Category Archives: About

Mary Sands Woodbury’s editorial background encompasses over 18 years of proofreading, poetry and fiction writing, copy editing, development editing, managerial editing, production editing, technical writing, and website building and editing.

Education

College: Purdue University, BA
Majors: English and anthropology

Background

2008-present

Director of Operations for Fraser Riverkeeper in Vancouver, British Columbia. Fraser Riverkeeper is a member of the international Waterkeeper Alliance, one of the world’s fastest growing grassroots water stewardship movements, under the guidance of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The alliance is comprised of scientists, lawyers, and water enthusiasts who act as river, lake, bay, and ocean stewards in their local communities. In this position, Mary oversees publications and media outreach, develops and writes content for the website, coordinates volunteers, organizes events, handles all the accounting, manages the office, maintains the member database, and participates in beach restorations, boat tours, and community events.

Mary also newly volunteers at the Noons Creek Hatchery, helping with water samples and analysis.

2000-2010

Editor of Jack Magazine, an online literary e-journal that encompasses literary and ecological works emanating from post-WW2 poets, artists, and writers, to the present. The magazine gives special attention to environmental writings and art, including Forest Beatniks and Urban Thoreaus, Jack Clollum’s nature writings, Coral Hull’s eco-prose, Kevin Opstedal’s “Rare Surf,” Michael McClure’s Hummingbird Sutras, and many other expositions. Jack Magazine’s last run is the 2010 summer issue, but the publication will remain online at its domain and is permanently archived via Stanford University’s LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) program. Mary co-founded the magazine with Michael Rothenberg of Big Bridge in 2000, and acted as chief editor and acquisitions editor for 10 years before closing the magazine and opening Moon Willow Press.

2003 – 2006

Contract technical writer for Paige Technologies and Ecco Select in Kansas City, and Volt Services in Indianapolis, before moving to Vancouver, BC. In these short-term positions, Mary designed and wrote software manuals, edited legal documents, developed tutorial and reference guides, wrote use-case documentation, created training requirements, administered documentation networks, wrote standard operating procedures, and managed a Good Manufacturing Processes (GMP) library.

1998-2003

Documentation specialist for Core, Inc., in Irvine, California. Mary created a company-wide intranet with coding, reporting, and user documentation. She managed project codes and status documents, designed and published online help files for clients, and wrote publication quality standards.

1993-1998

Editor at what was then Prentice-Hall (and later Macmillan) Publishing in Indianapolis, Indiana. Mary was part of the Sam’s imprint, and worked her way up through production editing and senior editing to managerial editing. She managed a staff of five editors and mentored a team of thirty. Mary developed editorial strategy by defining standards, tone, and scope of the editorial departments and supervised the production of about fifteen books per year, from author acquisitions to print and proofing of pages. This included editorial, author review, design content, graphics, and layout processes.

Outside of the several dozen books per year she edited at Macmillan, Mary is also the editor of the following books:

A View Beyond, by Larry G. Anderson

I Want a Baby, He Doesn’t, by Donna J. Wade

Interests: Writing, reading, biological sciences, quantum physics, string theory, hiking, traveling, water conservation, wildlife preservation