Hi, I’m Pat Van Wie, the newest ad
dition to BBB’s editorial staff. My main focus for Bell Bridge is mystery and suspense (and yes, I’d love to find the next Dennis LeHane or Lisa Gardner), but I read all the genres BBB publishes. In particular, I enjoy all forms of fantasy, from urban to sword and sorcery, and the great YA books surfacing in the market.
Although I’m new to editorial, I’ve been immersed in writing and publishing for over twenty years as both an author and writing teacher. I sold my first book in the mid-90’s and subsequently published eleven novels for three different publishers, including Ballantine, Bantam and Harlequin. About the same time I published my first book, I started teaching Creative Writing. I’ve given workshops and taught classes at writer functions all over the country and online. Then, about three years ago, I started teaching at the local community college. Plus, over the years, I’ve also judged numerous – as in hundreds of – writer’s contests.
What all that background means is that writing, and publishing, has been a huge part of my life for a long time. Oh, and I admit to certain left brain tendencies – that you don’t find in a lot of authors – which make editing particularly appealing to me. IOW, I love the details of constructing a really good sentence.
So, where am I’m headed with this blog?
Well, I got the idea from one of my classes. (Thank you, Thorwald, Belinda, Mario, Suzanne, Steve, Shannon and Tibold.) When I started working for Bell Bridge, I added a fifteen minute segment to the beginning of my class, where I talked about things that editors see – the good, the bad and the ugly. 
The class loved it. In fact, they wanted me to develop and teach a new course on how to avoid driving editors crazy. Well, instead of the class, I decided to write brief blog entries about how to improve your writing. Thus — “How To Drive An Editor Crazy. Or not.” — was born.
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