With decades of experience as an award-winning editor for high-profile national publications, I can help you improve the structure, sense, and substance of your work while retaining your distinctive voice and style. I can also help you master the dynamic interplay of character, dialogue, plot, and narrative that is essential to telling a compelling story — because for any kind of writing, a compelling story is what it’s all about.
About Dan Lawrence, Principal, Richmond Editorial Service
Academic background:
MFA, Columbia University Graduate Program for Writers. Graduate Fellow. Worked with Richard Price, Marilyn Robinson, John Irving, Nadine Gordimer, Carlos Fuentes, Elizabeth Hardwick, Judith Rosner, Joseph Brodsky, and others.
BA, University of California at Davis, summa cum laude.
Editorial background:
Managing Editor, Grid Magazine. Under my leadership, this national urban planning and design magazine tripled its circulation to 36,000 and won two Neal Awards for Excellence in Business Journalism, two Ozzie Awards for Outstanding Design, and the Best Magazine Award from the National Association of Real Estate Editors.
Editor, Time Inc. Magazines. Notably Sports Illustrated (three years) and Fortune Magazine (six years).
Fiction Editor, Columbia Journal. Stories I selected and edited were chosen for the Pushcart Prize and the Best Short Stories anthology.
Member, Editorial Freelancers Association and The Society for Editing.
Writing background:
Having written scores of short stories, two novels, and a screenplay, I also understand the editorial process from a writer’s perspective and am keenly aware of the joys and frustrations of the writing life. In Manhattan, my work was represented by the Watkins/Loomis Agency.
Recent publications and awards:
Over the past two years, more than a dozen of my stories have been published in national and international literary magazines and anthologies.
Finalist for the 2023 James River Writers Best Unpublished Novel Contest, the 2022 Tennessee Williams Prize for Fiction, the 2022 Watertower Press Novel Writing Contest, and the Summer 2021 Novel Slices Contest.