His words rhyme

In a melody of sensitivity

Reminiscent of heartache

And grand insight from Life

And his honest lips drip

With pain and an innocence

But he churns thickly

(And often comedically)

Into the most unyielding support

For his artist sisters

And his brothers alike

A kinship of struggles

On the bloom of creativity

An indulgence of laughs

Philosophical banter and nonsense typed

Breathing booze and a smoke

In a valley of beauty

Topped with snow-capped inspiration

And his majestic loyalty humbles me

From across the miles

But always in my heart

I wear a dead mans' ring

and it's hard to pull in air

when oxygen tastes like mud

and sweat rising from the deep.

it feels like there are gills that

spasm in my chest.

watch me flop against

the restraints of land,

and tear me open with greedy

fingers, giddy at the sound.

frailty ripping apart. but

what choice does a canvas have

when the earth begins to shake?

so I wear a dead mans' ring

and curl toes for strength

when lungs can't catch the breeze.

this fading revealed itself

long before brush missed its mark.

Exploding bursts of light

Surrounded by black nothing

Bold static leading somewhere

A single doorway appearing

Then vanishing again and again

There is an eye staring back at me

It does not blink

Galaxies surround the retina

It knows something that I do not

I walk into the door and wait

Now there are jewels of blue

Floating toward me

Sapphires I believe

I put them in my pocket

Then open my eyes

Untamed spirit find me

Release me tonight

For I struggle restless

Crack my shelled vessel

With deep black ink

Return me with teasing wind

Sink your key into my hollow flesh

Bite naked the nape of my sorrow

Turn my heart into wanting page

Pulse through me endless with word

As I succumb a wilted rose

To your solid quill

Dear Caroline,

      Hello sweetie, it's your grandma! You probably know from your parents that I'm not getting better. Please don't be sad! I don't know how much time I have left before I lose all my mental function. I'd prefer to tell you in person, and when you're older. but I fear that I won't have that chance. You're fourteen now, and I think that makes you old enough to know. You always asked me to tell you about my sister, and I never did. That's about to change. Please know that I would never lie to you, and every word of this is true, no matter how unbelievable it is. 

      The joke in our town (well, it's your town, too) was that the Elementary School had its own resident ghost who haunted it. Any flickering lights in the school were blamed on the ghost, and if there was a gust of wind near the school, it was attributed to the ghost. Parents perpetuated this rumor to their young children to make them behave. they told their children to behave or else the ghost would get them. Many people don't know how the rumor even got started. They assume that some kid make a joke about a ghost once, and then it stuck. The children are told to be afraid of the ghost, because it is malicious. They couldn't be more wrong. 

      My sister has haunted the school since her death when she was eight years old. She was climbing a tree, and she went too high. The branch broke, and she fell and snapped her neck. Now usually, a person's soul would leave. But I guess that my sister was different. For whatever reason, she stayed on the Earth as a ghost. 

      She can choose to manifest a ghostly representation of her body, but she never showed anyone but me. She looked the same as she did when she was eight. She never changed, even after all these years. She is unable to leave the grounds of the school or pass on. Maybe she's waiting for me, we're twins after all. 

    She protects the children in the school from any evil that could possibly come to them. There was once a kidnapper who tried to take a boy, and she threw a giant vase on him. She saved the boy that day. Another time, she caught a girl who fell out of the window, and brought her to the ground safely. I still have the newspaper that spoke of the unbelievable event. 

    I know that you may not believe me, but now you know the truth. And it is the truth, no matter what others may say. Try to find her. She usually spends her time by the tree where she died. You'll know it by the plaque that says Maria Jameson. Even if you don't believe me, Caroline, please try to find Maria. Tell her that I love her, even though I've been unable to visit her. 

    I love you!

                                                                                Grandma Carol Nora Jameson Blake 

Once, there was no way to make anything.

Then, someone stopped, and discovered their mind.

They used it and cast the spell of invention, creation, and creativity.

Now, the mind wanders through a vast array of thoughts and says,

"I could create that."

Creativity is my favorite spell of all.

A scar, 

a piece of art, 

ancient pictograph etchings, 

we leave our mark. 

