Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennifer Silva Redmond
Hi Jennifer, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My mom was born to a Mexican mother and an Anglo father, in the part of Mexico now called East LA. Her parents divorced when she was young, and she eventually married and then split from my own Anglo dad in 1968, when I was seven. We all spent a few years in the hippie beach town of Venice, which I still consider my hometown, then Mom took us kids traveling around Europe. That was followed by two years in Northern California and Oregon, then we moved to San Diego. I got into writing very early, which lead me to doing theater as a preteen. I enjoyed doing plays and studying acting, so I moved back to LA at 19 and started auditioning. I lived in Venice, waited tables in Santa Monica, and got (very) small parts in Hollywood.
My dream was to be a Broadway actress but I did children’s theater jobs that were offered to me, including a year on tour in Florida. Back in NYC in the snow I missed the sunshine and went home to Cali. I met my old flame and we got engaged and then married in San Diego, which ended up with us going off on a honeymoon on his sailboat in Baja California for a year. Along the way, I became a writer, once it was clear to me that this simple lifestyle beat being a struggling waitress & actress.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I started writing journal entries in 1989 when we first moved on to the boat, and my memoir came out in 2023, so the process of writing a book was long for me, but my editing career has been thriving all along. I first started a magazine with my husband Russel Redmond, who is an incredible landscape and seascape artist. That led me to working as an editor for a wonderful independent regional publishing company, Sunbelt Publications of San Diego, from 2000 to 2011 (I am still their editor-at-large). I have been a freelance editor since 2011 and it has been challenging but ultimately very fulfilling. It allows me to travel with my husband during the summers when we can get away— my teacher husband is always ready to go sailing.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a book editor, and though I work with some publishers, including Sunbelt, I mostly work directly with authors. I teach at San Diego Writers Ink and the Southern California Writers Conference, specializing in workshops on writing nonfiction such as memoir and also pitching and marketing books. My specialty as an editor is content and structural editing, meaning I focus on the big picture—I am not a copyeditor. I make sure that all of the pieces are there, and that they are all in the right order, whether it is chapters in a novel or sections of a work of nonfiction. Many times people think a book is done, just because they are done working on it and don’t know how to move forward. I am the professional set of eyes who can say, “yes it is a book,” or, more often, tell the writer that they need to go back to work on the manuscript, and, most importantly how to make it better.
Networking and finding a mentor can have such a positive impact on one’s life and career. Any advice?
For writers, it is all about networking, and the best way to do that is to find a trusted writers conference. There, you can meet other writers who are also starting out, make friends with people who will be your first readers and your sounding boards along the way and who will one day be publishing their book too. You will learn about the industry, find out what is new and interesting and what is old hat as far as publishing trends. You will also meet editors and agents who are looking for great new stuff to represent, or who have good professional opinions about what needs to be done to make your work more saleable.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jsilvaredmond/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jsilvaredmond
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-silva-redmond-1334777?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_profile_view_base_contact_details%3BvPrgk84tSuiAHggrFZH0bw%3D%3D
- Twitter: https://www.threads.net/@jsilvaredmond
- Other: https://honeymoonatsea.substack.com/
Image Credits
Russel Redmond
