I’m Eliza Dee, the editor behind Clio Editing Services. I’m a lifelong word nerd and foreign language freak. I was that child who read the dictionary for fun, and the only thing that’s changed is that I have more dictionaries now! I hold both bachelor’s (University of Michigan) and master’s degrees in English.
Before becoming an editor, I did stints as a law student and a student of library science. I’ve also been a college composition instructor, a writing center administrator, and a writing tutor, experiences which are reflected in the educational approach I take to my editing. Before switching to fiction editing, I spent over ten years editing academic writing. While I still edit documents of various types, I’m thrilled to work primarily with indie fiction authors these days. Fiction is my first love, and I love helping authors to produce high-quality self-published titles.
Since becoming a freelance fiction editor, I’ve edited over 600 titles and plan to edit thousands more.
To me, fiction editing is somewhere in between an art, a craft, and a science, and I am as passionate about the technical aspects of language as I am about the art of storytelling. I love seeing my authors improve over the course of our relationship.
Fun facts:
1) I’m a natural born editor. I taught myself to read at age four and, by age six, I was compulsively providing (unwanted) edits to the notes my friends passed in class. I also marked up all my storybooks and comics whenever I caught an error. I remember being so excited to learn that editing was an actual job! Though I’ve always been drawn to writing, I’ve always been even more strongly compelled to improve the writing of others.
2) I’m both a lit geek and a word nerd: in college, on top of my literature coursework, I also studied creative writing, linguistics, English grammar, and ten foreign languages, including Spanish, French, German, Russian, Greek, Latin, Medieval Latin, and Old English. (Somehow, I still managed to graduate in four and a half years…) The oddest language I ever studied, though, had to be Middle Egyptian. Though I don’t edit novels written in hieroglyphs, my knowledge of assorted foreign languages is frequently useful to my editing work. I love to make sure your Latin incantations and German swear words are up to snuff (pro tip: do not trust Google Translate for languages you don’t know yourself).
3) My first genre fiction loves were Anne Rice and Stephen King. It’s been hilarious watching them progress from much-maligned destroyers of literary culture to genre fiction gods to be emulated by all. I still love any genre fiction with a strong speculative element.
4) More facts to come as I think of them!
Please use the contact form below to reach me if you’re seeking editing services and think we may work well together—or you can e-mail me at eliza (at) clioediting.com.