May 2022

Hey, friends. It's difficult to be writing a newsletter when there's so much grief on our hearts. I don't understand how we can expect anyone to function as "normal" in the wake of these tragedies—even more so when there are so many. I hope you're all able to be gentle with yourselves and each other as you grieve, as you go about mundane tasks, as you organize. Community care is essential both for healing and for building a better world.

I haven't talked about Wildwood's values here yet, but community is one of them, so I thought I'd spend some time in this month's newsletter sharing how that shows up for me in business. I do have a few updates to share from May too, as I slowly move toward some stable ground after months of some hearty uncertainty.

Liminal spaces—between tragedy and justice, our past and future selves, the unknown and the next unknown—can be uncomfortable and scary. I'm also finding they never really end: they just evolve. If you're struggling with the in-betweens too, feel free to pull up a chair and sit with me as we get as comfortable as we can in the unknowing of it all. When it's hard to see the way forward on our own, maybe we can hold a light for each other. 

Good News

I've been holding a lot of heartbreak and rage, but there are good things happening to recognize and celebrate, too. Some professional and personal updates:

• Long overdue and extremely deserved editor promotions at Paizo! Avi Kool is our first-ever Lead Editor, and Patrick Hurley and Ianara Natividad are our newest Senior Editors. Everyone on the editing team is both an amazing human and a talented editor and I'm so happy they're being recognized.
• Speaking of the editing team, Paizo will be hiring two new editors soon! Keep an eye out for the full job description and posting here or on social media. As a contractor I won't be involved in the hiring process, but I have taken the editing test and worked with the team full-time for over a year, so if you have any questions about the job or application, please let me know! And please pass this on to other editors; we want to reach interested candidates of all backgrounds.
• I'm speaking on my first panel for the virtual Editors Canada conference this weekend! I'm joining Tanya Gold, Ryan Penk, and our moderator Genevieve Clovis to talk about interactive storytelling.
• After 2+ months, 40+ tours, and 3 competitive offers, my spouse and I finally got an accepted offer on a house! 80% of my stress has evaporated now that I'm not frantically scouring listings each week, and we can't wait to be homeowners (and take on all the stresses of that stage, ha).
• I found a new favorite breakfast spot with friends during their recent visit. If you're in Portland sometime, check out Fried Egg I'm In Love. I had the Yolko Ono sandwich with aioli and yes, it's so good I had to put it on this list. Breakfast is good news.
• Still not quite sure where the year has gone, but it's my birthday this weekend. There will be hiking and cupcakes. :)

Wildwood might be a solo business, but it is in partnership with—and in service to—authors, readers, other editors, publishers, artists, activists, and our wider communities. Good storytelling takes collaboration. (As my favorite local donut shop says, “Community, not competition.” Thanks, Pip’s!)

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In practice, for Wildwood this looks like:

• Offering referrals to other brilliant editors if I’m unavailable or not the right fit for a client

• A resolute commitment to conscious language, inclusivity, education, and harm reduction

• Striving to make my work accessible by offering custom quotes and volunteer work when possible

• Investing in the community through mentorship and ongoing donations to aligned causes

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I've written more about Wildwood 's values (which also include courage and creativity) for my new website, which is so close to ready! I'll share the link in an upcoming issue.

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This particular value is a big evolution for me. I grew up fiercely proud of my independence as an only child, and if you'd asked me about my personal values a few years ago, that would've been number one. As the veil lifted and I learned about American culture's hyper-individualism, I saw "self-sufficiency" in a new light and reconsidered whether that was a healthy (or even possible) way to live. I'm so grateful my perspective has shifted for many reasons, including the fact that I'm now so much more conscious of the communities I'm a part of.

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In Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer discusses a view of living and being in relationship to one another and to the earth that is vastly different from systems based in capitalism and individualism. Scarcity drives value in the "free market" economy. "Private property," whether land or goods, is considered a right. We paid for it; we owe nothing. No trespassing.

Indigenous cultures, Robin counters, see things differently. Rather than entitlement, we have obligations. Gifts—including our own talents, the earth's resources, and the land itself—come with responsibilities. Giving and receiving is a reciprocal relationship. You can read more in this excerpt from chapter 3 on strawberries, though I recommend reading (or listening to!) the whole book.

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Mariame Kaba teaches the importance of collective action in her work, including in her book We Do This 'Til We Free Us on abolitionist organizing. She says she learned from her father growing up that "everything worthwhile is done with others." She speaks to this further in an interview for Adi Magazine: 

"He always told me, 'You have a responsibility to live in this world. Your responsibility is not just to yourself. You are connected to everyone.' [...] You may think that you’re alone, but you’re never actually alone. This was really important because at a very young age that made me understand the importance of collectivity, and that we can’t do anything alone that’s worth it. Everything worthwhile is done with other people."

Editing is an art, and there's rarely, if ever, one correct way to edit something. Context, audience, and author voice play a large role in deciding what to change and how to change it. Below are a few examples of possible ways to make a sentence or paragraph smoother to read—but trimming words might not be the best choice in all circumstances.

For example, in the sentence above, maybe "these" refers to a tool that's critical to Joy's learning process or that plays a larger role in the story, and we don't want to cut it out entirely. (In that case, maybe we'd go with "Joy has been using these to familiarize herself...")

This one's adapted from a TTRPG module. I originally flagged the passage for "workmanship," an unnecessarily gendered term we can avoid with more conscious language ("The quality of the chambers..."). Earlier passages had already noted that certain levels of the underground temple had been built by the inner echelon, so it didn't feel necessary to repeat.

Neither of the original statements are wrong, and other editors—or even in another context, I myself—might have chosen to "stet" them (leave them as originally written). Sometimes you don't want the "cleaner" sentence. Sometimes repeating a fact lends it weight or emphasis (or reminds the person running the game of something they may have forgotten from an earlier chapter). If we cut all our prose down to the most efficient possible conveyance, stories would be very dry to read.

It's important to be aware of how your writing flows, and intentional with your choices. So as always, take what works for you and leave the rest!