Hello and welcome to Scribe & Sunshine! My name is Lauren; I am a freelance editor with a focus on literary nonfiction such as memoirs, personal essays, and self-improvement books. I’ve been in the business of marketing and proofreading for five years now and have since stepped out of corporate editing to focus on more personal subjects. For this first blog post, I’d like to share a bit about myself for those of you who are interested in working with me.
My love for storytelling began at a young age—starting with Junie B. Jones and Sideways Stories at Wayside School and moving to A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Kite Runner, The Giver, and beyond. I treasured mornings spent at the library hunting down my next stack of books for the week, jumping right in to the first book while my mom and brother finished their search. Reading made me feel seen; it was safe to feel and process emotions there on the page. For a growing person whose emotions always seemed too big, this was a saving grace.
I felt a kind of catharsis in reading, especially in the macabre or tragic stories of dark adventure and broken hearts. Reading these stories tapped into my well of emotions and validated their existence—my emotions were meant to be felt. Here, I wasn’t “too sensitive.” In fact, it was unreasonable not to be overwhelmed! When Jonas in The Giver doubled over with grief upon receiving memories of war and famine, I thought of all of the times I cried over newfound knowledge of the world and was told not to be so upset…there was nothing I could do to end all human suffering, so why grieve? Yet here was Jonas, given space to feel pain. In fact, it was his duty to feel the pain, and with pain came love and joy, for there couldn’t be one without the other.
As an adult, this truth became even more clear to me upon reading this section that Glennon Doyle wrote about her daughter in her book Untamed:
“Tish is sensitive, and that is her superpower. The opposite of sensitive is not brave. It’s not brave to refuse to pay attention, to refuse to notice, to refuse to feel and know and imagine. The opposite of sensitive is insensitive, and that is no badge of honor.”
My chest swelled, and I felt full and special and proud to be sensitive. I’ve now reclaimed the word, and I declare myself a Super-Sensitive Sorceress. By embracing this part of myself, I hope to help others share their stories. Because it is through stories we bear grief, share experiences, and create empathy with the power to change the world.
I look forward to working with you on your next project. Let’s share some stories!