mcilroywritingservices.com
Tucson, Arizona
Fiction. Non-fiction, including memoir, essay, academic, professional reports.
Through decades of writing and teaching writing, I'm attuned to the mechanics of grammar, punctuation, spelling, correct word usage, etc. Beyond proofreading skills, I have extensive experience responding to and guiding fiction and creative nonfiction manuscripts. I've taught fiction and composition for decades, including at the University of Arizona and the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. My editing clients have published both fiction and nonfiction.
I've also taught in public schools, Native American communities, and prisons.
Decades of reading have given me a broad knowledge base. For example, I recently edited a book-length academic study, From Mission to Megalopolis: El Camino Real, California’s Road to the 21st Century, and Its Place in an Urbanizing World. Consulting with a robotics firm, I edited an online magazine for emergency first responders, At the Ready, and a proposal from the state of Georgia to the Federal Aviation Administration.
I've published two books of my own, the short story collection All My Relations, which won the Flannery O'Connor Award, and the nonfiction Here I Am a Writer.
My functional grasp of conversational Spanish recently aided me during two months living in an Ecuadorian town.