Deanna Hoak

I just got a thank-you note from Matt Sturges for the copyediting I did on his wonderful book Office of Shadow, forthcoming from Pyr, and thought I’d share:
Just finished reviewing your edit and wanted to tell you thanks for doing such a fine job. You made some really clever catches there, such as noticing that [...]

I copyedited or am slated to copyedit almost a third of the books listed on Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist as the most anticipated SFF titles of 2010.
Yes, I do get to work on some great stuff. :-D

Wow, two posts in a day! I told you I was going to pick it up. :-)
I came across this post in praise of copyeditors while Twittering “copyediting” and had to share with you. I particularly love the author’s description of how authors feel when they get a copyedited manuscript back:
It was like getting dressed [...]

I found a video called “The Copy Editor’s Lament” on YouTube today. It’s aimed at the newspaper industry (fiction copyeditors don’t go about killing adjectives :-)), but the lyrics are pretty amusing. Freelancers can’t be laid off, obviously, but publishers are finding ways to cut back on copyediting costs regardless. I read a wonderful post [...]

The past week has been lovely for me, with wonderful words from authors whose books I’ve worked on. Michael and Kathleen Gear, whom I’ve copyedited for many years now, told me that I’d done a wonderful job on their latest book and said that they told their editor they “cherish” me as a copyeditor. They’re [...]

Polite and charming fantasy author Peter V. Brett, whom I hung out with quite a bit at World Fantasy and who has a three-book deal with Del Rey right now (any authors putting off writing for any reason have to read his post about writing his first novel on his cell phone, with his thumbs), [...]

The nominee list for the Hugos is out. Grats to everyone on it! I’m partial to Ian McDonald’s Brasyl, myself, since I got to copyedit it and enjoyed it a lot. If you’re interested in a rollicking, stylistic ride of a read, I’d urge you to check it out. :-)
I’m off to the IAFA con [...]

All right. I was told by an acquaintance today that my site is “cobwebby” (which I knew). I’ve had more than 100 hits in the last hour to that frosting recipe I posted, and while I don’t mind the traffic, I’d rather be getting hits for my publishing information. I know I’ve been awful about [...]

David Louis Edelman has posted (with my permission) an IM conversation he and I had this morning, as I was copyediting his novel MultiReal. I love it when I get to communicate with an author in real time during the copyediting process, because I think the back-and-forth helps clarify matters better than a simple query.

Brenda Coulter has an interesting post over at Romancing the Blog about mistakes authors make when their characters are addressing British peerage. A lot of fantasy uses the same titles, so I think many here will find it enlightening.