Before pursuing journalism, I wanted to be a librarian, an architect, a famous actress, and a parapsychologist.
It turns out I have a better shot at a career in journalism than in parapsychology.
I turned an obsession for error-free writing into an editing career in college. I learned more about good writing by being an editor, and I enjoyed helping college writers make their stories more effective by tweaking ledes, cleaning up the writing, and probing them for the details that can make a good story great.
Right now I’m a senior copy editor at Insider in New York City. Before that, I was a Dow Jones News Fund copyediting intern at The New York Times. And before that, I was at The University Daily Kansan, the student newspaper at the University of Kansas. There, I worked my way up from entertainment correspondent to managing editor to editor-in-chief.
At Insider, I’ve sharpened my skills in not only the basics of editing but story framing, fact-checking, and editing for voice, accuracy, inclusivity, consistency, and fairness — looking at an article from all angles as quickly and effectively as possible, while sometimes thousands of readers are flocking to it. It’s a delicate balance of speed and quality.
When I’m not editing, I’m usually biking around Brooklyn, reading about profanity, or capturing the beautiful vanity plates of New York on Twitter.