After more than twenty years in the Ithaca area, Jill Swenson moves to Appleton, Wisconsin this month. She arrived from Athens, Georgia, in 1992 to teach at Ithaca College and stayed in 2002 when she left the golden handcuffs of tenure behind. Living off the land and off-the-grid, she and her husband raised deer, elk, and bison. When Sam Warren died in 2009, she sold the farm and built her part-time free-lance editing into Swenson Book Development llc.
Ithaca, NY, is a place where ideas flourish and books are born. It has been an exciting place to build a business helping authors grow their good ideas into great books. There is certainly no shortage of market demand for editorial services in Ithaca. And there is an abundance of professional talent to serve clients.
So why move to Appleton, Wisconsin? A Midwestern college town with a vibrant arts and literary community it is where Jill Swenson graduated from Appleton High School East in 1976 and earned her B. A. from Lawrence University in 1980. Balancing quality of life with cost of living, the scales have tipped to Wisconsin. She’s not leaving Ithaca as much as adding Appleton to the community base of her book development business. Thanks to the internet the majority of author clients today are not local to Ithaca, though it has been a pleasure to work face-to-face and side-by-side with Elaine Mansfield, Seymour Smidt, Ira Rabois, Betsy Krieg Salm, Martin Sweeney, Sally Kamerling, Mauro Marinelli, Elizabeth Lawson, Laura Nelkin, Laurel Guy, and other area authors.
Swenson has built an outstanding team of professionals in Ithaca with whom she will continue to work to provide professional author services to clients. Jenna Goodman, Senior Editor, will take on new clients this year. Susan Tripp, Project Assistant, will continue to coordinate projects and manage client accounts in Ithaca, too. Sharon Yntema will continue as bookkeeper and Chad Lieberman remains dedicated to website design and development and IT services and support for our author clients. Barb Maycumber will assist during the transition stage and then she is available for new opportunities in the Ithaca area.
Please note Jill Swenson’s new address and phone number effective April 15: 828 Winona Way, Appleton, WI 54911. 920.358-7991
Writing and Listening — an Interview with Brooke Randel
As a young girl Brooke Randel knew little about the Holocaust—just that it was a catastrophe in which millions were murdered, and that her grandma Golda Indig barely escaped that fate. But her Bubbie never spoke about what happened, and the two spent most of their time together making pleasant memories: baking crescent roll cookies, playing gin rummy, and watching Baywatch. Until an unexpected phone call when Golda said, out of the blue: “You should write about my life. What happened in the war.” What results is a fascinating memoir—about one woman’s harrowing survival, and another’s struggle to excavate theRead more…