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Choosing an editor for your work should not be an agonizing process, but you do want to be sure that you can foster a great working relationship with the editor you choose.

Below is some information about us, but if you want to know more about our credentials than you can learn here we encourage you to contact us. In return, before working with you, we request that you fill out the Pink Eraser Author Interview, which asks questions about you, your writing, and your writing life. It is important to us to know that we might enjoy working with you, too.

Please read below to learn who we are, what we edit, and how we work.

Molly E.K. McGrath
Molly has been a professional writer and editor for over twelve years. After working in-house as a development editor for a Boston and New York publishing company, she decided to take her ongoing projects with her and contract new work out while she finished an MFA degree in creative nonfiction writing. She has found that though she is grateful for her formal training, as an editor at the publishing house and as a writer in her writing school, she enjoys the lifestyle and freedom of the freelancer better than working in any office with an obligatory workload. She gets to choose her own projects, and she can see both sides of the publishing industry.

As a writer and an editor Molly knows that both occupations are at the same time interrelated and quite independent of one another. In her own experience as a writer, she is often satisfied with her writing but suspects that it still needs an editorial eye before she can sell it. She consults with other editors and friends who are agents, who share their wisdom with her. In turn, she transfers this advice and her own editing secrets to her clients. Molly believes that there is a certain way to go about getting published, a particular protocol, which, if you follow correctly yet creatively, puts you ahead of your field of competition.

Today she works with publishing companies, literary agents, and authors. Publishers call her when they have a project in mind and have found an author, but they need her to help develop the author's story, or help the author to write within the style of that publishing house. Agents ask her to coach their clients on how the publishing process works, from book proposal stage to the bound book, and then help their writing evolve along the way.

Vivian A. Mikhail
Vivian is an attorney by training, and now a writer and editor by welcome career shift. Several years ago she switched gears to the legal publishing world, after having litigated for almost ten years, quickly getting her fill of the contentiousness of that sphere but still wanting the challenge and enjoyment of legal and legal-oriented writing. The products she has worked on as a legal editor range from practical deskbooks for attorneys, to newsletters for laypeople needing to make sense of often-complicated laws. Joining Pink Eraser has expanded her editing world to include fiction, nonfiction, creative nonfiction, and memoir writing.

Vivian enjoys every aspect of the writing process as an editor, from closely guiding an author during the early stages of writing, to critiquing and rewriting complete draft manuscripts. 

Molly began her career by editing history books, and her particular niche is nonfiction with a historical slant, but she also works on several subgenres of fiction, and will consider collections of stories and essays, too. She edits scholarly texts for academic markets, but also edits children's books, science fiction, and self-help books. Molly's specialty is creative nonfiction. Also known as narrative nonfiction or literary nonfiction, this type of writing uses the elements of fiction (plot, character, dialogue, setting, etc.) to tell a true story. Vivian edits all kinds of manuscripts, but most regularly enjoys mainstream fiction and nonfiction. In short, they will consider just about any topic, and they are eager to learn from you!

Please browse through a list of recent published works to see some of the titles Molly and Vivian have edited from the earliest manuscript stages to final edits once the book is in production.

Pink Eraser offers several different types of editorial services: Book Proposal Writing, Query Letter Writing, Development (Content) Editing, and Copy (Line-by-Line) Editing and Proofreading. You may click on this link to services for fuller descriptions, or read below to learn how we work with clients on each of these different kinds of editing.

How We Work on Book Proposals
Working from a draft of your manuscript, a table of contents, or a description of your project, Pink Eraser will help you turn your material into a marketable sales tool. As we go, we will tell you some trade secrets about what sells, what doesn't, and why. We will help you develop a compelling narrative arc, and make sure that the prose of the proposal itself is error-free and that it contains your best writing. Working on a book proposal can often take months, but you will find it is worth it when literary agents and publishers offer you contracts.

How We Work on Query Letters
The query letter, like the book proposal, is an important sales tool. If written well, it has the power to get your work published. We will help you craft a query letter that stays true to the style of the writing in your book or shorter piece. Together we will devise a way to draw the reader immediately into the story your letter introduces, and employ literary devices to sustain the reader's attention throughout the remainder of the letter. In the end, you will have written a query letter that makes your project irresistible, and you will also have a better understanding of what happens next.

How We Work on Developing Your Writing
When we receive your manuscript we will read through it carefully, taking notes as we go. Within two weeks of receipt we will have a phone conversation or an e-mail exchange (whichever form of contact you prefer) about how you should proceed to revise, and how we can help you do so. Typically we might craft a list of issues that jump out at us, combine them with your own concerns, and then set out on resolving these issues so that your manuscript has what it takes to get published. Generally we will help you rewrite sections if you are comfortable with that, or else just offer a critique and leave it to you to revise. See a fuller description of development editing in the services section of the website.

How We Work on Copyediting Your Writing
We will read through your manuscript, section by section, paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence, and finally word by word. This big-to-small-focus approach allows us to see any obvious errors first, and then work our way to the nitty-gritty. We can write comments and corrections directly on your paper manuscript; however, we prefer to work with Microsoft Word for Windows Editor. You may choose whichever way you would prefer to receive our edits.