Meet the Team: Nancy
"What would you say you do here?"
One of my all-time favorite quotes from Office Space, one of my all-time favorite movies.
And a valid question. I’m Nancy. And Delancey.
And the easy answer to the question is – I’m a line editor and story coach with Evident Ink.
How I got to this point is a little tougher. And what’s with my second name, you’re probably wondering. So that’s what this is about.
I grew up in a book-heavy household and I was a story-obsessed kid. Okay, person. I love story. I love being transported and thrilled by the idea of opportunities, by a world that is out there for me to explore, by fantasies I can embrace inside my own head.
I knew one day I would be a fiction writer.
But first, I went to college and learned to be a different kind of writer—and how to edit. I started life in the working world (despite my parents bemoaning my English degree and telling me I’d never find a job…) at a publishing house as a copywriter in the marketing department. I wasn’t doing what I really wanted… but I was adjacent!
I found that I did love marketing, so that was the direction I pursued for the next *ahem* years of my career. I moved to NYC, worked in marketing and branding for a couple tech companies, and eventually ended up back in California again due to some very nasty business with the World Trade Center and everyone I knew in media being out of work.
I started freelance writing and editing for business clients. And as I worked for a variety of businesses, I started writing some fiction again. But I struggled to find the story I really wanted to write. I thought it should be big. And important. And earth-shaking.
But when I answered a call for a copyeditor for a small press, I discovered romance. I had never read one, but suddenly I was editing several a week—and I realized that I wanted to try writing one. I studied the books I was working on to learn how they were built—my own little craft workshop (and I got paid for it!)
And Delancey Stewart was born. I ended up working for a couple other small presses, but at the same time was entering the indie publishing world as a newly minted romance author, and I saw that there was a real opportunity to build my own business on the back of my editing experience and my growing understanding of the indie world. That was 2012.
I struggled for a few years, worrying that I needed to keep my romance writing identity a secret and run Evident Ink under my “real” name – but then I realized that my work as Delancey informs my work at Evident Ink and vice versa. So the veil has officially been lifted, at least here at EI.
Today, Delancey is a USA Today bestselling romance author, and Evident Ink helps tons of new and established writers hone their words into books that hit lists and grow fan bases. We do everything from story coaching (got an idea? We’ll help you make it a book!) to nitty-gritty line editing (my specialty). I use my marketing background to help write blurbs that hook readers and sell books, and my romance background to help writers tell the stories they want to tell.
In 2019, Dawn Alexander and I partnered to grow the business, and she brought her unmatched story intuition to bear on the content and developmental editing side of the business. We launched Story Strategy Live in 2020 and introduced our first courses.
2021 is gearing up to be a tremendous year for EI, one in which we hope to help writers launch tons of fantastic new stories into the world. We are excited to be the coaches, editors, cheerleaders and champions behind our clients, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it.