Hello friends,
I hope this finds you maintaining a relative level of sanity and peace amid global chaos, dwindling light, and frigid weather. Despite the stark reality of life on our planet at the moment, the violence and suffering blasted on every blue screen, ‘tis the holiday season!
How are you, this December?
I’ve been staying afloat by searching for joy and hope around me, whether it manifests in small or big ways. I know it doesn’t solve any real problems, but the universe needs all the joy and hope it can get, right? As I type this, my teenager practices “Jingle Bell Rocks” on the piano, and in the kitchen my kindergartner and her babysitter sing along, while my middle schooler empties the dishwasher without being asked a third time. This moment of spontaneous perfection (and incredible privilege) warms my heart with gratitude.
And yet it’s tricky to feel happy when millions are hurting. Grief seems pervasive, and the incitement to celebrate and rejoice feels dissonant. I refuse to look away from Gaza, from my Jewish friends’ despair, from the many who are unhoused this Christmas. Also: I want my children to enjoy a holiday break filled with peace and joy. I have no answers for how to reconcile the two.
On the editing side: as I wrap up my year, I love to review the list of projects I worked on and send a wish for fruitful revision to all my talented clients. The manuscripts I edited in 2023 ranged from speculative thriller to young adult fantasy, from literary mystery to short story collection, and included some nonfiction too. I also edited essays, poems, agent query letters, book proposals, web content, and more.
I am so very grateful to the writers who entrust me with their precious words and stories. It’s such a joy to develop these partnerships and dedicate myself to helping authors advance toward publication. I look forward to more collaborations in 2024.
If you need an editor, I am booking for February, March, and April at the moment. Take $100 off a full manuscript edit or $50 off a manuscript evaluation by letting me know you subscribe to this newsletter. (Offer not applicable to existing clients who already get a discount!) You can read some testimonials about my work here. For more information, please visit my website or email me with any questions.
An Editor’s Tip
Flesh this out. Give us more details. Show, don’t tell.
Common writing advice. Specific, sensory details help your story come alive. They help immerse the reader in your world. In revising, a key area of focus should be to fine-tune the details provided for character development, setting, and action, whether you write fiction or nonfiction.
A useful tool for this task is a lexicon. In The Writer’s Portable Mentor, Priscilla Long encourages writers to keep a notebook of favorite words. Words that we love; words that speak to our story world; words that define place, person, time, or atmosphere. I love this practice and recommend it often.
A lexicon can help you flesh out a distinct setting, for example. Long writes:
Places have lexicons.
The Pacific Northwest: crow, Puget Sound, Steilacoom Tribe, western red cedar, Smith Tower, Emmett Watson’s Oyster Bar, Starbucks, Northwest jellyfish, geoduck, Stillaguamish River.
Imagine how a rich lexicon might enhance your writing. Not only can it help you craft more specificity on the page, it can also help to define your writerly voice, since each lexicon is unique to the writer who compiles it.
The Writer’s Portable Mentor is one of my favorite books about writing. This title is probably the one I’ve most gifted to writer friends or recommended to my clients. It’s full of insightful tips for writing, self-editing, and crafting a productive writing practice. Great last-minute gift for the writer in your life!
News
I’m pleased to announce that my anthology project, Broken Free: Writers on Estrangement, now has literary representation. This collection will feature essays and a few essential poems by acclaimed and emerging writers about cutting or losing contact with family. I’m thrilled to be working with Martha Wydysh at Trident Media to get this collection published and in readers’ hands in the near future.
As part of the Voices of Tacoma project, I taught a workshop about self-editing prose and poetry at the Moore library in Tacoma in November. You can find more information about the workshop series and download materials here. The project and its founder, Burl Battersby, were featured in Tacoma Weekly this week — well deserved! (Read through for a nice little mention of yours truly.)
The Boston Globe published my profile of Amanda Peters, author of The Berry Pickers, a Barnes & Noble Discover Prize Winner. I loved this beautiful, riveting, deeply moving book.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Sarah Blakley-Cartwright about her new novel, Alice Sadie Celine. That conversation is available in the Chicago Review of Books.
My Zoom conversation series Lunch Edits will continue in 2024! It’s been great fun this year to connect with writers. On the first Wednesday of the month, I host this one-hour lunchtime Zoom chat where we discuss all things writing- and editing-related. It’s free, collegial, and fun! Anyone is welcome. Our next Lunch Edits meeting will be Wednesday, January 3 at 12pm PST. You can find the Zoom link here.
Are you on Threads yet? I’m slowly dipping my toes in. You can find me at @jbartoywriter.
A Question for You
What do you like to bake during the holiday season?
My family typically plans a baking day early during the holiday break. We make sugar cookies with sprinkles, ginger spice cookies, plus another thing or two, often involving chocolate. It tends to be a big production (so much butter! Flour everywhere!) because we like to deliver treats to our neighbors and friends, and of course, keep a bunch to enjoy with family.
My favorite sugar cookie recipe includes a little lemon zest and comes from an old Joy of Cooking cookbook, of which a friend took a terrible crooked picture that I printed many years ago. Unbeatable. This year, I also made decadent and delicious sour cream and brandy raisin pound cakes from a Moosewood recipe (which used to be available on their website but no longer). Glad to have this day behind me, and now we get to enjoy!
Hit reply and share your favorite holiday treats with me.
Literary Links
Here are essays and articles I bookmarked this past month:
Has It Ever Been Harder to Make a Living as an Author? — Kate Dwyer, Esquire
The “Ugly” Route to a Beautiful Memoir — Jennifer Cramer-Miller, Brevity Blog
True Crime as Inspiration for Fiction: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly — Margot Harrison, Writer’s Digest
Joyce Carol Oates’s Relentless, Prolific Search for a Self — Rachel Aviv, The New Yorker
Censoring Kids’ Worlds: Laurie Hertzel on the Danger of Banning Books for Children — Laurie Hertzel, Literary Hub
Subplots Can Tighten Your Story’s Saggy Middle — Martha Reed, Killer Nashville
Why You Maybe Shouldn’t Write a Memoir — Arthur C. Brooks, The Atlantic
6 Tips for a Satisfying Short Story Ending — Peter Mountford, Writer’s Digest
How to Successfully Pitch Op-Eds and Timely Cultural Pieces — Estelle Erasmus, JaneFriedman.com
Top Reads!
Instead of my usual “Recent Reads,” I thought I would share my favorite reads of 2023. Below are my “Top 3” in a variety of categories.
Novels
I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai
The Laughter by Sonora Jha
The Quiet Tenant by Clémence Michallon
Mysteries
Happiness Falls by Angie Kim
Kala by Colin Walsh
None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell
Memoirs (couldn’t just pick 3!)
The Leaving Season by Kelly McMasters
Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City by Jane Wong
Tell Me Everything by Erika Krouse
A Heart That Works by Rob Delaney
Newsletters about writing
Before and After the Book Deal by Courtney Maum
Submakk by Rebecca Makkai
Writerly Things by Brooke Warner
Newsletters not about writing
Nedra Nuggets by Nedra Glover Tawwab
The Mother Lode by Cindy DiTiberio
Mad Woman by Amanda Montei
Podcasts about writing (not “reads” but whatever)
Let’s Talk Memoir with Ronit Plank
Writing Stories with Brianna Avenia-Tapper (excellent and launching soon!)
I’d love to know what you enjoyed reading this year!
If you’ve made it this far, thank you. Warm wishes to you and yours for a peaceful holiday season.
Jenny