About me

Amanda has been editing since 2013 but started Bear Essentials Editing in early 2017 after coming up with the perfect bear-based pun. Despite still working to build a professional portfolio, Amanda has been editing and critiquing writing since she was a teenager. She even got an English degree to better develop those skills as a writer and editor.

As an editor, writer, and freelance copywriter, Amanda has worked on newsletters, audio transcripts, websites for small businesses, traditional transcribing, newsletters, and novels for independent authors.

Education

Graduated from Temple University in 2013
- Bachelor's Degree in English with a focus in literary analysis through a critical feminist/LGBT lens
Certifications from LinkedIn Learning
- Advanced Grammar (2018)
- Editing Mastery: How to Edit Writing to Perfection (2018)
- Writing: The Craft of Story (2018)

Other Experience

COPYEDITING

Glenside Fire House's newsletter The Siren
- Fall 2015 issue
Hibu Digital Marketing (Jan 2015 - Aug 2016)
- Writing web copy & hand-picked QA specialist as needed
"Actualization and Action" by NeonSaline, published in Game Devs & Others: Tales from the Margins (2018)
Freelance web copy (writing and editing)
UpWork (copyediting & developmental)
Documentation used across Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (written and edited) (2022-ongoing)

What I'm looking for

My real focus is and always has been working with independent authors. I love fun, quirky characters, plots that draw me in, subversion of tropes, romance that's founded on friendship, and especially LGBT and other marginalized identities throughout the story.

Genres

Fantasy
- Dark fantasy
- Low/middle fantasy
- Urban fantasy/paranormal
Thrillers/Mysteries
Horror

Special Interests

LGBT characters in genre fiction
- Especially bi characters
- Especially Non-Binary/agender characters
  - (we love wlw in this house. we are wlw in this house)
Ghosts
Witches/clever magic systems
Flipping villains to show that they were Right, Actually
- (think Nancy from The Craft; she was right)
Dragons

Not for Me

Rape recovery
- Think Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis or Exit, Pursued by a Bear by E. K. Johnston
Bigotry or sexual assault to give a marginalized person their phoenix moment
Incest or pedophilia/large age gaps (even if the younger is a teenager)

BEAR Essentials Editing