Welcome to our first blog post for Honeycomb Author Services! We are so excited to finally launch our freelance business today and introduce ourselves. All three of us, as you will soon read, carry an immense passion for editing, writing, and reading that has shaped our childhoods as well as our chosen career fields. Honeycomb is a project we have taken on to gain more editing experience, learn from our fellow-writers, and foster an encouraging writing community. We hope to support and inspire you as you work towards publishing! If you would like to learn more about our team in detail—who we are, how we discovered the joys of stories, and why we’re here—read on! We can’t wait to work with you!
Brianna De Man
Greetings from Bri, the resident editing dynamo! I’ve been involved in the writing world for almost a decade now, from world-building over lunch with friends to being a part of our little hive here. But I’ve been a reader for even longer. I used to come home to a new pile of books my mother had gathered from the library, and I would pounce at the chance to devour whatever she’d managed to find. It didn’t matter what genre or target audience the books were; I was notorious for burning through each and every one. I was even known for stealing the ones my mom had chosen for my poor siblings. I also traumatized a mailman one time over books…but that’s another day.
Now, years later, I’m still hungry for stories and the communities they grow. Books have a special knack for bringing people together. I’ve formed some of my closest friendships with readers and writers, whether in-person or online, and I’m a part of book groups and writing workshops. I’ve been working professionally in the publishing industry for the past three years. I even have a book dealer (trench coat and all)! He’s let me borrow some of my favorite series, including The Belgariad by David Eddings and Riyria Revelations by Michael Sullivan.
I’m eager for new and exciting tales, and I’m driven by the people they come from. My own writing journey, on the other hand, has been somewhat tumultuous. I first began writing creatively at five years old, after which I became enamored with the prospect of creating something of worth—something meaningful, not just to me but to the world. I felt something expressive inside of me that longed for articulation, and I spent years trying to do just that. As I neared adulthood, I finished my first fantasy novel and began two or three more, exhilarated and running on the high of my first “The End.” In the years after that, however, I felt more and more like I was running on steam instead. Sometimes I still think of the stories inside of me, and I feel them stirring kindly, understanding this disinterest. After all, I had found a new passion: walking alongside other authors.
That’s the one thing I love about editing. Giving feedback is one thing, but watching writers’ eyes ignite with a clear vision of what their story could be is something distinctly sacred. It’s the loop of communication that I find the most fulfilling, an excited effort from both editor and author in making their book remarkable. When a rush of ideas suddenly washes over you, and you scurry back to Chapter 3. When a comment makes you think for a spell, and suddenly that one thing clicks into place. Those kinds of moments are what I live for! I’m so excited to see this become a reality with all of you through Honeycomb.
Gabrielle Utrie
Hi! I’m Gabrielle and I’ve been telling stories since before I could read. My parents have recounted how as a kid I used to take scraps of cloth, fold them into books, and “read” them to anyone who would listen. But as soon as I learned to read, it was hard to pull me from the library. I spent hours camped in the aisles between the shelves, burrowed under the canopy of books as I read anything I could get my hands on—from books on the mummification process to The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids series to books about Samurai weapons to the Dear America books. From an early age, I was enraptured by books and was very familiar with the power of stories. My love of stories made me determined to work with them one day.
At first, my main goal was to write. Shortly after I discovered my love of reading, I discovered my love of writing. It started with marker drawings telling stories (which were mostly retellings of episodes of Arthur and The Lion King), then it graduated to scribbled words spilling across the pages of elementary school journals, then I spend hours late at night in middle school writing and rewriting stories on printer paper and the old stationary from my grandpa’s dentist office, and when my aunt and uncle saw me carting these stacks of paper across state lines, they offered me an old laptop they weren’t using anymore. And with the power of technology, I became an unstoppable writing machine. Now I wasn’t relegated to the margins of school notebooks and rewriting the same scenes in smudged pencil to lamp light. I would write faster and almost anywhere, and it would all be in one place. The only limit was my imagination, which, after years of being fed a consistent diet of any available story but especially fantasy, seemed endless.
My passion for writing has never lessened. It’s the reason I chose an English major when it came time to go to college. But as I progressed through my program and refined my writing, I discovered a new passion: editing. I quickly joined my university’s creative writing club, and one of the features of that was the writing workshop groups. As a member of a workshop group, I was reading and giving feedback on one of my peer’s stories every week. And once I started taking creative writing class I was workshopping up to three times a week. I wasn’t a stranger to expressing my opinions on stories—my friends and parents had frequently been subjected to Gabby’s Strong Opinions on Literature and Film™—but those had always been about finished stories. Nothing I said would change anything about the way things turned out. But now I wasn’t just giving criticism to the void or whoever was unfortunate enough to get trapped in my vortex of passion and opinions, I was giving feedback to an author as they wrote. My thoughts could help them figure out how to make their stories stronger. And I loved that process. It was like a puzzle. I was presented with a story and the problems the author was struggling through, and I could look for options they missed and help guide them towards a solution. It always fills me with so much joy when I see an author’s eyes light up after a bit of feedback and I can hear their new plan to tackle a problem in their story. I realized I didn’t just like reading and writing stories, I liked helping authors realize the full potential of their own stories.
