Editorial and Sensitivity Read Services

I am eternally excited to work with stories! Here are some stories I worked on recently:

You can also check out my testimonials here.

If you would like your book to be featured on that list (or not; that one’s up to you entirely), please get in touch with me at mondalesque@gmail.com with your project. I work with both publishers and independent authors. Here’s what I can do for you:

Line Editing, Copy Editing and Proofreading

For novel- and novella-length works in any kind of fiction, though I specialize in Science Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult and Horror. Depending on the kind of project, I charge by the hour, by the page or by per 1000 words.

Editorial Assessment and/or Structural Editing

Currently I am only doing this for short fiction, and only if it’s Science Fiction or Fantasy. Flat rate of US$100 for a story up to 10,000 words. Any story longer than that is possibly beyond the realm of “short” fiction.

Sensitivity and/or Authenticity Reads

I do sensitivity reads both for caste/Dalit subjects and Indian/Bengali/South Asian in general. I also do sensitivity reads for LGBTQ+ and mental health subjects, but only on the South Asian vertical. (To understand what a sensitivity read is, this is a really good article.) For sensitivity reads, I would work with both science fiction/fantasy and realism, Adult and YA stories. My sensitivity reading rates are US$400 for a work up to 80,000 words, and negotiable for works longer that.

I am a Bengali Dalit woman who grew up, studied and worked in India till the age of 25, and has lived in the UK and the US since then. I have three masters’ degrees (English from India; Publishing Studies from the UK and Creative Writing: Fiction from the US), and have written and published for years on South Asia-related subjects, both in India and elsewhere. I bring all this experience of my culture to a sensitivity read project.

I look forward to receiving your stories! Let’s work together to make better, more fun stories for everyone.

Credentials:

Before I went freelance, I was an editor at Penguin Random House India between 2012 and 2013, and an editor at Uncanny Magazine between 2017 and 2018. I also received an MLitt in Publishing Studies from the University of Stirling, Scotland. I was the first Hugo Award finalist and Locus Award recipient from India in 2018, both for my co-edited anthology Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia E. Butler.