At An Event Apart in Boston, I had the pleasure of meeting Hannah Birch from Pro Publica. It turns out that she was a copy editor in a previous life. I began gushing about the pleasure of working with a great editor.
I’ve been lucky enough to work with some of the best. Working with Mandy on HTML5 For Web Designers was wonderful. One of these days I hope to work with Owen Gregory.
When I think back on happy memories of working with world-class editors, I always a remember a Skype call about an article I was writing for The Manual. I talked with my editor for hours about the finer points of wordsmithery, completely losing track of time. It was a real joy. That editor was Carolyn Wood.
Carolyn is going through a bad time right now. A really bad time. A combination of awful medical problems combined with a Kafkaesque labyrinth of health insurance have combined to create a perfect shitstorm. I feel angry, sad, and helpless. At least I can do something about that last part. And you can too.
If you’d like to help, Karen has set up a page for contributing to help Carolyn. If you could throw a few bucks in there, I would appreciate it very much. Thank you.