Editing by Elizabeth

April 11, 2014

Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat Graphic Novel Kickstarter Campaign

It’s no secret that I love the hell out of anything and everything Andrez Bergen is involved with. In fact, his novel Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat (TSMG) is one of my all-time favorite reads.

With one foot planted firmly in a futuristic world where Seekers—people employed by the government to hunt down so-called Deviants for what is euphemistically called “hospitalization”—routinely undergo Matrix-like virtual reality “tests” to ensure they are still in the fold and capable of carrying out company orders, TSMG manages to simultaneously have its other foot rooted in an authentic, throwback, hardboiled detective vibe. And it is in that fuzzy blending of post-apocalyptic and old-school noir that TSMG carves out what is one of the most wonderfully unique books I’ve had the pleasure to read.

Needless to say, when Andrez told me he was doing a Kickstarter campaign to fund a graphic novel version of the story in collaboration with Fée Romney I was overjoyed. If you’ve had the pleasure of reading Andrez’s work (One Hundred Years of Vicissitude, Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa?), I hope you’ll get behind this campaign. As you know with these things, every little bit helps. →

March 28, 2014

Writing Comics: A Newbie’s Perspective by Christopher Irvin

I originally met Chris Irvin when I steered some graphic novels I had on my hands but wasn’t interested in his way. So in that regard, I guess I’ve always known he was into comics. Most of my interaction with him, however, has revolved around his crime fiction, both his short stories and his recently released novella, Federales. But when it came time for Chris to do a guest post in support of Federales, we thought it’d be interesting if he explored a slightly different side of writing, one many authors never think about: how to write for comics. So without further ado, here’s Chris on comics. (But do go buy a copy of Federales!)

I’ve been a fan of comics since I was young, collecting shiny Fleer trading cards and staring wide-eyed at the explosion of comics in the early-90’s (yes, that young.) I drew a lot as well, though that petered off as I got older and began to see true talent in those around me.

Skip forward a couple of decades and I’m knee deep in prose, working on short stories and a novella. But I’ve still got that itch to work on a comic. I sign up for a class on graphic novels at Grubstreet in Boston, taught by Katherine Roy and Tim Stout, who inspire me to work on mini-comics (four, six, eight page stories) and I’m off to the races.

Taking a cue from Dark Horse Presents, who run eight page stories/chapters, I write an eight page comic entitled, EXPATRIATE, about an American criminal who flees to Rio de Janeiro in the shadow of the coming 2016 Summer Olympics. The pages sit for a while, Boston Comic Con is postponed from April to August due to the marathon bombing, and I stumble into Ricardo Lopez Ortiz, a fantastic artist out of Brooklyn. I’ve sworn off purchasing a commission prior to going in, but I dig his art so much I pull the trigger anyway and he sketches a killer head shot of Judge Dredd for me.

Fast forward again a few months and I’ve been able to somehow rope Ricardo into this crazy project, which has now bloomed into a five issue mini-series. Fingers crossed, with a little blood and sweat and a lot of luck, this might turn into something. →

March 03, 2014

Federales by Christopher Irvin

The Internet is a strange and wonderful place. I originally met Chris Irvin when I found myself with some graphic novels on my hands I wasn’t interested in and asked around on Twitter to see who may want them. Chris took me up on the offer, and from there we did the Facebook friend thing and started getting to know each other better.

Despite working as an editor himself at Shotgun Honey, Chris is a smart enough guy to know it’s always wise to have someone else look at your own work, so he reached out to me to look at a few short stories he’d written. One thing lead to another, and at this point I’m proud to call Chris a regular editing client and someone I’ve worked with on numerous projects.

So, I was particularly happy when I learned one of those projects, a novella entitled Federales, had been picked up as the debut publication for the One Eye Press singles series. Federales officially drops tomorrow (ISBN: 978-0615916545), but here’s what people who’ve had a sneak peek have been saying about it:

“Christopher Irvin’s FEDERALES is an absolute gut-punch of a novella. The story of one man’s search for redemption and justice within a Mexican system that has long-forgotten the meaning of either will haunt you long after the last page is turned.” — Todd Robinson, author of The Hard Bounce

