“There isn’t anyone you couldn’t love once you’ve heard their story.”
Mary Lou Kownacki
Hello. I’m Illy.
I’ve been described by various sources as “a big ball of ambiguity,” “an enigma wrapped in a mystery,” “a fairy,” “a freak,” “a geek,” “a nerd,” “a scarily observant kid,” “a seventy-year-old man inside,” “a flower child,” “a little black raincloud,” “a Disney princess,” “a Disney villainess,” “an incredible cook,” “an abysmal housekeeper,” “gifted” (which I gather was the trending handle for autistic girls in the nineties), “the smartest person I know without a college degree,” “the best mommy in the world,” and the “worst mommy in the world.”
However, I’m guessing you’re more interested in recommendations like “a fabulous and thorough editor,” “a word nerd,” “a grammar nazi,” “a book dragon,” “a details girl,” and “an exceptional line editor.”
Katherine Paterson
“Books allow us to eavesdrop on another person’s soul…
Writers are very private people who run around naked in public.”
My mother never understood how I could spend all day with my nose in a book yet never finish my homework. I suppose it never occurred to her that my nose being stuck in a book was precisely the reason the homework never got done.
I’ve always found formal education too limiting. I am a voracious and ceaseless learner—always pursuing new classes, lectures, conferences, books, and self-driven study.
I once attended a lecture by Orson Scott Card where he advised aspiring writers to study anything and everything but writing—to study what you want to write, not how to write it. So I’ve studied dance, art, walkable city infrastructure, nutrition, child development, family science, psychology, neurodivergence, tidal-locked planets, service dog training, albinism, the Swedish language, Scandinavian culture, folklore, mythology, Appalachian history, the American Civil War, the Regency Era, historical fashion, how to run a flower farm, the parts of a ship, herbal medicine, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, homesteading, permaculture, boxing, and much more.
But mostly, I’ve studied writing and story craft, even though Mr. Card told me not to.
I’m obsessed with stories. I can easily become obsessed with yours.
I am a member of the Editorial Freelancers Association.
I am a member of the Society for Editing (ACES).
I am a member of the Freelance Editors Chapter of the League of Utah Writers.
I have completed the Proofread Anywhere General Proofreading: Theory and Practice certificate.
My style guide of choice is the Chicago Manual of Style, 18th Edition.
I have over six years of study and practice in grammar, proofreading, editing, literary analysis, and story craft.
I have over four years of experience critiquing, proofreading, and editing novels, short stories, memoirs, opinion pieces, and academic works.
