Today, fourteen years to the month after I first put pen to paper, I finally hit the publish button on Hanged Man’s Gambit, the third book of the Heiromancer Trilogy. I finished the trilogy’s first draft in 2011 and shortly thereafter began attending the Southern California Writers’ conference, where I embarked on a new journey – learning all I didn’t know about writing, editing, and publishing.

Long-time editor Jean Jenkins was a fixture at that event and one of its founding members. The conference, and Jean in particular, instilled in me an appreciation for the importance of editing and understanding publishing conventions. After soliciting sample edits for the first pages of Practical Phrendonics from a number of editors, I was convinced Jean was the right person for the job. During that edit, I wrote a prelude tale to the trilogy, The Demon of Histlewick Downs, and, on Jean’s advice, published that book first, which, in hindsight, was absolutely the right decision.

Jean didn’t just focus on the pages, though. Each editorial pass was calculated to help her clients grow as authors. Her deep editorial wisdom, conveyed through her comments on my pages, gave me both the wherewithal and confidence to switch careers – one in which I assist professors with honing their grant-writing efforts. Everything she taught about readability, pacing, unintentional repetition, active voice, common pitfalls, and clarity is every bit as important in technical writing as it was in fiction, and I’m honored to pass those lessons along.

Jean finished her edits for Hanged Man’s Gambit just a few short months ago. I was hoping to present her with a signed copy at the next in-person conference. Tragically, though, Jean passed away last Sunday, less than one week before publication. I’m proud of the work she helped me refine and of the writer she helped me become. I like to think she was, too.

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