Kelsey Webb

For as long as I can remember I have been obsessed with the written word. I was one of those kids who got into trouble for reading under the covers with a flashlight long after my assigned bedtime. However, I have not always known that I wanted to be an editor. My journey to editing began under those covers long ago, and through twists and turns has gotten me to where I am today: at home as an editor. I started out in college wanting to someday become an English teacher, but I soon realized that standing at the front of a classroom is not what I wanted. Despite my typical right brained lexical creativity, I’ve always been a little bit of an anomaly for my teachers. One morning when I had arrived early for a Shakespeare class at BYU, my professor was surprised to see me completing that day’s newspaper Sudoku in pen. When I told him I usually finished in record time with no mistakes, he was surprised. He commented that usually creative people who excel in the liberal arts have trouble making their brains work in a manner necessary for these logic puzzles. After I transferred to the English literature major and added an editing minor, I felt like I was finally using my abilities to the fullest. Through editing, I have found the blend between the poetry of the language and the science of the grammar in the sentence. The guidelines and styles I have learned through editing have provided the structure for me to fill with creativity and please both my logical and artistic sides. As an editor, I will get to explore the reaches of the written word without having to expose myself as an author or as a teacher in a classroom. I can have ultimate cosmic power, but the itty-bitty living space on a back page in the book, and that sounds great to me.