Editorial Assessment Services

Bring us your best work and WOW Editors will help you make it better.

Whether you’ve been working on a project for a while, or are excited about a workshop write you’d like to tweak for potential publication, Wide Open Writing offers developmental editing .

Submit your short story, micro fiction, novel-in-progress, poetry, essays, memoir, to Wide Open Writing’s Editorial Board for review. What is your vision for the work? What does it need to get there? We’ll work with you in making a plan in order to help you get closer to your editorial goals.

We’re writers too and understand the delicate balance of positive and helpful feedback. We will do our very best to enthusiastically champion your work while helping you to step inside and outside the work to see it in new ways.

Not sure if you’re ready to submit your work? Contact the editors at info@wideopenwriting.com and we’ll answer any questions you might have.

Services:

For $149 WOW Editors will read up to 5,000 words of your short story, novel-in-progress, essay, or memoir and provide a one-page editorial assessment of the work.

For $149 WOW Editors will read four to five poems and provide a half-page of comments per piece. For flash fiction (work up to 300 words) WOW Editors will read up to three separate pieces and supply a half-page of comments per story.

After digesting the comments, your editor will schedule a half-hour Zoom or phone call with you to discuss the work, any questions you might have, and where the project might go from there.

Line-by-line edits are not included in the fee. Turn-around times vary depending on the project. If we feel we’re not the right fit for the work, the editors reserve the right to pass on the project. WOW Editors do not guarantee publication of the work.

If you’d like to continue working with your editor, Wide Open Writing offers developmental editing for $70 per hour after the initial editorial assessment. Your editor will provide you with an estimate for your project.

Send us your best work with a passion to make it sing.

Ready to get started?

1 - first, complete this Editorial Assessment Form (Google form) and attach your writing submission.

2 - you’ll receive a prompt to add the Editorial Assessment Fee to your cart using the ‘add to cart’ button.

3 - click the cart icon from the top right corner of any page to check out and submit payment.

We can’t wait to see what you’ve got!

Editors:

Robin Gaines works in both fiction and nonfiction, earning an MA in Journalism from Michigan State University. She worked as a research intern at Rolling Stone magazine and went on to write for magazines and newspapers before focusing on fiction. In 2016 her debut novel, Invincible Summers, was published by ELJ Editions. Since its release, it has been awarded a Shelf Unbound 2018 Best Indie Notable 100 Book; Runner Up 2018 in General Fiction at the Florida Book Festival; and received Honorable Mentions in 2017 at the Los Angeles, New York, Paris, London, Amsterdam, and Beach Read Book Festivals. Before its publication, Invincible Summers was a semi-finalist in the Iowa Short Fiction Award & John Simmons Short Fiction Award for 2014. Her work has been published in Slice, Redux Literary Journal, The Homestead Review, Porcupine, Spindrift, Willard & Maple, Lit Break, Crack the Spine, and others. She has mentored young writers, taught writing workshops, and edited novels, memoirs, essays, and short stories over the last decade. In addition to working on her second novel, Robin writes about what she’s reading at robingaines.net.

Nikki Kallio works in both fiction and nonfiction, earning an MFA from Goddard College in longform fiction, where she also served as nonfiction editor for the student literary journal Pitkin Review. She is the author of the short fiction collection Finding the Bones, Cornerstone Press, 2023, which includes her award-winning short stories “Geography Lesson” and “Spirit Box,” which were recognized by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters. The collection also includes her novella “The Fledgling,” which was shortlisted in the 2018 Brain Mill Press unsolicited novella contest. Nikki’s essay “Cold Front” appeared in the anthology (Her)oics: Women’s Lived Experiences During the Coronavirus Pandemic, Pact Press, 2021. The essay focused on the anxiety of living with a compromised immune system in a rural community following cancer treatment. Her work also has appeared in Midwestern Gothic, rawboned, Wisconsin People & Ideas and elsewhere. Nikki worked as a newspaper journalist and editor on both coasts before returning home to Wisconsin, where she is now a freelance writer, editor and instructor. She is currently the fiction editor for the literary journal Minerva Rising. You can find more about Nikki’s writing at nikkikallio.com.

Emily Shearer works in poetry, essay and intuitive naïf visual art. She earned her BA in French from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and pursued a graduate degree in creative writing at George Mason University before moving to Prague and becoming an “ex-pat poet.” Her poems have been nominated for Pushcarts and “Best of”’s, and published in Kestrel, ellipsis, Silk Road Review, Please See Me, jellybucket, Fiolet & Wing, emry’s journal online, psaltery & lyre, West Texas Literary Review, Clockhouse and Ruminate, among others. She has written book reviews, prefaces, marketing materials and social media posts, presented at the New Orleans Words & Music Festival and regularly exhibits her artwork at the Houston Street Art House in Tomball, TX. She is the former Poetry Editor of Minerva Rising Press and now teaches in The Woodlands, TX. She's a certified yoga instructor, specializing in Yoga Nidra, Yoga for Trauma, and her own line of workshops, “Write Om; Yoga for Creative Types.” You can find a complete list of her publications and a sample of her work on the web at bohemilywrites.net.