Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2002 19:10:12 -0500 From: "Michael Walsh" <MJW at mail.press.jhu.edu> To: <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net> Subject: [WSFA] Re: A Short Editing Screed . . . [WSFA] Re: Anvil & Flint Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net> > tedwhite at compusnet.com 03/24/02 06:21PM my own prose excised . . . >As the occasional victim of bad editing (the worst was a copyeditor at = Signet, >who changed a character saying "From space, my planet looks browner = than >yours," >to "...my universe looks browner than yours" -- and we all know now that = the >universe is, what? Beige?), I can only offer heartfelt agreement with = what >you've said. > >Like Campbell, I've worked both sides of the fence, and as an editor I = always >appreciated good writers: they require the least editing. (I was the >copyeditor on Ursula LeGuin's LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS. I changed >maybe three >words in the course of that novel -- and queried them all.) Of all the = major SF >writers I've edited/copyedited, I liked Brian Aldiss least. > >--Ted White Other than catching a minor problem in The Father of Stones (WSFA Press, = 1989) by Lucius Shepard, my ability to "edit" is problematic and I leave = it to Those Who Know More. mjw