Story Circle Editorial Service

Story Circle Network Names Butler, Bonnett to Head Editorial Service Project

The Story Circle Network is planning to launch an online service designed to offer assistance to writers looking for editorial help to polish and proof their work.

After an extensive search, the selection committee has chosen SCN members Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett as the project's developers and coordinators. They were selected for the strength of their impressive resumes and the creative potential of their project proposal.

In their proposal, Butler and Bonnett write that their vision is to create a Story Circle Network Editorial Services that will be "a premiere resource for women writers looking for editorial assistance," whether that is simple proofing, more extensive line editing, or even more extensive developmental work. They plan to "pair writers with some of the best editors available to help them bring their stories and manuscripts up to publication standards."

In the first phase of the project, the new coordinators will recruit a strong team of skilled and experienced editors and develop procedures for the program. They will be working with Peggy Moody to create the project's website and expect to launch it in the early months of 2009.

Bonnett and Butler have a long history of working together on important writing projects. They became colleagues at the national information clearinghouse, Women's Educational Equity Communication Network (WEECN), established by Butler in 1977. Although their extensive careers in writing, publishing, and marketing has taken them in different directions, they maintained their professional and personal friendship across both years and geography.

In 1985, Matilda Butler co-founded Knowledge Access International, a software company specializing in CD-ROM and print products and served as its president until 1997, when she sold it. To continue developing digital products, she established Knowledge Access Publishing; from 1992-1996, she served as a director of the Information Industry Association. Butler has published more than 50 articles, contributed chapters to several anthologies, co-authored the award-winning Women and the Mass Media (1980), and co-edited Knowledge Utilization Systems (1983).

After leaving WEECN, Kendra Bonnett created three magazines, including Digit, one of the first children's computer magazines, and the award-winning Profit Magazine for IBM. She also worked as a research interviewer for former Secretary of the Treasury William E. Simon. In 1996 she joined the marketing firm Mark Stevens & Company, becoming its president two years later. She is an award-winning author who has written more than 300 magazine articles and written, edited, or ghostwritten seven books.

Butler and Bonnett began working together again in 2000 on a co-authored book, an important "collective memoir" entitled Rosie's Daughters: The "First Woman To" Generation Tells Its Story. It was published in 2007 and won the 2008 IPPY National Book Award winner in the Women's Issues category. The pair also co-founded Two Women Business and Publishing to create products and services that help women to both write, publish and market stories and books.

The pair have also teamed up to teach an online class for SCN, entitled "Start Small, Finish Big." Both are also blogging on Telling HerStories.

Last updated: 11/24/08