Say it: “Snake oil.”   Can’t you just feel the hissing, coiled power of venomous contempt? “Snake oil.” That two-word phrase packs more punch than “it’s a scam,” “fake news,” and “total B.S.” combined. Everyone knows that snake oil is just a placebo masquerading as a legitimate cure, peddled by a charlatan who cares more about your money than your health…   …But actually? Placebo and charlatan more accurately describe something once called “patent medicine.” The real snake oi

Ghostwriting is a difficult skill to feature in a professional portfolio. Like the “silent corrections” that we editors make when we’re...

I’ve been a science fiction reader for much of my life, and I’m fascinated by the possibilities of artificial intelligence. However, as a...

For the same reasons that it would be difficult training an AI tool to edit something as human and nuanced as written language, I can’t...

When you hire an editor, you’re getting a very specific stack of skills. Each of those skills can certainly be taught to the AI tool of...

A few years ago, browsing in a used bookstore in a town where I don't live (which, by the way, is a great strategy for finding titles...

One thing that makes the human species so unique is the complexity of our communication. We like to think of language as a fixed,...

[A note of apology: Ideally this should have been a Halloween-themed post, but the spirit didn't move me until this week.] As the waning...

It's not always easy to market your editing skills. As someone who's been doing this for a few years now, I see two main reasons: 1)...

Welcome to The Village Wordsmith blog. I never really thought of myself as a wordsmith until my team members at the George Lucas...