Erica Peck | Editor, Writer, Reader

Women's History Month Member Spotlight - Connolly Bottum Connolly offers book coaching, editorial assessments, developmental edits, and query package reviews. She specializes in Adult Romance, YA, and MG novels and frequently edits Adult Fantasy and New Adult titles. "Most of the books I edit are centered around women and girls who are finding their soulmates and/or themselves. I love that I'm able to work on novels that incorporate something that's so fundamental to how I move about the world." - www.connollybottom.com @connollybottom

The #EFA is excited to spotlight EFA member Connolly Bottum as part of our celebration of Women's History Month! Connolly offers book coaching, editorial assessments, developmental edits, and query package reviews. Learn more about and connect with Connolly: https://bit.ly/3MWvgBI #WHM

Ew. No thank you.

What authors and publishers pay editors for in a developmental edit is literally their time and expert analysis. If a developmental editor is charging you money to offload that work onto an LLM, you are quite actually being scammed.

a close up of a woman 's face with a slight smile on her face . Alt: A close up of a blonde woman’s confused face with math equations appearing at left.

What in tarnation

Thanks for taking one for the team. This all sounds dreadful. 🙃

Aw man, now I’m going to have to actually finish and publish one of my WIPs so you can read it 😂
Fair warning, it’ll be a different animal from Nylah

Glad you’re enjoying the collection! And thanks for the follow! 😀

That’s valid. Reading preferences are entirely subjective. 🙂

teewatterss on Threads: “losing an hour on international women's day feeling very 75 cents on the dollar”

10/10 take. no notes

Fair! I don’t share that sensitivity, but it took me awhile to get immersed in the few 3rd present romances I’ve read; my brain took a couple chapters to recalibrate. And then it just felt like watching a movie and I could get into it.

I get yelled at for saying this but for many hundreds of years people went to university not to get diplomas or be employable but because immersion in the humanities was considered foundational to a good life, and school must return to its original purpose: the joy of learning.

I can’t read this because I’m not a subscriber, but this topic is fascinating to me. What if any are your thoughts on third person present? I thought it was super rare, but three of my editing projects in the last year have used it.

AI summaries are theft. Click links. Support actual people who put in the actual work

I’m so bummed. My choir’s Ralph Vaughan Williams concert is this weekend. We’ve been practicing for 9 weeks. The music is transcendently beautiful and the Dona Nobis Pacem is eerily timely. And this morning I WOKE UP WITH NO VOICE. 😩😭😷

a woman says let 's face it i 'm tired while sitting in front of a bed Alt: Madeline Khan says let's face it I'm tired while sitting in front of a bed

Blazing Saddles

Three times this week. It’s exhausting.

Pet peeve of the week: people who respond to my heartfelt hatred of AI by trying to convince me that the way THEY use it is okay. Like what do you want? Permission? I’m not your mom. (Because MY kids would never.)

I have no idea why this posted twice btw

Q: What’s the hardest part of building a model of a snake?

A: building it to scale 🐍 😀

Q: What’s the hardest part of building a model of a snake?

A: building it to scale 🐍 😀

I would love some more turgid tentacles to edit, tbh. Bring ‘em on. I want to edit books that would be banned in Florida.

I don’t think any of my clients to date have actually used it, but I’d consider it on a case by case basis. It would have to be an extremely niche voice.

Eh, if it’s right for the voice (but two is too many)

Author: I can't let anyone edit my spicy book, it's so embarrassing! 🫣
Editor (utterly unaroused): Let's see...moist channel, turgid member, that all seems to be in order...oops, you used "turgid" twice. 🧐 Also, he seems to have an extra hand...Oh, it's a tentacle? Perfect, carry on. #amediting

The mind boggles

Driving the other day and had to turn around and suddenly found myself imagining two dudes on a horse cart driving down an ancient Roman road, and one says to the other, “Hey Clavdivs, you passed the taberna. Take a V-turn.” Why does my brain do this.

Pet peeve of the day: phrasing like “three times less than” or “ten times lower than.” Life is hard enough without having to turn my brain inside out for your comparison math, you psycho. Use fractions like a normal person.

Welcome to The Great Pedophile War of 2026, bitches.

Any copy editor worth their hourly rate would’ve stopped them from using a word that begins with Ep-.

Chef’s kiss 🤌