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Apparently when we stress, we ferment, so while @famousadventurer.bsky.social is mead-making, I have decided to make my very own first-time sourdough starter. This hungry little biome of microorganisms just doing their best needed the perfect name, and I think I found it: The Proletariat. ✊🏽

The perfect #stetwalk during a particularly foresty edit. #amediting

Editor folks! Super excited for this today. Can't wait to see you all here. If anyone still misses our bird community, now very much scattered, this is one way to build something new for the flock to gather and share. Pay it forward. Follow @stetchat.com to make sure you don't miss out. #AmEditing

There are no “legitimate concerns” about trans people. There aren’t any about women’s safety or fairness in sports or kids being kids or fucking toilets. If there were you’d have heard of them before 2018. I am a cis white woman so you have to listen to me or I’ll cry.

It's pride month! Hooray. This bisexual would like to point out that trans rights are human rights (more rights for them isn't fewer rights for me, duh) and that I'm more scared of mediocre straight white men in public than drag queens in libraries or trans folks in a bathroom stall.

Hey, I did warn you about the typos. Of course this is where it happened. if*

I'm up before dawn, thanks to feline overlord overreach, so let me tell you a little (a lot) about how brilliant human writers can't be replaced by genAI mediocrity machines, why romance novelists will save us, and how my editorial approach encourages them (the humans, not the evil robots, duh). 📚❤️‍🔥

YOU’RE LISTENING TO SISYPHUS FM, THE HOME OF NON-STOP ROCK

Win: Being asked to proofread a new edition of one of the greatest sci-fi books of all time. Power move: Finding egregious and unambiguous typos in it that have been clinging on since the 1970s. Have I peaked? #AmEditing

Hey newbie editors, unofficially I'm considering starting to offer some kind of fiction-editing mentorship program. Right now I'm in the idea-fleshing-out stage. Mind helping me get a feel for waht people actually want/need? How do you imagine it working? #AmEditing

Hooray! #StetChats are here. This has brought me back to Bluesky after a long time away, mostly because I got logged out on my phone and then got very busy. But here I am! Looking forward to the Stetchats and please bear with me as I catch up on follows/following back. @stetchat.com

In addition to all the editing tools I shared on my blog this week (www.righttouchediting.com/2025/09/11/s...), I've got a collection of of tools created by editors for editors: docs.google.com/spreadsheets.... Check 'em out! #AmEditing

@chicagomanual.bsky.social Are you doing OK? Any ETA on fixing whatever's gone wrong? *tries to soothe the hyperventilating list of deadlines*

Here's Alabaster, #StetPet editorial assistant of Morocco editor @geckoedit.com. "Alabaster's favorite spot in summer is on the deck, on this comfy lounger. That is, when he hasn't spent the day fishing. As long as I keep him supplied with treats and scritches, he's content to leave me to work."

My Bluesky account is becoming an "airing my gripes with M-W" account. I do like @merriam-webster.com, I swear. It's my favorite dictionary. My frustration is more with the inconsistencies of English as it is used than with the people working so hard to descriptively record it. #AmEditing

@merriam-webster.com whyyyy? #AmEditing

No one really cares about the Oxford comma. But... @chicagomanual.bsky.social and @merriam-webster.com, the "begs the question" question begs the question: Does this mean war? Is "begs the question" OK for "invites the question?" Whose side are you on? #PedanticNonsense #AmEditing

I've woken up in a very mentor-y kind of mood. So: If you're a fiction editor at the start of your career, or you're stuck on something editing-related, how can I help? I'm great at answering questions on: - Word styling - client management - CPD - efficiency - SPaG #AskMeAnything #AmEditing

I *totally* helped this happen.

I lived in Mauritius in the nineties, when there was a werewolf scare. The police put a notice in the newspaper saying "The werewolf does not exist, but if you see it, please report it..."

Unsolicited writing advice, no. 17387: The world is filled with writing advice. Some of it is personal, some of it is fairly universal. But advice is only ever advice: all authors are different. And if a method doesn't work for you, or get you the results you need, you don't have to follow it.