 As little ones, we accept and 

 make sense of those crazy adults 

turning them into gods and goddesses 

we become to please them 

 Sometimes

sadness is left in the soul 

a sparkling laugh echoes

or 

 misbegotten rejection lives. 

 Now, we hold it all

and allow what is. 

We carry on— not held by hurt 

but healed by truth. 

 We write. 

The orange sun peeks shyly over the horizon of the desert mountains. The expansive land is the flawless skin of a vulnerable woman. With the kind of stillness found upon awakening, temporary serenity centers the Earth's gravity. Muted with beige, and dusted with green souls dancing on the wind, she breathes deeply. Her breath moves across the plain as she exorcises the men whose muddy boots have left an unwelcome imprint on her fragile valleys. Her roughened terrain irons and her cracks fill with a fresh flood of indifference emanating. Her strength is borne from the rich roots nurturing her resilient character. Empathetically, she spreads ready for the next traveler looking for warmth. And a tumbleweed passes, as she waits for sound.

Formations are all impermanent, 

Cities crumbling into the sea. 

One day too, these stones will disappear.

Swallowed by the mother 

That once bore them to the thinning air. 

Memories, encased in limestone. 

Covered in that barnacled kiss. 

It is suffocating here.

Burned between the traces

of lavender and posy. 

I will be there too,

At the bottom of the sea. 

Shrouded in the sink of silted earth,

Trembling in haunting disregard

of something special. 

Everything is impermanent. 

NY Book Editors is a premiere affiliation of editors with extensive experience from New York’s major publishing houses. We spoke to William Boggess there and managed to put some of the questions we thought you’d all like to know about Editors and Editing. He was kind enough to indulge us awhile:

Q: There are many levels of editing at New York Book Editors. How do they differ and where do you come in?

A: I perform both of our main types of edit, depending on what the client needs. The first is a manuscript critique, which includes a read and notes on how to improve the book in broad ways—character, plot, and major prose trends. The second is a comprehensive edit, which includes both the broader criticism of the manuscript critique and an actual markup of the manuscript, where I edit the sentences line by line.

Q: What does your normal working day look like?

A: I usually work for a few hours in the morning at home, followed by some lunch and a workout. If I have a lighter afternoon workload, I’ll usually do that from home as well, but if it’s time to put the nose to the grindstone, I’ll join the laptop’d masses at one of the many excellent coffee shops in Clinton Hill, Bed-Stuy and Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

Q: What is your favourite and least favourite part of the role?

A: It might sound cliché, but my favorite part really is watching a book get better—giving a sentence a shake to see what falls out and making it read smoother, or trying to nudge a character to feel more believable and compelling. My least favorite part is how slow I am sometimes. There’s nothing worse than sitting down at the computer, ready to edit 50 pages and then spending a half hour on the first one.

Q: You personally edit literary fiction and narrative non fiction. Which do you find easier? Do you have a preference?

A: I wouldn’t say that either is easier necessarily, though fiction allows for a bit more variation in style and tone, so the editing can be a bit more free-form. I love working on nonfiction, but my favorite thing is always a nice, meaty novel to tackle.

Q: You’ve worked with some heavy hitting best sellers. What do you consider to be your greatest achievement?

A: I’ve been lucky to have worked on a ton of awesome books in various capacities, so it’s hard to pick one above the others, but my favorite thing recently has been recommending two novels I worked on in the past couple of years—Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You and Lily King’s Euphoria—to just about everyone I know and waiting for them to come back gushing about how much they love them. I wasn’t the primary editor on either one, so I can’t take too much credit, but I love the fact that I had a hand in two recent books that are so universally beloved.

Q: How did you get into the world of editing?

A: In college, I was deciding that I didn’t want to go into academia, when a friend recommended I intern at Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, which was near my school. I was an editorial intern for a few semesters there, which led to moving up to New York after I graduated, and I got a job as an assistant at the literary agency Barer Literary. That started a career in publishing that has me most recently going freelance and working with New York Book Editors.

Q: Without naming names, do you have any horror stories about submissions?

