What began as a casual conversation at the Tucson Festival of Books has turned into a wonderful working relationship, and we're happy to announce that R.J. Cavender is now a member of our editorial staff. R.J. has many years of editing experience, and has recently worked with Cutting Block Press to bring several horror anthologies to print. He is passionate about the horror genre, from things that go bump in the night to explorations of the darker side of humanity and nature.

To welcome him to the fold and introduce him to genre writers, we're giving away one free Introductory Critique. This is your chance to receive feedback from a professional editor, and to make your novel or short story's first pages shine. If you're a twitter user, simply retweet this article and your name will go in the hat. You can even use the handy "retweet" button at the top right of this page.

Just a quick post to let folks know that TED Editor Jesse Steele will be  Renee Bobb's guest  on"The Renee Bobb Radio Show",  tomorrow on Thursday, April 22, 2010 at 8:00 pm CST. 

Topics are expected to include the editor's role in the independent publishing process and what the author/editor relationship is really all about.  You can listen live at www.BlogTalkRadio.com/TheReneeBobbShow.

There’s nothing I like more than getting out of the office, away from the computer, and out into the trenches where writers gather to talk writing. One such opportunity came earlier this week when I had the opportunity to do a seminar for the Santa Cruz County chapter of the Society of Southwestern Authors, one of the biggest and most active writing groups in Arizona.

The topic was self-editing but with the time for the session limited to only an hour and a half, there simply wasn’t time to do our full self-editing workshop. We typically need at least four hours to fully explore the most important principles and guidelines from TED’s own Self-Editing for Fiction Writers and so the challenge here was to quickly introduce those principles and find an angle that worked for the time we had available and still deliver something substantive. The idea I came up with was to explore a small but important aspect of the benefit of self-editing: how paying attention to mechanical fundamentals can not only improve an author's style but also help writers deepen their characters, improve their dialogue, and make their scenes more immediate and memorable.

We didn't want to love Twitter at the Editorial Department.  It seems like such a gimmick and once Ashton Kutcher became the public face of the service, we thought it wouldn't be for us.  150 posts (and counting) later, we're hooked.  There are so many interesting people on there, it's hard to scoff and turn your nose up anymore.  After all, if it's good enough for Margaret Atwood, it should be good enough for us, right?  One of our favorite things on Twitter is LitChat, a thrice weekly hour long discussion of writing or writing related themes.  The conversation is well-moderated, welcoming and informative, which is about all you can ask for these days.  We're proud to announce that our own Renni Browne will be guest-hosting the LitChat for Friday, November 20th, possibly with a few prizes to give away. Go to the LitChat homepage to learn more about how best to experience the chat, get your questions ready, and get into the Twitter fray with Renni and probably some of our staff.  See you there (virtually, but the sentiment is the same).

We always tell our authors to take the good thing they have and make them better, and we try to take that advice for our own projects.  John Robert Marlow is an incredible resource to our Screenplay division, guiding and shaping novels into screenplays and improving existing screenplays, affordably and with tangible results.  But back to the "improving" motif, if one helpful, experienced editor/developer/consultant is good, two are better. Enter Jacqueline Radley, a screenwriter with credits, experience and knowledge to bring the best out of your work. Rounding out the team is Liza Moore Ledford, a Hollywood veteran and seasoned script consultant with numerous big-name projects and credits to her name.

In the spirit of new and exciting things, John, Jacqueline and Liza are introducting new services to the Screenplay division. Since so many of you have asked, we're

April 20, 2009 marks the debut of  brand new blog, which is open to all TED staff to contribute to in an informal discussion of what's going on in the world of TED.  All editors are encouraged to pass along news or insights likey to be of interest to our staff or clients or to folks who are interested in writing and writing markets.

That said, off we go...

On March 15th, 2009 TED launched its brand new website with an updated look, improved functionality, streamlined navigation, and  a lot of new and improved information about our staff, our authors, our services, and resources for writers.

We invite you to explore the site and have seen to it that good news about our clients flashes up to entertain you while you're exploring. Comments, questions, and suggestions are always welcome.