Dionne stocks vats of red ink so she doesn't have to feel stingy when she gets her hands on a fresh, innocent manuscript. You might call her brutal, but she does what she does for the absolute love of the language, of a beautiful story well told, and of helping authors improve in their craft. It's not every day you get to take something beautiful-but-flawed and help wipe away its imperfections—unless you're an editor, that is! Dionne is addicted to reading, devoted to her family, and has been known to develop a slight twitch at the worst cases of English Language Abuse. She hangs out at DionneObeso.com, and she loves emails (
[email protected])!
At the age of seven, Tracey Pennington fell under the influence of her first love—Spockian logic, which evolved into a fondness for internally consistent stories and characterization. At twelve, she met Mrs. Susan Roche, the English teacher who was to render the rules of spelling, grammar, punctuation and capitalization unforgettable. These two powerful influences led to Tracey beta-reading fanfic, proofreading and editing friends' manuscripts before submission to various small presses, and, finally, to professional editing, which she has been doing since 2009. She still thinks that fanfic being the root of her career is one of the coolest things ever.
Tracey graduated from St. Joseph College in West Hartford, Connecticut with a double major in political science and history—though this occurred rather more years ago than she wants to mention. Three of her favorite memories involve climbing the pyramids at Tíkal, attending Hertford College at Oxford University for a summer, and exploring Scotland. Prior to becoming an editor, she worked as a paralegal, a state employee, a clerical assistant in the state Attorney General's office, and a telemarketer, though her worst job involved compiling mail-out health packages for an insurance company while the building was on fire. (She would like to note that trying to get past guards determined to keep workers in a burning building is not fun.) When she's not editing manuscripts, she enjoys writing, logic puzzles, watching online shows such as Brows Held High, Atop the Fourth Wall, and Tabletop, and discussing alternate universes with friends, especially Shakespearean AUs.
Kristen earned her bachelor's in history from the University of Maryland - University College in August of 2011. She loves doing research and collecting history books. Her favorite time periods/places to study are early American, French history, the Tudors, and the Elizabethan eras. Although, she is a sucker for a good historical biography, and will read as many as she can.
Since graduating, she has been working in the writing and editing field. She began by writing freelance pieces, but has branched out over time to include editing. Kristen loves being able to help a story reach its full potential. She is a recent addition to Storm Moon Press; she started in April 2012, but so far she has enjoyed her work immensely.