I am an independent editor, and am available to help you in any way that I can. Over the past 42 years I have mostly worked on books, but have also edited (and written) proposals, flap copy, ad copy, letters, memos, speeches, liner notes, and website content.
An interest in trade book publishing brought me from California to New York in 1978. I worked for ten years at Henry Holt and ten years at Viking Penguin, where I was a senior editor. I’ve been an independent editor since 1998, living 100 miles north of NYC.
I am interested in anything that involves words; an attentive first read on a manuscript, with conversation and feedback; sharpening up a proposal; re-thinking something that isn’t working the way you want it to. I enjoy doing intense line editing and re-writing when that is called for. I enjoy the pleasure of conversations, cogitation, and giving advice, and the satisfaction of having been helpful. My goal is to make every book the best version of itself it can be.
In the corporate publishing world I worked on hundreds of books, and had many roles. Buying rights to a hardcover from another house and shepherding it into its paperback incarnation is not the same as taking on an as-yet-unfinished manuscript and working with the author step by step, word by word, to complete it. One of the conflicts that drove me to the outside in the late ’90s was the pressure to acquire more and edit less. The payoff in being independent is that the editing itself is the main thing I do.
Here are some of the projects I’ve worked on, which will indicate the wide range of my interests. And I’m always open to something new…
FICTION
SAILOR SONG
Ken Kesey
THE FURTHER INQUIRY
Ken Kesey
LAST GO ROUND: A Real Western
Ken Kesey with Ken Babbs
WHO SHOT THE WATER BUFFALO?
Ken Babbs
ROMAN
Douglas C. Jones
THE MYTH MAN
Elizabeth Swados
DOWN BY THE RIVER
THIS SIDE OF JORDAN
THE BIG TOWN
LAST ROSE OF SUMMER
Monte Schulz
AN AMERICAN MYSTIC: A Novel of Spiritual Adventure
Michael Gurian
NONFICTION
SOME OF THE DHARMA
Jack Kerouac
JACK KEROUAC AND ALLEN GINSBERG: THE LETTERS
Edited by Bill Morgan and David Stanford
DOONESBURY.COM’S THE SANDBOX: Dispatches From Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan
Introduction by G.B. Trudeau
Edited by David Stanford, Duty Officer, Doonesbury Town Hall
DOONESBURY.COM’S THE WAR IN QUOTES
Introduction by G.B. Trudeau
Edited by David Stanford, Duty Officer, Doonesbury Town Hall
WELCOME TO AFGHANISTAN — SEND MORE AMMO: The Tragicomic Art of Making War as an Embedded Trainer in the Afghan National Army
Benjamin Tupper
THE ALPHABET VERSUS THE GODDESS: The Conflict Between Word and Image
Leonard Shlain
JACK KEROUAC: SELECTED LETTERS 1940-1956
Edited by Ann Charters
JACK KEROUAC: SELECTED LETTERS 1957-1969
Edited by Ann Charters
THE LETTERS OF WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS: 1945-1959
Edited and with an introduction by Oliver Harris
HOW BUILDINGS LEARN: What Happens After They’re Built
Stewart Brand
NEW RULES FOR THE NEW ECONOMY: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World
Kevin Kelly
KILLING THE SPIRIT: Higher Education in America
Page Smith
MILES FROM NOWHERE: Tales From America’s Contemporary Frontier
Dayton Duncan
FRIENDLY TAKEOVER: How an Employee Buyout Saved a Steel Town
James B. Lieber
NOTHING EXCEPT OURSELVES: The Harsh Times and Bold Theater of South Africa’s Mbongeni Ngema
Laura Jones
WITNESS TO AN ERA, THE LIFE AND PHOTOGRAPHS OF ALEXANDER GARDNER: The Civil War, Lincoln, and the West
D. Mark Katz
COYOTES AND TOWN DOGS: Earth First! and the Environmental Movement
Susan Zakin
AMAZON BEAMING
Petru Popescu
POETRY AND LYRICS
A BOX OF RAIN: Collected Lyrics of Robert Hunter
Robert Hunter
NIGHT CADRE and GLASS LUNCH and SENTINEL
Robert Hunter
BOOK OF BLUES
Jack Kerouac
THE SONNETS
Introduction and Notes by Alice Notley
Ted Berrigan
THE DESCENT OF ALETTE
Alice Notley
KILL OR CURE
Anne Waldman
3 POEMS: Dolphin Skull, Rare Angel, Dark Brown
Introduction by Robert Hunter
Michael McClure
HUGE DREAMS: San Francisco and Beat Poems
Introduction by Robert Creeley
Michael McClure
RAP: THE LYRICS The Words to Rap’s Greatest Hits
Edited by Lawrence A. Stanley
THE GIFT: Poems by Hafiz, The Great Sufi Master
Translations by Daniel Ladinsky
CARTOONS, MUSIC AND POPULAR CULTURE
DBURY@50: The Complete Digital Doonesbury
G.B. Trudeau
(Lucas Wetzel at Andrews McMeel Publishing was the editor on this project. I wrote the 224-page Dbury@50 User Manual, a year-by-year recounting of Doonesbury’s main story lines. The Dbury@50 box also includes a poster with new portraits of 63 characters, and a searchable flash drive with over 15,000 strips.)