So that’s led me to Honeycomb. The past couple years have been filled with workshopping my peers' works in multiple contexts and I’ve developed my skills significantly over the years. With the tools from multiple classes and working alongside writers in extracurricular workshops at our side, a couple of my friends and I decided to venture into the professional world of editing services. I’m really excited to begin this journey and get to know more authors and their stories. I’ve always loved stories, and it’s awesome that I get to help grow the things that have been so important to me.
Emily Vest
Hello! I’m Emily and I’ve adored storytelling ever since I was little. When I was seven years old, I would staple notebook paper together and write and illustrate my own “novels,” including such classics as Beach Trip, Life on the Farm, and The Great Hot Dog and Burger War. My younger siblings and I would also play elaborate games of pretend with our neighbors, dressing up in costumes and roleplaying everything from historical fiction to fantasy stories in our backyard! At age nine, I read my first fantasy series: Harry Potter. I devoured book after book, fell in love with Rowling’s writing, and declared shortly after that this was what I wanted to do with my life. Write.
When I started college, I knew I wanted to major in English so I could analyze literature and hone my writing craft. Through my classes, I’ve dissected and written essays on American literature, British literature, Shakespearean plays, and even Contemporary Young Adult literature. And though I loved these classes, it was when I started taking more writing-related courses—like English Grammar and Style & Mechanics—that I discovered my passion for editing. It’s a magical art to weave the right words together, tinker with text, and sift through syntax. While I still dream of becoming a full-time novelist, I realize that writing, editing, and publishing my books will take much longer before they feel finished, so—while my WIPs slowly grow—it is now my goal to enter into the editing and publishing industry so I can help fellow-writers make their stories a reality! Honeycomb Author Services is just one way for me to gain more experience, enjoy the editing process, and connect with other writers who aim to publish.
Working with other writers is an extraordinary experience! In high school, I was involved in three different creative writing workshops: one at my high school, one at the college where I took dual-enrollment classes, and one at a local indie bookstore. But now, I am even more immersed in writing community! I get lunch with my writer friends to brainstorm and geek out about our stories; I both book and hold writing center appointments with friends to plot and outline and worldbuild; I run an online creative writing server and post tri-weekly writing questions, quotes, and challenges; I host a weekly creative writing workshop of my own; and I serve as Vice President of a creative writing club and the Editor-in-Chief of the Cedarville Review literary magazine! Having a writing community has encouraged me so much the past few years, and I hope to share that community over Honeycomb.
I also hope that Honeycomb will let me be a student to my clients as I continue composing my own books, since I still have much to learn as well! Currently, I’m working on a science fantasy book series called Duality. In it, two childhood best friends—Kestra and Solias—find themselves on opposite sides of a war due to the respective powers of dark and light they inherited. While one joins the Eventide rebellion against the Empire, and the other joins the Knights of Sol whose job is to execute the rebels, they both learn corrupt secrets about their organizations and realize not everything is black and white. I hope to one day publish this trilogy and for it to communicate themes of balance, family, loyalty, empathy, and duality. Let me know if you’re interested in hearing anything else about my writing projects!
Besides reading and writing, I also enjoy singing, rollerblading, skiing, softball, and making the perfect cup of tea. Spending time with my family is also one of my favorite things, especially traveling and exploring with them. My dad works with the Army, so my family moves every two to three years and gets to visit someplace new! This year, we’re moving to picturesque Stuttgart, Germany! I’m a big fan of learning about other cultures, so getting to see Europe again is really exciting! I look forward to working with fellow writers and editors and learning about their stories, passions, and goals, both on Honeycomb and wherever I end up in the world! Thanks for taking the time to learn about me, and I wish you the best in your writing endeavors!
Just the Beginning...
Thank you for your interest in us and our platform! Honeycomb is important to us and we hope we will continue to grow alongside it as we interact with more storytellers like yourself. If you have any questions for us about Honeycomb, please don’t hesitate to reach out! And if you are interested in working with one or all of us on your novel, check out our Services and Contact pages! We will continue posting weekly blog posts every Friday—from writing tips to book reviews—so stay tuned for all that’s in store.
Till then, bee brilliant!
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