Who is Deft?

Amy Carbo is the founder and sole proprietor of Deft Edits®. She has several years of writing and editing experience, including at a print newspaper and online for websites and blogs. She currently edits and proofreads fiction and nonfiction books for imprints at Macmillan, Penguin Random House, Tyndale, and others. She also works on educational curricula, research papers, and fundraising and marketing materials. She has ghostwritten for episodic audiobooks and is proficient with Adobe InCopy, InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator.

Amy completed the UC San Diego copyediting program and has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Photography and English from the University of Saint Francis. She is also a member of ACES, EFA, and SCBWI-L.A., where she volunteers as co-editor of the blog Kite Tales. She also serves as a mentor with WriteGirl and on the board of Seen&Heard; both are nonprofits focused on developing creativity and life skills for youth in Los Angeles.

In her free time, Amy enjoys reading (of course), writing, gardening, and spending time outdoors and going on adventures with her family and her best (canine) friend, Arthur.

Some Deft projects

These are just a few of the books we’ve edited or proofread so far in 2024…

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Continuing education

Being Deft requires learning, growth, and keeping up with current knowledge on changes in language and more. Some courses, training, or educational breakout sessions Amy has participated in include:

  • ACES (American Copy Editors Society) Conference 2024: attended sessions on AI, efficient editing in Google Docs, updates to AP and CMOS style guides, conscious language, book marketing, authorial voice, mistakes that often “slip through the cracks,” and more.
  • ACES Virtual Conference 2023: attended sessions on fact checking, AI, and more.
  • An Editor’s Guide to Assessing and Addressing Problematic Content with Crystal Shelley (EFA Conference 2023) 
  • Adobe InCopy (Udemy self-paced course)
  • Adobe InDesign (Udemy self-paced course)
  • Copyediting I, II, and III at UC San Diego (classes)
  • Editing Citations for Accuracy and Formatting with Erin K. Maher (EFA Webinar)
  • Editing Young Adult Fiction with Lou Piccolo (EFA self-paced course)
  • Grammar Lab at UC San Diego (class)
  • Inside the Big Five: Tales from a Trade Book Production Editor with Susannah Noel (EFA Conference 2023)
  • Talking Points: Copyediting Dialogue in Fiction with Amy J. Schneider (EFA Conference 2023)
  • Working with Kidlit Authors with Jennifer Navarre (EFA Conference 2023)
  • Worth a Thousand Words: Editing Graphic Novels with Christina M. Frey (EFA Conference 2023)
 

Some of Amy’s favorite books on the business of writing and editing include:

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