Editing Services

Editing-Fiction and Nonfiction

Kit McIlroy’s comments on my stories have always been detailed, sensitive, and deep.  Kit has helped me immeasurably. He is simply the best reader and critic I know.

Jonathan Penner, author of Going Blind, Natural Order, Private Parties, This Is My Voice, and The Intelligent Traveler’s Guide to Chiribosco.

Christopher “Kit” McIlroy is one of the best readers of fiction in America. Working with him on your manuscript is like getting your own personalized MFA. I trust his insight and judgment implicitly. He will make you a much better writer.

Rob Wilder, author of the essay collections Tales from the Teachers’ Lounge and Daddy Needs a Drink and the novel Nickel.

As a fiction and creative non-fiction writer, I’ve worked with some of the most talented editors in the U.S., and Kit is clearly in the top tier.  He knows how to trim out fat, identify the gold you’ve produced, and suggest seams ripe for further mining. He understands your work on a thematic, symbolic, and psychological level perhaps even better than you do.  He is equally skilled at deep content editing and line editing.  He is brilliant, encouraging, and easy to work with.  Every short piece of mine he’s edited has been published in a magazine.  Kit provided invaluable editing on both my books, which found publishers almost immediately as is, with no editorial changes.  I couldn’t have hoped for better results.

Allen Long, author of Less than Human: a Memoir and Praying for Restraint.

I’m a receptive reader with inclusive tastes, who appreciates a variety of approaches in other writers, from experimental to traditional. As an editor, I express those appreciations as freely as my criticisms.

I guarantee I will immerse myself in your manuscript, responding to it both comprehensively and in detail. My first obligation is to grasp the intentions of your work, assess how well it succeeds on those terms, and suggest possible improvements. If I see unexplored possibilities in the manuscript, I will point these out also. My goal is to help your work realize its fullest potential.

In short. I will engage with your writing as intensely as with my own.

Don’t fear revision. It is the natural growth process of your writing.

That said, I understand the writing and reading are subjective, and that you may modify, disagree with, or outright ignore my interpretations and suggestions. I am confident, though, that they will be worth considering.

Rates and Terms

• • • All manuscripts must be accompanied by payment.
    • Please send a hard copy and electronic document. 
    • For billing purposes, a typed and double-spaced page in 12-point Times New Roman font is roughly 300 words long. Pages containing more than this number of words will be charged at a higher rate.