Four talented early- to mid-career editors have been selected as the fourth class of recipients of the Richard S. Holden Diversity Fellowship, a collaboration of ACES: The Society for Editing and the Dow Jones News Fund. This year’s fellows are: Adebe DeRango-Adem, Rosalind Early, Tiana Garrett, and Shavonne Mott.
Adebe DeRango-Adem of Toronto, Ontario, is a freelance editor and sensitivity/equity reader with over a decade of experience editing poetry, fiction, nonfiction, journals, anthologies, inclusive style guides, equity-related documents, and more for book publishers, authors, and other clients. Her prior editorial roles have included work for an online magazine on race and culture politics and for an arts and literary journal. She has also authored four poetry collections. Her most recent, Vox Humana, won the 2023 Raymond Souster Award.
Adebe was the inaugural Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Adviser to Editors Canada and in 2021 launched its first-ever Equity Fellowship in support of editors who have traditionally been excluded by the publishing and editing industries. She hopes to use her Holden Fellowship to complete a certificate in publishing, work on developing a book on equity in editing, and mobilize an online platform for fellow sensitivity/equity readers across the globe.
Rosalind Early is a freelance writer in St. Louis, Missouri, focused on sharing the underreported stories of the city. She is the former editor-in-chief of the Riverfront Times, an alternative newsweekly. Under her leadership, she doubled the weekly’s average pageviews and has expanded content in its sister publication. Rosalind was previously deputy managing editor of Washington University’s alumni magazine. In 2018, she was honored as a Rising Leader of Color by the Theatre Communications Group for her work in arts journalism and theater criticism.
Rosalind hopes to use her fellowship to access the professional development she needs to further investigate the marginalized communities of St. Louis that need their stories told.
Tiana Garrett of Portsmouth, Virginia, is an epidemiologist turned science copy editor and public health consultant. She has over 15 years of experience in copy editing and proofreading, scientific writing, and data analysis; her subject matter expertise includes maternal and child health and health equity. Currently working as a subcontractor on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Tiana is a technical writer-editor for Tanaq Government Services. Tiana has also been a freelance copy editor of scientific peer-reviewed manuscripts for a midsize publishing house. She also founded a public health consulting agency that provided copy editing and proofreading services.
Tiana hopes to use her fellowship to strengthen her technical skills, specifically in medical editing; to diversify her editing skills on different platforms; and to improve her proficiency with inclusive language and with editing for person-first expression.
Shavonne Mott of Odenton, Maryland, is a technical editor and assistant section supervisor of the editorial team at the John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). Her varied responsibilities include managing the delegation of editorial team work requests, training and onboarding staff, editing classified and unclassified reports, articles, briefs, memos, and presentations. She has been active in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion work for APL’s Communications Department and led the development of the department’s first internship program. Before joining the Laboratory, Shavonne worked as a desktop publisher and a technical writer for various programs.
Shavonne hopes to use her fellowship to strengthen her leadership skills in project management, including earning a professional project management certification. She hopes the development opportunities will enable her to continue her track as an editorial leader who specializes in diversified recruitment and in classified work environments.
“This is a remarkably accomplished cohort of winners,” said Lisa McLendon, president of the ACES Education Fund. “We are pleased to be able to help them expand their skills and grow as leaders.”
Each of the winners will receive up to $3,000 to apply to course tuition, conference fees, travel, or other costs related to their continuing career development and skill building.
The ACES Education Fund, in partnership with the Dow Jones News Fund, announced the Holden Fellowship as a pilot program in summer 2020. The objective is to promote diversity and inclusion by advancing early- and mid-career professionals in their work as editors and aspiring industry leaders. The fellowship recognizes the work of the late Richard S. Holden, who championed diversity in the ranks of editors as the longtime managing director for the Dow Jones News Fund.
This year’s judges were Paula Fuchsberg, an editor at Vanguard and a member of the Education Fund board, along with two graduates of the Dow Jones News Fund’s summer editing internship program: Lindsey O’Donnell-Welch, executive editor at the security news site Decipher, and Edgar Ramirez, social media producer for the Washington Post’s Opinions section.
Major funding for the Holden Diversity Fellowship has been provided by the ACES Education Fund, the Dow Jones News Fund, the Scripps Howard Foundation, and individuals who seek to perpetuate the ideals of Rich Holden.
ACES will award another round of Holden Fellowships in 2024; application information will be available on the ACES website on June 1, 2024.
