About
Heyo! I'm Jenna
(she/they), the human behind Briar Edits. I'm a startup freelancer from Midwest America who specializes in line and copy editing of speculative fiction by newbie authors. Looking to self-publish or go indie? That's my jam.
The fancy credentials: Completed my English B.A. in 2022 from Purdue with a writing concentration and a minor in philosophy because I'm a nerd. While there, I picked up more random linguistic facts than anyone ever needs to know, and interned with an awesome professor to copyedit an anthology on Indigenous language revitalization, written by Indigenous authors from around the world (check it out here, it's pretty cool).
Straight out of college, I launched into a deep studying dive with some great books on editing and professional editing classes with the Editorial Freelancers Association (a real god-send). And of course, lots of private editing.
What's in my toolbox
8+ EFA classes, including:
Advanced line editing of fiction, Christina M. Frey, Amber Helt
Intermediate copyediting of fiction, Lourdes Venard
Working with Indie Authors, Tanya Gold
Guiding Your Clients to Successfully Self-publish, Ally Machate
7+ book studies, including:
The Chicago Manual of Style
The Copyeditor's Handbook, Amy Einsohn and Marilyn Schwartz
Craft in the Real World, Matthew Salesses
Meander, Spiral, Explode, Jane Alison
The Subversive Copy Editor 2nd ed, Carol Fisher Saller
English B.A.
Copyedited Voices: Perspectives from the International Year of Indigenous Languages
For now, I mainly like to edit fiction, especially anything with a healthy dose of social commentary. I favor stories that break the mold in intentional, purposeful ways. Give me morally gray characters, found family, and enemies-to-loyal-friends. As a reader, I dabble across genres, but my favorites are magical realism, steampunk, and gritty heist stories. Enthralling, low-tech worlds with a gothic flare hook me every time.
I'm also a writer and a poet, a gardener, budding herbalist, and a sucker for stray cats. I live full-time in a stationary RV that'd I'd love to get rolling in the near future. Slowly travel the country, take my time to explore the wild variety of state parks and natural gems, maybe pick up photography along the way, all while editing great books—that's the dream. Living close to nature is something of a spiritual necessity to me and my poet brain.
What I edit
Literary
Low fantasy
Magical realism
Soft sci-fi
Urban fantasy
Heist stories
Steampunk
And more!
And in many ways, so is the honest observation and reframing of the core ways we humans share our little corners of the world with each other, finding those patterns that are often hidden somewhere beneath the surface. I see my job as a writer to be a mirror, showing us the things we often don't—or refuse to—look at as a society, and, hopefully, to point a better way. As an editor, I want most of all to help other writers do the same.
Though only small, I'm doing what I can to shape the publishing industry into something more ethical, accessible, and honest to human experiences, which means making sure that writers, whoever they are and whatever means they come from, have a chance to tell their story without the gatekeeping that drives traditional, big house publishing.
But the goal doesn't have to be that big. Sometimes just telling a story is, in itself, enough.
