FAQs
- How did you get started doing this type of work?
I fell in love at age seven -- with a miniature typewriter! From that moment on, I knew I was a gadget girl -- I got that from my dad. But my mom was a "word" person, and a big reader, and I was a voracious reader myself by the time I was in second grade. So, basically, I loved gadgets and I loved words and books. Put these traits together, and you have a person who loves to typeset, work in darkrooms with big cameras, use all kinds of tools in a print shop, write newspaper articles and feature stories and design and layout magazines and books. Add in a love of words and writing, and you have a writer/editor/designer on your hands! Through the years, all my work -- all my jobs -- have been in one of these areas, sometimes more than one at a time. And now, with all the tools I need available on one computer -- the greatest gadget of all! -- I can do it all as a freelancer -- and I do!
- What types of customers have you worked with?
I do everything from helping a client with a writing project, to editing their short stories, novels and web content, to designing business collateral materials, writing ad copy, and helping them publish manuscripts and magazines. I do some light web design on a case by case basis.
- Describe a recent project you are fond of. How long did it take?
I recently designed, edited and oversaw the printing of a 300-page, four-color coffee table book for the American Polar Society. It was in celebration of the organization's 75th anniversary and contained excerpts from each issue (around 150 issues in total) of the APS in-house magazine, "The Polar Times," which began publication in 1936. Because the magazine was printed in black and white until around the year 2000, the trick was to make the first three-quarters of the book attractive with some kind of application of color around all the black and white content. The later years were fairly easy, as color opportunities went. But the first 75% of the book had to be handled carefully so that it didn't simply look like one big black-and-white catalog. The finished product was beautiful -- glossy, gorgeous cover, silky smooth pages, and tons of photographs and interesting story excerpts. It was very well received by the organization. I continue with this organization (as I have for the last 20 years) as their production editor, producing two 40-page full-color magazines a year and doing content and line editing as well as page design and layout, plus supervising the printing.