Date of Award
Spring 5-9-2017
Degree Type
Capstone
Degree Name
Master of Arts in Professional Writing (MAPW)
Department
English
Committee Chair/First Advisor
Margaret Walters
Co-Chair
Sergio Figueiredo
Abstract
An author's voice does not venture into the wild west alone; it rides with a full posse. On the surface of a published piece of work, the author appears to be the lone genius; yet, underneath in multilayers of revisions and conversations that carry an author's voice over the rooftops of the world, voice is an intimate communal affair. As an editor, I view co-creation as embodying the push-and-pull relationship that forms between writer and reader, including the editor. A good editor pulls out the best sound from the author even when the manuscript is a wild, caterwauling animal. An editor is merely a highly-specialized reader and, like all readers, will become one of a multiple of voices who will forever inform, evolve, and challenge the author's words. A good editor will filter and fiber the blood of a writer, and in turn, the author's creative work will go on to to the same for its readers. In the end, it is the conglomerate of readers over a span of years, decades or centuries even, that exalts the author's voice to its most powerful level of co-creation. Here, the author's individual sound, or texture, is recycled out in the wilds of the storytelling jungles and untamed forests. Through the process of co-creation, a creative endeavor takes on a voice of its own, busting seams and declaring itself, in the spirit of Walt Whitman, a free entity. We are all co-creators of voice in this wild, animal-wrangling endeavor of creativity.