Levi Coren ‘22, Copyeditor for Blackstone Publishing
By Annalynn Mueller, junior English Major
June 6, 2024
Pictured above: Levi Coren
After graduating in 2022 Levi Coren now works at Blackstone Publishing as a copyeditor. Levi was inspired to work towards a career in copyediting after hearing a fellow SOU English alum talk about their job at a career panel in 2019. He got his job at Blackstone right out of college, without any previous freelance experience. Levi was able to jump right into the copyediting world because of all the great experience he gained as an English major and from working at the Tutoring and Writing Center during his time at SOU.
Working at SOU’s Writing Center gave Levi experience workshopping pieces of writing. Levi notes that through “tutoring and editing are very different, they both require a strong understanding of grammar, punctuation…and strong communication with the writer.” As an English major at SOU, Levi chose courses focused on grammar and language when he could in order “to build up useful background knowledge.” Through his SOU courses, Levi learned how to read closely, “just focusing on a portion of a text and appreciating the deeper meanings of the words on the page and the way they were put together.” The experience Levi gained through his coursework was helpful to the copyediting world and “a great way to begin thinking about the way an author’s choices matter.” Additionally, all the feedback he received from professors and peers on his own written work helped advance his expertise as a writer.
“Learning from one’s own errors is a good way to improve as a writer, but it can also be an opportunity to grow as an editor.”
– Levi Coren
His current title at Blackstone is Print Book Editor which includes “line editing, copyediting, and proofreading.” These three different types of editing are all on the sentence-level, which means that he rarely has to look at overarching topics like plot, tone, or character; this work is done before Levi and his team receive a manuscript. When assigned as manuscript as a line editor, Levi reads the manuscript and focuses on the writer’s “syntax and diction, working to hone the writer’s style and bring out what they intend.” Simultaneously, Levi is copyediting and working with the text on a mechanical level looking at “grammar, punctuation, consistency, and typos.”
When Levi is assigned a manuscript as a proofer, that means that “the manuscript has already gone through both a developmental and line edit/copyedit.” At this stage, the manuscript has also been fully designed and formatted, so Levi is working with a completed draft. When proofing, Levi is “reading to catch lingering typos and errors, reviewing the formatting and suggesting changes where necessary, and communicating with the line editor to ensure that any remaining uncertainties or issues are okayed or resolved with the author.” He enjoys the process of breaking down details like “character descriptions, timelines, and coined terms.” In addition to reading, all three forms of editing require “lots of cross referencing with the Chicago Manual of Style and Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, plus various reviews, quality checks, and edits of the text on covers.”
“I love taking a complex manuscript and breaking it down, sorting out the details and determining what needs further discussion and what is likely to cause problems in the future.”
– Levi Coren
One unique aspect of working for an independent publishing company like Blackstone is that Levi is often in direct communication with authors. This presents an extra challenge, as he has to be sure to “communicate edits and suggestions in a thoughtful, poilite, and careful way.” He tries to make sure that his suggestions and phrases “properly appreciate the work and deliberation that the author may have put into something that [he is] asking them to change.” In addition to communicating with authors, Levi also has to balance working with a “much larger, interconnected web” of people at Blackstone: “Even just in the print book department, I need to communicate effectively with coworkers and find ways to manage my workload when I may have five or six books at various stages of the publishing process, all of which other people are also responsible for.”
In addition to human collaborators, Levi has had the option of GenAI collaboration in his field. Blackstone Publishing has expressed “a preference to not rely on AI in writing or editing print books.” As an insider to the writing and editing world, Levi believes that AI is a poor replacement for both practices, and those who say differently do not understand the hard work and dedication that goes into writing/editing. He does occasionally use platforms like Grammarly to catch errors that slip past, but is also hyper aware that Grammarly and other editing softwares “can only make predictions about how words fit together based on probability, and have no insight into the writer’s mind and intentions.” Levi and his fellow editors find themselves rejecting more suggestions from these platforms than they accept.
Pictured Above: Levi Coren
Since working at Blackstone, Levi’s eye for detail has improved, as he has had “lots of opportunities to practice finding solutions to problems.” He also gets the opportunity to read books that he would not regularly pick up, expanding the genres he reads. His favorite project was one of the first books he line-edited, a novel titled Above the Fire by Michael O’Donnel. A book that he proofread, Home is Where the Bodies Are by Jeneva Rose, is currently on the New York Times bestseller list.
Levi has shown immense talent and skill through his position at Blackstone, and encourages those looking for a similar career path to find ways to get experience. His time at the Tutoring and Writing Center gave him many skills, but he also recommends freelancing as a great place to start.
For those looking for copyediting resources, Levi recommends The Copyeditor’s Handbook 4th ed. by Amy Einsohn and Marilyn Schwartz, The Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction by Amy J. Schneider, and It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences by June Casagrande.
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Interested in being featured on the English Program blog? Or know someone who is interested? Contact English Program blogger Annalynn Mueller at muellera1@sou.edu .
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