Magazine Editing, etc.

Like Harriet the Spy, Barbara became editor of her school newspaper in sixth grade. Since then, she has served in practically every editorial capacity that there is to fill on a print publication (except designer — see below*):  proofreader, researcher, copy editor, managing editor, editor in chief, and staff writer.

Professionally, Barbara has more than 20 years’ editorial experience as a staff member and freelancer for magazines, newspapers and literary institutions in New York and Miami.

While in college Barbara did a summer internship at the Village Voice, where she assisted dance editor Burt Supree and published her first dance review. After graduating from  SUNY Purchase, she researched for New York Magazine and for the market-research firm Packaged Facts, for whom she also wrote market-research reports. She proofread for People and Sport Illustrated before joining Music Alive as managing editor and then editor in chief for five years. 

In the ’90s Barbara moved to South Florida, where in addition to writing guidebooks and travel articles, she did editorial work for local weekly newspapers and national travel magazines.  Barbara was a contributing editor for Porthole Cruise Magazine, copy editor for Miami New Times and staff writer for Miami Book Fair International, the largest book fair in the United States, held each November in downtown Miami.  

Since moving to Peru in 2007,  Barbara has resisted tempting offers to edit online publications for peanuts.  She currently copy edits books for a respectable scholarly press in Gainesville. Read about her recent book-editing projects here.

* After graduating SUNY Purchase, where she founded the avant-garde literary arts magazine M.O.A., Barbara moved to New York where the editor of Interview — under the mistaken impression that Barbara had been responsible for M.O.A.’s edgy design — offered her a position as a layout artist.  Barbara spent one nervewracking morning in the art department of Interview pretending to know how to use an Exacto knife and a T-square, until she escaped for lunch and didn’t come back.  She will never know if she missed her chance to become the next Andy Warhol.