“FEDERALES is a sweaty, feverish sojourn into a fetid limb of the Mexican drug war, where sentiment, principles and fellow feeling have no place. Christopher Irvin’s read will carry you swiftly through to the fitting end.” — Sam Hawken, CWA Dagger Awards-nominated author of The Dead Women of Juárez →

February 28, 2014

Where Would We Be Without Imagination? by Stephen Paul

I’m pleased to welcome Stephen Paul to the blog today. I had the pleasure of working with Stephen on his debut novel, The Perfect Game, a fast-paced supernatural thriller involving a little baseball, a little science, a little sleuthing, and a lot of fun. And while I enjoy working on every manuscript I get the opportunity to help an author bring to life, it’s a special treat when one involves matters which are actually new and enlightening for me in the process—and I definitely wasn’t up on things like Rupert Sheldrake’s theory of morphic resonance prior to working with Stephen on The Perfect Game! But, as Stephen discusses in his guest post, that’s part of the power of imagination in action.

Lately, evolution has been on my mind. The whole notion that every single one of our attributes stems from a necessary purpose fascinates me. But what about imagination—the cornerstone of the inventor, the necessary tool for the artist, and the life-blood of a writer? What survival element did imagination possess that allowed it to flourish into what it is today?

A quick Google search provides a host of answers. I’ll go with the one from Richard Dawkins because it seems pretty easy to grasp. Dawkins, the atheist-extraordinaire, opines that imagination started out as simulation processes helping our ancestors avoid physical trial and error and then exploded in leaps and bounds.

Although I get where he’s coming from, as imagining the pain one might experience from falling off a cliff would definitely do the trick in teaching our ancestors not to fall off cliffs, it’s the explosion by leaps and bounds part that puzzles me. What evolutionary purpose allowed creative imagination to flourish in a way that resulted in Salvador Dali’s paintings or Stephen King’s books? How did we go from using imagination to avoid falling off cliffs to creating paintings about melting clocks and stories about killer cars and dogs? →

February 01, 2014

The Perfect Game

“I cannot say enough good things about working with Elizabeth. She is not only an amazing talent with a great eye for detail and tone, but provides a perfect mix of professionalism, passion and care throughout what is often a grueling process. For every four and five star review my book has received, and for every time someone has remarked about its strong writing, I know I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Elizabeth for her impeccable touch.” — Stephen Paul

—

Whether your manuscript is in the early stages and you’d like significant developmental input, you’re almost ready to query and are looking for someone to do a final copyedit, or anywhere in-between, I can help. For testimonials from authors with whom I have worked, as well as more detailed information about my editing services, please click here.

January 20, 2014

Country Hardball by Steve Weddle

Writing fiction isn’t easy. Lord knows it’s not. And while it may seem counterintuitive to some, it’s always been my contention that writing short stories is actually more difficult than writing a full-length novel—there’s less wiggle room, less time to hem and haw instead of getting right to the point. For my money, it takes a special kind of skill to really do short stories justice.

That Steve Weddle chose to present his debut full-length work, Country Hardball, as a novel-in-stories was truly ambitious. That he made it work is extremely gratifying, though not a surprise to anyone who’s followed Weddle’s writing over the years at places like the Do Some Damage blog and in collections such as Protectors, First Shift, Both Barrels, Off The Record, and D*cked.

The eighteen stories in Country Hardball all take place in a small town along the Louisiana/Arkansas line. Various characters appear throughout the collection, as bit players in some of the stories, taking center stage in others. The most common denominator is Roy Alison, a man whose life seemed destined to run off the rails almost from the jump.

After spending over ten years in and out of juvie, jail and halfway houses, Roy eventually makes his way back to his small hometown, ready to finally make something of his life. Only, the town was never much to begin with with, and the decade Roy’s been away has left the working-class community hit hard by the downturn in the economy. Still, like the other residents of the town, Roy is determined to make the best of things, and thus sets about putting one foot in front of the other the best he can. →

January 17, 2014

Penance / Greed by Dan O’Shea

I came to read Dan O’Shea’s first two Detective Lynch novels in a roundabout, backward way, as did a lot of people who’ve been longtime fans of Dan’s work. You see, the second book in the series, Greed, was actually “published” first. As Dan explains more fully in his recent guest post, the book, originally called The Gravity of Mammon, was written and shared as a sort of online exercise on Dan’s part.

