Hannah Brady

I didn't know I wanted to be an editor until I was one--and had been for about ten years.

 

I began my editing career in the ninth grade, where I worked as teacher's assistant for my English teacher. My responsibilities included grading tests and correcting short assignments for about twenty students. Later in high school I took classes at the local junior college, where I was again drafted by my English professor to be his assistant. My editing duties were broader this time, encompassing not only tests and short assignments but also essays and major exams.

 

After graduating high school I attended Simpson University in Redding, California. I think I took every writing class they offered, which included Journalism. I worked on the school newspaper, first as a reporter and eventually as managing editor. My duties as managing editor included editing articles for multiple reporters, assisting the layout team in arranging the newspaper content, correcting proofs before the paper went to publication, and working with the editor-in-chief to ensure that deadlines were met and that the writing and content met journalistic standards. I started to sense a pattern in my life, as during this time my English professor also asked me to work as his assistant. In addition to all the duties my previous teacher's assistant roles had entailed (editing and grading essays, assignments, and exams for classes), I also proctored and corrected the English Proficiency Exams (mandatory for all undergraduates to pass before graduation), researched various topics for my instructor’s use in his classes, and reviewed my professor’s dissertation, which included checking a typed copy against the original hard copy.

 

After graduating from Simpson with a BA in English I moved to Bakersfield. Shortly after my move I began working for Fred DeRuvo, owner and founder of Study-Grow-Know, and to date I have edited more than sixteen of his books. It was about this time that I put a name to what I had been doing and realized something very important: I was an editor, and editing is what I had really wanted to do my whole life. I had grown up wishing that there were some sort of job in which people would pay me to read books, but alas! that sort of thing was just too good to be true. You may be wondering by now if I am just a little slow in the head, but editing had been so natural and enjoyable for me and had always come so easily that I never thought that I could actually get paid to do it. Until this time editing had been either part of a class assignment or disguised under the title of "teacher's assistant." I had never thought of actually pursuing it as a career. This realization set me off on my professional editing track, and since that time I have edited college essays, doctoral theses, nonfiction books and fiction novels (most recently the first two books of Nadege Chouteau's The Guardians of Hayden series). I greatly enjoy editing, and I hope to be able to continue to do so for years to come.