Category Archives: Editor

A Letter of Gratitude to My 2018 Clients

Editor

Dear Author,

At this end of 2018, I am looking back on the year and rejoicing with my authors, the ones whose books I have been privileged to edit. As your book editor, I have spent many hours connecting mentally and emotionally with you and your message. Your message has changed me. I would like to share with each of you how each of you has changed me, empowered me, inspired me, and taught me things I didn’t know.

I would also like you to know about the writing company you have been keeping.

From read more

Krista Guloien has launched “Beyond the Finish Line”

Editor

I was delighted yesterday to attend Krista Guloien’s Vancouver book launch for her first book, Beyond the Finish Line: What Happens when the Endorphins Fade.

Nina&Krista
Nina Shoroplova and Krista Guloien at Krista’s book launch at Brix & Mortar on Homer Street, Vancouver. August 2, 2016

Krista was part of Canada’s women’s eight rowing team competing at the London 2012 Summer Olympics. She and her team were thrilled to bring home silver medals. That was Krista’s third silver medal; she won the others at the 2010 and the 2011 World Rowing Championships. She had been training for this Olympic moment since joining Simon Fraser University’s rowing novice eight in 2001.

Then, eleven years later, Krista was ready to retire from high-performance athletics. But retirement loomed as an unknown, a transition that Krista was not sure about. How did she handle this life change?

She wrote about it and in the process found her next joy—teaching spin, public speaking, and promoting her book.

By the time Krista read from the introduction to her book yesterday afternoon, she was surrounded by family, friends, and well wishers.
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Today, she sent me a testimonial. Thanks, Krista.

I feel lucky to have had Nina as my editor. She gave me confidence in my choices and added her expertise in a way that spoke to my personal expression and story. She was able to jump right into the detail of my work and see the big picture. I was in awe of how she was able to offer what she did. She has a special talent. I would work with her again in a heartbeat read more

A Testimonial from Carol Ann Arnim

Editor

Today, I received this testimonial from Carol Ann, a recent client.
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For anyone in a quandary over your manuscript, I highly recommend Nina’s expertise. Initially, you may not like what she has to say, but allow yourself to stay open.

At around 138,700 words, my initial manuscript was far too long. Nina gently and persistently encouraged me to downsize it. My manuscript was precious in all of its length, yet I endeavoured to, as she said, ‘put on the reader’s hat,’ resulting in surprising read more

Conch Shells

Being Fully One's Self, Editor, Researcher

When I’m aware of synchronicity, I always know that I’m noticing something important.

In the last while, I’ve come across three references to people blowing into conch shells for the beautiful sounds that they make: in Chapter Fourteen of Judy Satori’s Sunshine Before the Dawn (I’m currently editing the text for its 2nd edition), in the Bhagavad Gita (scattered throughout from Verse 12 on), and in director Ron Fricke’s stunning movie, Samsara, where two monks blow on their beautifully decorated conch shells on the roof of Thiksey Monastery in Ladakh, India.

I’m currently also poring over Gyorgy Doczi’s 1994 book, The Power of Limits. This gorgeously provocative world of ideas about the harmony between sound, nature in all its forms, colour, and mathematics delves further into the Golden Mean, the Golden Section, the Fibonacci series, and phi than I’ve ever gone before. And my mind is bristling with ideas. Although Doczi refers to abalone, clam, bear’s paw, nautilus, and whelk shells to illustrate that “their harmonious shapes unfold in logarithmic spirals characterized by the golden section’s proportions” (page 53), he actually doesn’t refer to a conch shell. But the divine truth still holds.

Back to the conch shell in the image, discarded home of a giant sea snail. Do you see the many patterns on the shell in the image? The spiraling bumps, the alternating white and orange, the paired black stripes?

When I grew up in Wales and went with my family to some of the beautiful beaches of west Wales (Tenby and Saundersfoot for example), I was always thrilled to find a “good” shell. A “good” shell was one that I could hear the ocean in. Fascinating.

But here, in this synchronicity, three diverse references bring to my attention that not only can I hear the ocean (or the same sound that ocean waves make) when I put a conch shell to my ear, but, by cutting holes in the spire, it becomes a musical instrument for me to blow through, a conch trumpet.

Sound, harmony, colour, design, unique beauty in nature.