A: Honestly, most of the horror that has stuck with me from my days as an editor and agent is the lingering feeling that I still somehow have a stack of things to read that I’m late on responding to. There’s nothing worse than watching the submissions pile grow when you have so many other things to do, knowing that there are probably some gems in there that you are dragging your feet on.

Q: Are you a writer and what can we read of yours if so?

A: Not since college, when I had a few stories in a campus literary magazine before I realized I was better at improving others’ prose than writing my own. I’m better with sentences than I am with inspiration, so I’m happy to put those abilities to use in an editorial arena.

Q: Who is your favourite author?

A: It has changed a lot over my life, but in the past half decade or so, it’s settled on Larry McMurtry. I really believe that Lonesome Dove is the great American novel, and his books that aren’t westerns show just incredible sensitivity for the nuances of human relationships. I also love Walker Percy,

Q: Do you have a favourite genre generally

A: No favorite genre in particular, but I do prefer authors who are strong storytellers first and foremost. I can appreciate a stylist, but I would rather a traditional story well told than an author who is looking to wow you with their sentences.

Q: What is your recommendation for a book to read before you die?

A: I would recommend Daniel Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone. Everyone has seen the movie with Jennifer Lawrence, which is great, but Woodrell’s prose is just so gorgeous that it pales in comparison to the novel. A beautiful example of how dark, tragic subject matter can be balanced by characters who feel vibrant and alive.

Q: What are you working on right now?

A: I’m working on a biography of a famous scientist, a commercial novel about an advice column, a literary novel that is a coming of age story set in the south, and a sports biography of a major professional basketball player. A full plate!

Q: Do you have any advice for writers?

A: It sounds obvious, but I think the most important thing for writers is to write a book that you would want to read. Working in publishing, we think about the potential readership of books a lot, and although I don’t think you should write specifically to cater to an audience, I do think it’s a good first step to imagine what you would feel like if you were to approach your book as a reader. Would you like it? Would you be able to put it down? Would you recommend it to your friends?

Q: Can you give advice for indie authors who self-edit?

A: Buy a copy of The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. It’s the bible for clean, powerful, modern prose. Read it cover to cover, and then reference back to it often when you have questions. I rarely work on a project where I don’t look up a few things in it.

Q: We get asked all the time about literary agents. Can you give any hints on how to open doors with them?

A: The old chestnut is to look at the acknowledgements of books you love to figure out who the agents are, in order to build a list of agents who represent good stuff. I think that’s a great place to start, but keep in mind that many commercially successful books are represented by agents who have full client lists and thus don’t take on many new authors. Try looking at the agency’s website and figuring out if there might be younger agents at the agency who might be younger and hungrier and eager to add new clients. Obviously they might not have the bona fides of the more established agents, but good agencies hire good people, and I can promise that there are tons of smart young agents out there.

Q: What are you reading right now – literally what is on your bedside table, rather than your desk?

A: I’m about halfway through the second volume of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle. When Karl Ove fever first hit New York, the concept didn’t appeal to me, but I read a piece in the NYT Magazine that sucked me in. Volume 1 was such a killer—astoundingly compelling detail for the first two thirds, and then just an emotional kick in the pants for the last third.

Q: What would you say is New York Book Editor’s biggest success story?

A: I haven’t been editing with them for long enough for any of the authors I’ve worked with to make it through the publishing cycle, but overall I think New York Book Editor’s biggest success is just being a great place for editors and authors to connect. Natasa is always looking for ways to improve experience on both sides of the edit, and is always active in trying to find new and exciting books that need our services.

Q: The Oxford comma. Do you like it, agree with it, and, in fact, use it?

A: I like it, agree with it, and use it (see?). Journalists might feel differently, but I don’t think you’ll find many novelists or publishing types who don’t like it.

Q: You climb out of a time machine into a dystopian future with no books. What do you tell them?

A: Y’all missed out!

Awesome answers, there, thanks to William! Many thanks to William for his time and his answers. So there you go. The answers to (we hope) all of your questions, and some great books to get hold of. You can find New York Book editors on www.nybookeditors.com and they are also on Twitter as @NYBookEditors