Genuinely was surprised that Missing White Woman won the Thriller Award for Best Mystery! A huge thank you to ITV, Tosca, Jean, and all the judges. Congrats to all winners and nominees! Bio has been updated.

Come join me on July 14 for some real story nerd stuff – there will be charts and spreadsheets and templates! #AmEditing

Of the many things I resent about the last decade, toward the top of the list is the way my jaw clenches whenever I think of Anne Frank's "I still believe that people are really good at heart."

The unique millennial slow-boiling panic at never having done nuclear bomb drills and being too poor (and disillusioned) thanks to the myriad of economy-crashing and totally avoidable yet unprecedented events to be preppers. #WhatHasHeDoneNow

Fluffy cat tummies. Let's go! #Catsky

My latest @theguardian.com Books cartoon

Who'd have thought that in the twenty-first century we'd excitedly volunteer—even pay—to put ourselves in virtual panopticons to improve our own productivity? #AmCoworking #Zoom #VirtualCoworking #CapitalistDystopia

This is why you don't get invited to parties, M-W. Why is one closed and the other open?

Just looked up whether "butt cheeks" is an open or closed compound because this is my professional, grown-up job. #AmEditing

The two rules that I wish I could impose on authors (and people upstream from me, like acquisitions and developmental editors) are two sides of the same coin: 1. The author should finish writing before copyediting begins. 2. The author should stop writing and rewriting after copyediting starts.

Any second now, a handyman is going to come and caulk my deck. Hard to get any work done with distractions like that. #AmTryingToEdit

Sorry I'm late for work. My cat wanted to hold my hand. #StetPet

Whoever edited the continuity fever dream/nightmare that is Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Memory, you are a god of editing and I hope you've recovered. My brain hurts but I'm here for the ride. #AmReading 📚💙

I've caught the holey trinity of errors today and it's not even lunch time yet. shit ➡ shirt arse ➡ ass (specifically a donkey) backside ➡ back side #AmEditing

I considered not fixing my own typo in some alt text I was writing just to bring a bit of joy to the client's day. "Long-sleeved shit" #AmEditing #AmWriting #AltText

Congratulations to Deepa Bhasthi and Banu Mushtaq, winners of this year’s International Booker Prize. We’re hugely honoured to publish HEART LAMP. Our deepest thanks to the judges and, indeed, to all of you who have read and loved this extraordinary collection.

I'm very excited to share this...for the past couple of months, I've been working on a Radio documentary about Doctor Who, the LGBTQ+ Community, and Wales. 📷 BBC Radio Wales: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m... * Monday at 18:30 * Tuesday at 06:31 * Sunday at 19:00

It's not smut if you haven't used the words "feral" and "pistoning". #AmEditing

I don't 'refuse to use' AI, I just don't use AI; in the same way that I don't shoplift, or plagiarise other people's books - it requires no effort of will, it's just not something I would think of doing

Editor struggle #5433: Managing tenses and timelines when editing time travel stories. Ooer, my brane. #AmEditing #ScienceFiction

Mayday = HELP ME May Day = Help me... pick these flowers

7 basic things every professionally trained proofreader should be fixing before they dive into the manuscript: - two spaces to one - straights to curlies - ^l to ^p - inconsistent . . . - manual tabs - spaces around dashes - missing, wrong, and mixed ' ' and " " #AmEditing #HireAProfessional

Have you given your cat an ice cube today? #Catsky 🐈

I'm going to need therapy to process the relentless and exquisite onslaught of all the feels from this manuscript I'm proofreading. #amediting

I have no interest in that TERF who should rot in her moldy castle & leave people alone. And by now, anyone who's willingly signed on to work with her knows exactly what they're supporting. Shame on them. I certainly won't be watching whatever dreck she has hurked up.

People ask me what tech I use to create my meticulously structured novels. Well, here, for example is the tech behind Authority.