The Office of Eric Westerlind

I write stories, letters, poems, reviews, ordainments, essays, and the odd YouTube comment. I'll compile those published, here.

My lady takes photos in a way I can't.

I maintain a monthly update by email—'a Family Letter’—which is a mixture of observation, opinion, new media, and the like. If you’re interested in hearing from me, please go ahead an put your email address here and I’ll be happy to include you anonymously.

For small businesses or individuals in pursuit of business-like activities, I'll help flesh out marketing or explanatory material, but I'll be honest: if you're looking for someone to write these things for you, you probably need my editing more than my writing—your ideas might need organization and some penmanship, but the best words are probably yours. So: I'd see my editing services.

Or I can transcribe or pen as you wish. Happy to provide examples of prior work.

Editing is a mixture of listening and quieting the self to understand what the piece is already doing, while still maintaining the honesty and spine necessary to speak plainly.

I was the fiction and non-fiction editor of the Bacon Review. I started FATHOMSCHOOL with Joseph Spece. Between those two ventures, I've been helping writers in private practice.

I’m willing to work on any length document, at any stage in its development. Some clients prefer edits as a Word Document; most I mark up a provided PDF. Generally speaking, barring the rare flawless piece, I don’t ‘sign off’ or mark-as-finished, any work, as I'm suspect of the idea that writing can ever be ‘finished'. That I leave to the author.

I'll offer this: editing is a “business" of trust. The author trusts the editor to read without influence, and to encourage them to make the piece as sure of itself as possible. The editor trusts the writer to take the criticism for what it is: about the piece, not the person. My goal is to help you understand your writing as essential work, but I will not hesitate to say where I feel something can be made better.

A mixture of warning and promise.

I'll be updating this section in the coming months to feature some of the identities I've branded and some of the work I've done over the last fifteen years.