Writing, editing and proofreading services
Catherine Therese follows up her memoir The Weight of Silence with a novel featuring an abrasive yet sympathetic protagonist. My mother thought Catch-22 was one of the funniest books ever written. My dad thought it one of the saddest. Things She Would Have Said Herself reminded me of their observations, careening between tragedy and hilarity.
Understanding authority in the author–editor relationship will help both parties in its navigation. This research argues that the perspectives through which this partnership has been viewed to date have not been helpful to understanding its most productive form. While valuable in articulating some of the editing relationship’s functions, these perspectives have limited its role and scope, doing both author and editor a disservice. Prevailing descriptors of editors are no longer useful prisms through which to view the relationship. These characterisations of editing as background, supporting roles impede the development of a relationship in which the editor’s professionalism, their expertise and ability to impart knowledge effectively leads to trust and opportunities for growth. In an ideal, balanced relationship, forged to create the best book possible, the editor and the author will acknowledge the process and engage with it throughout the edit. It is time to move beyond the question of who has more authority in the relationship, which perpetuates an infantilising culture and a unproductive dichotomy. A more apt term for the editing process is partnership in which authors, recognising and using the collaborative opportunity to go further, see the relationship as an equal one.
Unbound is a new, author-centred publishing model. It's a welcome addition to the industry.
Is the independent bookshop viable? Recently, I listened to Jemma Birrell’s interview with Sylvie Whitman, owner of Shakespeare & Company, that famous bookshop on the banks of the Seine in Paris, and it prompted some thoughts.
Someone with a pretty sizeable following tweeted recently that reading digitally wasn’t really reading. Go read a book, you animals, she said. I wonder. What is a book? The words. It’s the words, folks. Who is more deeply moved by the quality of the paper, than the words printed on it? Yes, I understand that …
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