Field Notes.
Fleeing the Scourge: A. R. Bender’s The Black Bow
One of the greatest forces for change in the modern world was the Reformation, the splitting of western Christian Europe into Catholics and Protestants. One of the greatest conflagrations of this change was the Thirty Years War, a disaster that lead to the deaths of...
Fresh Western Fiction in J. Daniel Camacho’s “West of Eminence”
In the March issue of Frontier Tales, the online Western fiction magazine, you’ll find J. Daniel Camacho's excellent short story "West of Eminence." This is Camacho's first publication in the Western genre, a piece of short fiction that crackles with humor and lively...
The Editor in the Age of AI
Before the release of ChatGPT, the first thing a writer would ask when I said I’m an editor was, “Who’s your favorite writer?” As a freelance editor, my response revealed whether I’d be a good fit for the writer. After the release of ChatGPT in 2022, however, everyone...
Developmental Editing at the University of Washington
Editor and co-founder Matthew Bennett designed a new specialization in developmental editing for the University of Washington. This is an intense course of study and unique among American university editing programs. Enrollment is currently open for the fall...
David Aucsmith’s New Novels: The Spanish Pendant and The Vitruvian Man
In one novel, a veteran of the British Army discovers a valuable antique pendant that leads him, through family history, to the Iberian Peninsula under Napoleon's invasion. In another novel, a young man named Vitruvius discovers after an assassination a coded message...
Publication of Natalia Molina’s A Place at the Nayarit
The CEC is proud to announce the publication of Natalia Molina's A Place at the Nayarit: How a Mexican Restaurant Nourished a Community (University of California Press).This project is a social history of the Echo Park community in Los Angeles, specifically the...