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Image by Zdeněk Macháček

About me

Image by Matteo Maretto

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.

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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

Office Desk

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)

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