough and addressed some of the concerns I mentioned as well as pointing out some additional things for me to consider. I've been struck at how well Meg blends encouragement and appreciation for me as a writer with constructive feedback about specific things in my story.
I look forward to working with Meg ag...
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Jacob McLaws, April 2020
Meg is an exceptional editor and an even better collaborator. Her knowledge and experience really helped me find the direction I was trying to go with my writing and her notes were thoughtful and thorough. I could not have imagined my first Reedsy collaboration being better. Thanks Meg!
Gabe Downey, November 2019
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Stephanie Thompson
Writer, editor, teacher. Copyeditor for publications and manuscripts. Ready to shape your writing to be the best it can be.
San Diego, California, USA
Matthew Pressman
Seasoned non-fiction editor, experience working on trade and academic books. Historian and journalist by training, book lover by choice!
South Orange, NJ, USA
