Hi! My name is Larissa, and I’d like to take a moment to introduce myself.
What started my appreciation for both word usage and decent editing was probably a result of a small, albeit significant quote from one my favourite scripts. It’s from Tom Stoppard’s play/movie, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead:
“Words, words. They’re all we have to go on.”
There is so much truth in those two little sentences.
Our words are important.
They communicate our ideas, thoughts, fears, plans, and dreams, and we need them to be clear.
So whether it’s working on the structure of your novel or the instructions for your cookbook recipes—or even if it’s helping you finesse your flash piece—I’d love to help you achieve that clarity.
Or maybe you need a final proofread before you hit “Publish” on your blog or website. I can do that too. Because not only are words important, how you punctuate them is, as well.
Reading has always been a passion of mine (and honestly, you have to love reading to love editing)—as has writing. I’ve been previously published in Arc Poetry Magazine, online at 50-Word Stories, Friday Flash Fiction, and Scribes *Micro* Fiction, will be in the upcoming Blink-Ink and Literary Taxidermy anthologies, and also had success in a smattering of flash fiction and short story contests.
While I’m not a prolific story teller by any stretch of the imagination, I do like to mess about with the short form as often as I can.
What are your other credentials? you ask—i.e., the important things that might convey to you that your writing is being put into good hands? Well, I have a bachelor’s degree in English from Trinity Western University, an Editing Certificate diploma from Simon Fraser University, and have completed the “High Level Proofreading Pro” from Edit Republic and the “General Proofreading: Theory & Practice” courses from Proofread Anywhere.
I am also very proud to be a volunteer editor with both the 101 Words editing team and the Distributed Proofreaders‘ “Project Gutenberg” team.
And while it’s not a certifiable credential, I also like to think that understanding what it takes to get the writing from heart and head to final draft is also a very important quality to have.