Ellie Barton
Advanced Professional Member| Location | Kingston, Ontario, Canada |
| Mobile | 1-613-572-3567 |
| .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | |
| Website | https://www.elliebarton.ca/ |
| Ellie Barton | |
| @EllieBarton5 | |
| elliebartonwalks |
Ellie Barton | Developmental, line, and copy-editing for memoir and nonfiction writers
If you have completed a personal essay or a book-length manuscript, congratulations! Many people only talk about doing what you have done. Now the next stage begins -- editing and revising. This is where I can help.
As an experienced editor and an editing instructor, I offer different levels of editing tailored to your manuscript and your publishing goals.
If you intend to self-publish, I'll give you personal attention. You'll communicate with me instead of with a company that may not give you access to your editor.
If your goal is to find an agent, I'll assess your manuscript with readers in mind and work with you to bring out your story and your voice.
If you have academic expertise, I can help shape your manuscript to reach a wider audience.
I've written two nonfiction books myself, and I know what it's like to invest heart and mind in a project. My master's in English from Queen's University taught me to be a perceptive and attentive reader. I'll treat your manuscript, and you, with empathy, care, and respect.
Services
I specialize in memoir and narrative nonfiction (also called creative nonfiction).
Manuscript Evaluation -- Assesses the greatest strengths and weaknesses in your memoir or nonfiction manuscript and prioritizes next steps
Developmental Editing -- In-depth guidance on developing and shaping the big-picture elements in your true story or nonfiction book
Line Editing -- Clarifies meaning, improves flow, and keeps readers turning the page
Copy Editing -- Corrects spelling, grammar, punctuation, and usage. I copy-edit American or Canadian content, following the Chicago Manual of Style.
For more information, please visit my website, https://www.elliebarton.ca/
Skills
Developmental/substantive editing, manuscript evaluation, line editing, copy-editing, editorial training, rewriting, consultancy (editorial), Americanization.
Media
I edit books and essays.
Experience
I've been a freelance editor since 2004. I've edited 40+ book-length manuscripts for independent authors and 50+ books for university presses. As a former writer (newspaper reporter, freelance writer, and communications officer), I hold writers in high esteem and respect your voice and intentions for the work.
I've been teaching and developing online editing courses at universities since 2014, first at Queen's University and more recently at Simon Fraser University. At Simon Fraser, I teach structural editing and stylistic editing in the Editing Certificate program.
Training
One of the things I love about being an editor is that I'm always learning. In March 2023 I enrolled in the book coaching certification program offered by Author Accelerator. Book coaching flows naturally from my developmental editing work with authors.
I've attended too many webinars and conferences to list, but here is a sampling of professional development in the past two years:
- Women in Publishing Summit, a four-day online conference, March 2023
- Memoir Bootcamp, with Allison K Williams and Jane Friedman, October 2022
- Memoir Beginnings, with Lisa Cooper Ellison, May 2022
- Research Agents and Publishers Like a Pro, with Jane Friedman, August 2022
- Land a Book Deal with a Better Table of Contents, with Jennie Nash, 2022
- Preparing to Publish: Making the Right Choice, webinar, Writers' Union of Canada, 2022
- Editing Memoir, webinar, Editorial Freelancers Association, 2021
- Line Editing, Fiction and Creative Nonfiction, an eight-week course offered by the Editorial Freelancers Association, 2021
Clients
Independent authors I've worked with in the past three years as a developmental and line editor:
Henry Blumberg, Sean Left Quietly (Toronto: Lindiwe Legacy Press, 2021)
Beth Kaplan, Solo Woman: Midlife in Essays (in submission to publishers)
M.C. Clark, Sisters of Service: A Hundred Years of Service (August 2022)
Lynn Amaral, Dark Gifts (memoir, self-published, 2021)
Nancy MacMillan, A Wave to the Other Shore: Tending Dying, Death, and Our Ancestors (in submission to publishers)
Pearl Richard, Midlife Meanderings: A Memoir (unpublished)
Catherine Gourdier, Breathe, Cry, Breathe (HarperCollins, 2021)
Otto Schmalz, four memoirs about growing up in Germany during the Second World War and immigrating to Canada (FriesenPress)
Gordon Miller, Lost Boy from a Line of Heroes (Kingston, ON: Woodpecker Lane, 2020)
Rosalie Tennison, The Houses (an unpublished memoir about growing up poor on the Canadian prairies)
Malcolm Gibson, three memoirs about growing up white in Apartheid South Africa and immigrating to England and then Canada (Woodpecker Lane)
Robert Mundle, How to Be an Even Better Listener: A Practical Guide for Hospice and Palliative Care Volunteers (Jessica Kingsley, 2019)
Candace Cox, Living Daily: Alexander Technique for Parkinson's Disease (self-published, 2019)
Frantisek Strouhal, Chantal Robert, and Jakub Strouhal, Illuminations: Art Embracing Awareness (Mirage Studios, 2019)
John Van Immerseel, For a Better Life: The Story of Dutch Emigration from Rotterdam to Quebec City (Netherlands: Gbooksinternational, 2019)
Recent titles that I copy-edited for the University of Toronto Press:
- Ellie D. Berger, Ageism at Work: Deconstructing Age and Gender in the Discriminating Labour Market (2020)
- James Elwick, Making a Grade: Victorian Examinations and the Development of Standardized Tests (2021)
- Jessica Zychowicz, Superfluous Women: Art, Feminism, and Revolution in Twenty-First-Century Ukraine (2020)
Recent titles copy-edited for McGill-Queen's University Press:
- Karen Engle, Chronic Conditions (2022)
- Elisabeth Gidengil, Take a Number: How Citizens’ Encounters with Government Shape Political Engagement (2020)
- Raanan Rein and Ariel Noyjovich, Peronism as a Big Tent: The Political Inclusion of Arab Immigrants in Argentina. Translated by Isis Sadek (2022)
Subjects
History (British, Canadian, European, history of religion, social history, migration, corporate histories)
Travel (memoir, personal essays)
English literature (literary criticism, author biographies)
Biography
Religion and Spirituality (Christian, post-Christian, Indigenous, Celtic)
Health (palliative care, nursing)
Death and Dying
Mental Health
Aging
Fitness
Environment (restoring our relationship with nature)
Qualifications
Certificate in Publishing, Metropolitan Toronto University
BA English and History
MA English
AWARDS
- Editors Canada President's Award for Volunteer Service
- Queen’s Graduate Fellowship; Sir Gilbert Parker Scholarship in English Literature
- Provost Welch Scholarship
- Lila Best Scholarship
Testimonials
Your editing was always incisive. You improved the clarity of my narrative, removing unnecessary words like a seasoned gardener plucking out weeds. Most importantly, you showed a personal commitment to my project, which distinguished you as a quality professional.
Ehsan M. Ahrari, The Islamic Challenge and the United States
When we began to write this book, we knew this venture was going to be unlike anything we’ve done before. But we never imagined how far we’d journey beyond our comfort zone. Ellie Barton's ongoing support and insightful feedback help to polish our efforts and transform our prose and poems into what became this book. She was a gift to us.
Frantisek Strouhal and Chantal Robert, Illuminations: Art Embracing Awareness
Writing a memoir is an emotional journey that is both personal and daunting. I was fortunate to work with Ellie on mine. I was dealing with someone who not only did a wonderful job on the structural and stylistic editing, but also understood my feelings and thoughts. She sensed what I wanted to convey. Her insights and new perspectives shifted the story beyond what I was doing on my own, helped me find my voice and made me a better writer.
Gordon Miller, Lost Boy from a Line of Heroes
As a first-time book author, I wanted to work with an editor who could help me produce a solid manuscript to submit to my publisher. I feel very fortunate to have found Ellie Barton. She is thorough, creative, and extremely knowledgeable. I recommend her services most highly.
Robert Mundle, On Becoming a Better Listener: A Practical Spiritual Guide for Hospice Palliative Care Volunteers
We very much enjoyed working with Ellie on the editing process of Cirque Global. She was a careful, insightful, and respectful reader, always open to discussion but also extremely well-versed in academic writing. Unfailingly professional and a pleasure to exchange emails and ideas with, we warmly recommend Ellie for copy editing and stylistic editing.
Louis Patrick Leroux and Charles R. Batson, eds., Cirque Global: Quebec's Expanding Circus Boundaries
It has been my good fortune to have Ellie Barton as copyeditor. Her work harmonizes aspects of form and style, bringing them into conformity with the publisher’s expectations, but more importantly in my view, Barton offers clarificatory comments on awkward wording, instances of heavy overstatement, and the points at which the text is quite simply unclear. Her feedback is always valuable.
A text with a theoretical framework whose terms are not necessarily familiar (in this case, the framework of Lacanian psychoanalysis) provides a supplementary challenge. It demands sensitivity to ambiguity and the ability to distinguish between what is confusing because the theory is unfamiliar, and what puzzles simply because the writing is uncertain. Barton makes clear and direct comments on such points, allowing the author to reconsider them carefully. Ellie Barton’s editing has made my Reading Alice Munro with Jacques Lacan a better book.
Jennifer Murray, English Department, University of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, France
Ellie Barton 'got' me and my 'voice' from the get-go. She shared her suggested changes with me in a professional yet delicate manner. I was impressed by her microscopic attention to the details, most notably continuity details that earlier editors had missed entirely. Ellie also helped to boost the confidence of a first-time author, and I sincerely hope that I will be calling on her to work with me again someday.
Catherine Gourdier, Breathe, Cry Breathe
Ellie significantly improved my book, which traced my family's history and journey from Prussia to America. It was a very facts-heavy narrative, which made keeping readers' interest a challenge. Ellie performed significant edits; pruning unnecessary detail, reducing duplication, and helping tie the facts presented into a more compelling story. She also reminded me of the importance of acknowledging the role of Indigenous people and women when studying our history.
Robert Buttke