Then the whole voodoo process that is queries and submissions and publishers and contracts unfolded in its mysterious way and, voilà, the first Detective Lynch thriller was now a book called Penance and Mammon had become Greed. However it all came to pass, they are both kick-ass reads.

Penance is truly a marvel of plotting, in which O’Shea weaves together two parallel stories which take place over 40 years apart in Chicago. Our contemporary guide, Detective John Lynch, is second generation law enforcement, his father having been killed in the line of duty when Lynch was still young.

At the story’s outset, Lynch is drawn into the puzzling case of an elderly woman who was gunned down from long range by a sniper as she left church. Hardly the type of victim one would expect to find on the end of a world-caliber shot, it soon becomes apparent there is something much more complex at work. As it turns out, the sniper is a member of an off-the-books government black ops agency, and he’s gone a bit rogue. →

January 16, 2014

Full Throttle by Sam Hawken

For my money, Sam Hawken is one of the most underrated authors working in crime fiction today. His first novel, The Dead Women of Juárez, is a hard-hitting story which uses the real-life tragedy of female homicides in the Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez as its backdrop. It made my Top 10 Reads of 2012 and, more notably, was shortlisted by the Crime Writers’ Association for the John Creasy ‘New Blood’ Dagger.

Sam’s second novel, the equally stark Tequila Sunset, also set in Ciudad Juárez and its sister city, El Paso, Texas, was once again recognized by the Crime Writers’ Association, this time nominated for the Gold Dagger—aka best crime novel of the year! Despite the man’s obvious and undeniable skill, however, he remains criminally under the radar for most mainstream readers.

So when I had the opportunity to work with Sam—who has previously dropped by the blog for a guest post and whose self-published Juárez Dance I have reviewed—I jumped at the chance to edit his Camaro Espinoza omnibus, Full Throttle: The Collected Camaro.

Previously released as four separate novellas (Camaro Run, Crossfire, The Drum and Sisters in Arms), Full Throttle collects all the rollicking Camaro adventures to date in one edition. As always, it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to actually review something I’ve worked on, so here’s what a few authors and publishers have had to say about the Camaro Espinoza stories: →

January 14, 2014

The Collector Series by Chris Holm

This article I wrote originally appeared in All Due Respect Issue #1: Featuring Chris F. Holm. The issue includes a brand-new short from Holm titled “A Dying Art,” and Holm also sat down with fellow author Steve Weddle (Country Hardball) to talk all things writing. Round it out with more fiction from Todd Robinson, Renee Asher Pickup, Paul D. Brazill, Travis Richardson, Mike Miner, and Walter Conley and this is a publication you need to pick up if you haven’t already.

Those who’ve read author Chris Holm’s accomplished work in the short story format are well-aware of how talented a writer the man is. He’s been an Anthony Award nominee, a Derringer Award finalist, and his short story collections, 8 Pounds and Dead Letters: Stories of Murder and Mayhem, were met with universal praise from readers. Yet, despite all that, I was still completely blown away by the tour de force that is The Collector Series, in which Holm takes a pinch of fantasy, a little supernatural, a dash of hardboiled crime fiction, and blends them into a pitch-perfect adventure in a way that is nothing short of authorial alchemy.

Things haven’t shaken out Sam Thornton’s way for quite some time. Driven by desperation and good intentions, Sam made a very bad decision many decades ago. And you know what they say about good intentions…yeah, the road to Hell. Thing is, Sam didn’t make it all the way down that road, but got detoured into Purgatory and shanghaied into eternal employment as a soul collector—if your time has come and the powers that be have marked you for damnation, it’s Sam’s job to remove your soul and send it on its way to hell.

In Dead Harvest, the first book in the series, Sam is assigned to collect Kate MacNeil’s soul. At first blush it seems like a no-brainer since the young woman was caught red-handed, literally, having just butchered her family. However, upon attempting to collect Kate’s soul Sam is met with an outpouring of purity so overwhelming he’s convinced she didn’t commit the crime, that she’s been improperly marked for damnation. However, one does not simply refuse to collect the assigned soul. It’s never happened in the history of, well, ever. Failure to collect Kate’s soul is sure to seriously piss off the denizens of Hell who’ve claimed it. On the other hand, improperly sending a pure soul to Hell for damnation could touch off a war with Heaven. →

Editing Services

Featured Reviews & Interviews

Anticipated Reads