Editorial Freelancers Association
Member Profile
Rebecca Radding
I’m an editor specializing in developmental and line editing of narrative nonfiction. I accept projects of all sizes, from essays and articles to book manuscripts, and can offer support at any stage of the writing process, including “book doctor” services for both authors and publishers.
As an undergraduate student in political science at the University of Chicago, I was hungry to learn more about the world and the people in it, but the powerful stories I craved, books like Evicted: Poverty and Profit in an American City by Matthew Desmond, were rarely on the syllabus. After several years as an elementary school writing teacher and community organizer, during which I was a fellow at Andover Bread Loaf, I realized that while I loved working with people, and helping them find and express their voices, I was at my best when I was doing so one-on-one. In 2018, I stumbled into coaching an author writing a story-driven political memoir, and felt like I had come home.
I love everything about the developmental editing of narrative nonfiction — from earning an author’s trust, to mapping out a narrative that weaves the personal with the factual, to sharing feedback that will send an author back to the drawing board and cheering them on as they grow into a writer who can do more and more of the work by themselves.
My most recent completed project is If I Betray These Words: Moral Injury in Medicine and Why It’s So Hard for Clinicians to Put Patients First by Wendy Dean, MD with Simon Talbot, MD (2023) from Steerforth Press, which I developed from concept with the authors over an eighteen-month period. Other projects for Steerforth Press include Unstitched: My Journey to Understand Opioid Addiction and How People and Communities Can Heal by Brett Ann Stanciu (2021) and the National Jewish Book Award finalist Friendly Fire: How Israel Became its Own Worst Enemy and the Hope for its Future by Ami Ayalon and Anthony David (2020).
Articles I have edited have appeared in The Massachusetts Review, Ploughshares, Tablet, and The Forward, and are forthcoming in the The American Historical Review. See PDF for testimonials.
I live with my husband and two children in Tangier, Morocco.
Email: rebecca.radding@gmail.com
More information: View PDF file
Years in the field: 4
Years freelancing: 4
Rebecca Radding
I’m an editor specializing in developmental and line editing of narrative nonfiction. I accept projects of all sizes, from essays and articles to book manuscripts, and can offer support at any stage of the writing process, including “book doctor” services for both authors and publishers.
As an undergraduate student in political science at the University of Chicago, I was hungry to learn more about the world and the people in it, but the powerful stories I craved, books like Evicted: Poverty and Profit in an American City by Matthew Desmond, were rarely on the syllabus. After several years as an elementary school writing teacher and community organizer, during which I was a fellow at Andover Bread Loaf, I realized that while I loved working with people, and helping them find and express their voices, I was at my best when I was doing so one-on-one. In 2018, I stumbled into coaching an author writing a story-driven political memoir, and felt like I had come home.
I love everything about the developmental editing of narrative nonfiction — from earning an author’s trust, to mapping out a narrative that weaves the personal with the factual, to sharing feedback that will send an author back to the drawing board and cheering them on as they grow into a writer who can do more and more of the work by themselves.
My most recent completed project is If I Betray These Words: Moral Injury in Medicine and Why It’s So Hard for Clinicians to Put Patients First by Wendy Dean, MD with Simon Talbot, MD (2023) from Steerforth Press, which I developed from concept with the authors over an eighteen-month period. Other projects for Steerforth Press include Unstitched: My Journey to Understand Opioid Addiction and How People and Communities Can Heal by Brett Ann Stanciu (2021) and the National Jewish Book Award finalist Friendly Fire: How Israel Became its Own Worst Enemy and the Hope for its Future by Ami Ayalon and Anthony David (2020).
Articles I have edited have appeared in The Massachusetts Review, Ploughshares, Tablet, and The Forward, and are forthcoming in the The American Historical Review. See PDF for testimonials.
I live with my husband and two children in Tangier, Morocco.
