The Invisible Art of Literary Editing

by Bryan Furuness, Sarah Layden

A field guide to the trade and art of editing, this book pulls back the curtain on the day-to-day responsibilities of a literary magazine editor in their role, and to the specific skills necessary to read, mark-up and transform a piece of writing. Combining a break-down of an editor's tasks – including creating a vision, acquisitions, responding to submissions and corresponding with authors – with a behind-the-scenes look at manuscripts in progress, the book rounds up with a test editing section that teaches, by way of engaging exercises, the nitty-gritty strategies and techniques for working on all kinds of texts. Generous in its insight and access to practicing editors' annotations and thought processes, The Invisible Art of Literary Editing offers an exclusive look at nonfiction, fiction and poetry manuscripts as they were first submitted, as they were marked up by an editor and how the final piece was presented before featuring an interview with the editor on the choices they made about that piece of work, as well as their philosophies and working practices in their job.

As a skill and a trade learnt through practice and apprenticeship, this is the ultimate companion to editing any piece of work, offering opportunities for learning-by-doing through exercises, reflections and cases studies, and inviting readers to embody the role of an editor to improve their craft and demystify the processes involved in this exciting and highly coveted profession.

Genres: Nonfiction

152 pages, Paperback

Published March 9, 2023

About the author

Author of a couple of novels: THE LOST EPISODES OF REVIE BRYSON and DO NOT GO ON.

Editor of AN INDIANA CHRISTMAS and MY NAME WAS NEVER FRANKENSTEIN: AND OTHER CLASSIC ADVENTURE TALES REMIXED and co-editor (with Michael Martone) of WINESBURG, INDIANA.

Lives in Indy, teaches at Butler, believes that breakfast burritos are the perfect food.

Reviews

[Jennifer Pullen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm so glad this book exists. A practical and useful guide for teaching college student lit. mag editors the art of editing.

[Riley McCall · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was actually super helpful in terms of showing examples of other editors marking up manuscripts. It was really nice having multiple examples to compare my own editing to, and it gave me a good idea of how to improve my editing. I honestly wish there was more discussion at the beginning of the book about tips and tricks for editing since the voice of the book was so excellent, but I did appreciate the conciseness of the book.

[Eliot_vibes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't had the best experiences with books like when they've been assigned to me in the past. Either I haven't been able to focus on it or I just couldn't process it at all. I have not had that experience with this book. I want to work on small publications or even start up my own collective zines at some point, so this book genuinely feels like such a delightful help with that goal. Def recommend it if you want to try to get into copy editing and or do your own sort of publication.

[Karissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

as the title implies, editing is an overlooked skill, as editors often remain in the shadow of the writer. i'm interested in becoming an editor, so this is a helpful source material, and i appreciated the examples it provided.

[Eric Boles]

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