Thanksgiving may have begun with the pilgrims in 1621, but it wasn’t an official observation until 1863 when, in the midst of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued a presidential proclamation: “I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those […]

Something we do a lot as editors is cut meaningless phrases and word out of various manuscripts. As a result, we have some pronounced ideas about phrases that can just be eliminated from books altogether. Here are some examples: As fate would have it Fate always has it. There seems little point in telling the […]

When Ernest Hemingway advocated short sentences – first on his list of four good-writing rules – he wasn’t advocating a drum roll of facts. On the contrary, his short statements omitted as much as they revealed which is exactly what gave them substance and depth. To illustrate his point, Hemingway once told a story in […]