Editing Harper Lee

By now, anyone who pays any attention to the world of words knows that Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, is releasing a new book. The stature of To Kill a Mockingbird, which was published in 1960, can surely be measured by the number of news outlets around...

Ode to the Squiggly Red Line

I’ve been proofreading on paper this week, and I’ve missed my squiggly red line. You know the one: the thin red line that pops up on the computer screen when Microsoft Word thinks it has detected a misspelling. I’m a good speller—and a good editor—so I can spot...

The Words Behind Selma

I went to see the movie “Selma” tonight, and I loved it. The movie is a powerful portrayal of events so recent that they were never included in my history schoolbooks but so distant that I can scarcely believe they happened in my country in my lifetime. The movie,...