Fact and Fiction Editing

Introduction: We are Joel and Marta and we’ve been writing, editing and teaching since “cut and paste” literally involved scissors and a pot of glue! Joel has a 35-year career in community journalism in Tennessee, Maryland and Virginia. He has written and edited it all as a reporter for 15 years and an editor for 20. Marta is a fiction writer and writing professor at Temple University. She holds an MFA in fiction writing and has worked extensively with fiction and nonfiction writers as a copy and developmental editor. She also holds a JD from Temple University Law School, where she served as the articles editor of the Temple Law Review. We have experience writing, editing, and teaching in a broad range of genres—fiction, memoir, essays, legal writing, scholarly and academic writing, research papers, narrative nonfiction, journalism, technical writing, public relations material, web content, social media, press releases, blog posts—and if we haven’t already worked in your genre, we are eager to learn! We love collaborating with writers to help them produce polished, professional work that is clear, compelling, and precise. We believe it is not our job to refashion your unique voice as a writer, but rather to coach your voice to its best and fullest expression of itself. In this way, we think of editing as both a substantive service (you will have a clean, professional manuscript when we are done) and a teaching opportunity (you will understand yourself better as a writer after working with us).