Bottom line: AI doesn’t belong in our editing.

You’ve trusted me with thousands of your words. I want to make sure that I’m the right editor for you. All editors who work for Epilogue Editing share this same commitment.

I hold a human-centered theory of editing. The act of writing is constantly optimistic—it’s a way to share knowledge, ideas, and art with an audience of people who you may never meet, but who will be changed by their encounter with your world. It’s something only humans can do. When I return a manuscript to writers, they are often amazed at how the editing process made the argument and the language sound more fully like them.  

When you entrust me with your writing, I do not, and never will, use AI tools to edit your work. All editing is done by a human, by hand. I also will not share your work with anyone, including putting it into any kind of an LLM. I use an asset-based approach to editing, where I find the place that the manuscript is strongest, and provide suggestions for how to get the rest of the manuscript to that level.

I became an editor largely because, in Isaiah Berlin’s stylings, I am a fox (who loves having hedgehog friends). I love to read across a wide variety of subjects and academic areas, although I am most at home in political science and nearby disciplines. I want to read about the history of machine learning, about nuns and westward expansion, about sheriffs, about prison cookbooks–send me all of it. 

That said, I also only accept projects that are congruent with my values, so I can do my best work getting your ideas into the world.  I am not the right editor for projects, for instance, about the value of LLMs in preK-12 education, or about why the fourteenth amendment doesn’t guarantee birthright citizenship, or about why the European Union should dissolve. I’ve only ever turned down one project because I thought they should find editors more in line with their own value system, so this is a rare caveat.

I trust that the work you send me is yours. I don’t want to edit things that have been written with the assistance of LLMs—I’d much rather edit “rougher” drafts that convey words and thoughts that are authentically yours. Clients who work with AI are often surprised to find that they have more, not less, editing to do to create a manuscript that is publishable.  

Finally, I have a commitment to the basic skills of honesty, transparency, and ethics. If I don’t know something, I’ll let you know. If I set a deadline with you, I’ll meet it. I don’t think there is any such thing as a bad writer, so I’ll always treat you, your ideas, and your writing with curiosity and respect. Together, we’ll bring great work into the world.

—Kelly