40: A DOONESBURY ANTHOLOGY
G.B. Trudeau
YUGE!: 30 Years of Doonesbury on Trump
#SAD! : Doonesbury in the Time of Trump
LEWSER! : More Doonesbury in the Time of Trump
G.B. Trudeau
FLASHBACKS: Twenty-Five Years of Doonesbury
G.B. Trudeau
DUDE: The Big Book of Zonker
G.B. Trudeau
YOU DON’T LOOK 35, CHARLIE BROWN!
Charles M. Schulz
AND THE BEAGLES SHALL LIE DOWN WITH THE BUNNIES
Charles M. Schulz
HERE COMES THE APRIL FOOL!
Charles M. Schulz
COMIC RELIEF: Drawings from the Cartoonists Thanksgiving Day Hunger Project
Foreword by Kenny Rogers
Introduction by Garry Trudeau
THE WORLD OF ZINES: A Guide to the Independent Magazine Revolution
Mike Gunderloy and Cari Goldberg Janice
FIVE AGAINST ONE: The Pearl Jam Story
Kim Neely
THE BEST OF THE BLUES: The 101 Essential Albums
Robert Santelli
THE BIG BOOK OF BLUES
Robert Santelli
WHERE IS THE WAY: Song and Struggle in South Africa
Helen Q. Kivnick
THE DAY JOHN MET PAUL: An Hour-By-Hour Account Of How The Beatles Began
Jim O’Donnell
THE GRATEFUL DEAD FAMILY ALBUM
Jerilyn Lee Brandelius
OTHER INTERESTING THINGS
THE CAT INSIDE
William S. Burroughs
MY EDUCATION: A Book of Dreams
William S. Burroughs
THE PORTABLE JACK KEROUAC
Edited by Ann Charters
THE TE OF PIGLET
Benjamin Hoff
THE SINGING CREEK WHERE THE WILLOWS GROW: The Mystical Nature Diary of Opal Whiteley
With a Biography and an Afterword by Benjamin Hoff
Opal Whiteley
THE TAO OF JUNG: The Way of Integrity
David Rosen, M.D.
THE ULTIMATE ALPHABET
Mike Wilks
AMAZING LURES AND FLIES: Rare and Forgotten Masterpieces of Fishing
Dickson Schneider
GOLF IN THE KINGDOM
Michael Murphy
MEMOIR, BIOGRAPHY, JOURNALS
KESEY’S JAIL JOURNAL
Introduction by Ed McClanahan
Ken Kesey
KEITH HARING JOURNALS
Preface by David Hockney
Introduction by Robert Farris Thompson
Keith Haring
GARCIA: An American Life
Blair Jackson
DON’T LET ME BE MISUNDERSTOOD
Eric Burdon with J. Marshall Craig
GINNY GOOD
Gerard Jones
THANK YOU AND OK! An American Zen Failure in Japan
David Chadwick
MAKING SENSE OF MANAGEMENT: A Professional Memoir
John Howard Stanford
A YEAR IN THE LIFE: The 1915 Daily Journal of Edward Dean, an Amenia Union Farmer
With Comments by Members of the After School Boys Club
Julian Strauss, Class Secretary
SKYWRITING: A Life Out of the Blue
Jane Pauley
DON DUNPHY AT RINGSIDE
Don Dunphy
THE SORCERER’S CROSSING: A Woman’s Journey
Taisha Abelar
RIDING WITH THE LION: In Search of Mystical Christianity
Kyriacos C. Markides
LOVE SONGS: The Lives, Loves, and Poetry of Nine American Women
John Dizikes
GIRL INTREPID: A New York Story of Privilege and Perseverance
Leslie Armstrong
Agents take note:
AVAILABLE
STAGE STRUCK: American Actors and Acting
John Dizikes
AVAILABLE SOON:
JESTER PRINCE: How the Flying Karamazov Brothers Saved the World. Sort of. A Little Bit.
by Howard Jay Patterson
HOME FARM: The Love of Place in a Changing World
Julian Strauss
OBJECTIVE RALLY POINT
Owen R. Powell
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A note on self-publishing:
I enjoy helping writers self-publish, and will organize and oversee the entire process, from rough (or not rough) manuscript to finished books. I often work with a local company, but can help you no matter which company you choose. My core concern is that a self-published book should be identical in quality and appearance to a book published by a major trade publisher.
A note on cartoons:
Cartoon books have been a big part of my publishing career, but there the book editor’s role is usually more as organizer, champion, encourager, presenter – writing flap and catalog copy and revving up in-house support rather than working with words in the book itself. For that reason the list above only includes the cartoon books that were either an exception to that — where text was a big element — or where the title is so sweet I had to include it. I am certainly open to working with cartoonists on projects if I can help with in some way.
A note on poetry:
The same is true of poetry, where my contributions have for the most part not been line editing but rather the publishing of the book itself. I have included some of the poets I’ve worked with on the list to indicate my interest in poetry, and in working with poets who want to self-publish their work.
A note on Doonesbury:
It’s been my pleasure to work with Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau for over 40 years. I got to know him as his book editor at Holt, then started moonlighting as his assistant, project manager, and as the Duty Officer of the Doonesbury.com web site, launched in 1995. I edit everything that appears on the site, and have helped on innumerable projects (anything that is not the strip itself). Working with him — a guy who has a lot to say and not much room in which to say it — sharpened my editing skills. For eight years we also ran a military blog on Doonesbury.com. I solicited and edited over 700 posts by over 150 soldiers, spouses, and caregivers. An editor’s dream.
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Please feel free to contact me: dstanford@uclick.com .
Rates vary: hourly or by project.
David Stanford, Independent Editor 