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Jarelle S. Stein ~ Editor, Writer, Wordsmith
Who better to tell you about her career than Jarelle herself?
In her own words...
"I earned my bachelor's, master's, and PhD in editing and writing from the best university in the land: Time-Life Books. I entered as a copyeditor, graduated to writer and photo researcher, then to editor. My professors came from the ranks of Time and Life magazines and similar publications and had a take-no-prisoners training attitude. I learned from the red ink slashed across my pieces and all the rewriting that followed. And I learned from deciphering, word by word, how editors transformed not-so-bad pieces of mine into energetic, engaging stories that hooked the readers with the first sentence and swept them along to the final period. Those same lessons in writing were also my first in the craft of substantive editing. During my twelve years at TLB, I not only acquired a grounding in the fundamentals of copyediting, writing, and editing but also came to recognize, absorb, and finally practice writing and editing as art."
"Time Life also taught me how, in a very short time, to become a mini-expert on a subject as we had to jump from one to another between books and between series. One month I was writing about haute couture pioneers Ann Lowe and Willi Smith in the series African Americans: Voices of Triumph; the next, I was telling readers, step by step, how to patch drywall and install tongue-and-groove paneling in the Home Repair and Improvement series."
"That particular skill—and in fact all the others—saved my professional bacon when TLB shut down its unique publishing world in 2000 and tossed me upon the world. From Time-Life Books to SteinWords, my own business, and many new subjects to learn!"
In the words of other publishing industry professionals...
“Exacting Edits . . . Sage Advice”
“Jarelle Stein is a writer’s dream editor. She makes exacting edits and offers sage advice, all the while making sure not to step on a writer’s voice. Most importantly, she listens to the writer and strives to bring her vision to life, even if the topic is unfamiliar to her. She is easy to talk to and she keeps the lines of communication open. She also has a killer sense of humor, which is important during the daunting editing process.” —Sharon Biggs Waller, award-winning writer, author of A Mad, Wicked Folly, and coauthor of The Original Horse Bible
“Skills as an Editor and Writer Are Superb . . . Instincts Always Spot-On”
“Jarelle was an editor and writer at Time Life Books. She was an integral part of a team of editors, picture researchers and designers who pooled their efforts to create solid, factually correct, visually interesting,and intriguing books. Jarelle worked with authors, editing to shape the raw chapter material into final copy. And in some cases, she simply started from scratch to create new text copy for sidebars, captions, and essays. She was and is a professional of the highest order, choosing the best turn of phrase, the exact word, the most compelling sentence, to make the text readable, understandable, and enjoyable for the reader. Her skills as an editor and writer are superb and her instincts always spot-on. I have never encountered someone with such a knowledge and understanding of the written word, particularly in the popular published form. I highly recommend Jarelle Stein as a colleague in book publishing.” —Jane A. Martin, owner, The Photo Editor
“Beautifully Organized Book . . . Good Questions”
“I cannot begin to say enough good things about Jarelle’s editing prowess. She took a large, unruly manuscript (my Careers With Dogs) and turned it into a beautifully organized book. She also allowed me the time and space to add even more career profiles to an already bulging book so we could make it the best that it could be. She asked good questions, which helped to clarify information for readers. More important, she was always pleasant and patient to work with. I hope we’ll do another book together one of these days.” —Kim Campbell Thornton, award-winning writer and editor, author of Careers with Dogs
“Deep Knowledge of Language . . . Balancing the Needs of the Writer, Publisher, and Reader”
“Jarelle is a fabulous copyeditor. To work as a copyeditor for the Copyeditingnewsletter, you must have deep knowledge of language and copyediting. You must be able to apply this knowledge flawlessly, balancing the needs of the writer, publisher, and reader. And you must deliver these results on time. Jarelle did all of these things for Copyediting. She was a great asset to our team.” —Erin Brenner, editor of Copyediting
Below is a snapshot of some of the top-notch publications and projects Jarelle had her expert hand in...
