When Words Matter

About Me

Let's get right to the point:

I'm a semi-proud member of Gen X.
I'm part of the G in LGBTQIA+.
I'm a Gemini with big mentor energy.
I'm Midwestern by birth and residence (currently Minneapolis), but lived for a decade or so on the East Coast and have stepped foot on 5 continents, so far.

What does that mean for you?

It means that I'm honest. Forthright, but with a sense of humor and the ability to slide in and out of language models. Thanks to some great teachers and colleagues, I know my style books and my grammar rules—as well as how (and when) to bend them to fit what is needed.

I should probably mention that I've also been a college English teacher. When I say that I enjoy working with people and helping to shape their writing, I'm definitely not kidding.

And I'm a card-carrying member of both ACES - The American Copy Editors Society and the LGBTQ+ Editors Association. (Actually, I don't have cards for either of those, but I get their emails.)

Black and white image of editor Robert Schmidt

Fiction and memoir are my happy place for editing. I love working with writers to help them craft texts that create new worlds, magnify our personal and shared experiences, and simply tell good stories.

That being said, I've got plenty of experience working with footnotes and endnotes in dissertations and PowerPoint decks. I love finding the through-line in a manuscript and making it sing. And who says an annual report can't do that, too?

And you're probably wondering about that whole "needing a cookie" thing, aren't you?

I've been baking for even longer than I've been writing, I think. Starting in my mom's kitchen in a small town in South Dakota, then progressing to baking Christmas cookies in a tiny oven in Paris, and baking 113 dozen cookies in an apartment-sized oven in Baltimore.

My chocolate chip cookies (actually from the Betty Crocker 1950 Cook Book), have literally gotten me jobs.

Think you might need a snack while waiting for me to work on your edit? I can do that!