About | SimekWritingServices

Lauren Simek, PhD

My role as a writing partner, editor, and coach began more than twenty years ago during my time as an undergraduate writing tutor, graduate teaching assistant, academic journal editor, and then university instructor. Working with university students and colleagues allowed me to realize my enthusiasm for helping people one-on-one through the writing process. I've worked with clients on everything from short essays, book reviews, dissertations, journal articles, nonfiction books, and job application materials to memoirs, family histories, short stories, novels, and satires. I love these opportunities to learn about a wide variety of fields and gain insight into who people are, how they see the world, and the various ways they express what's important to them. Above all it's the connection with people and ideas that makes my work so rewarding.

Experience

2015 - Present

Freelance Editor and Writer

Simek Writing Services LLC

Experience working with clients in corporate, private, and university settings.
Recent projects include Educators Are Designers, by Jim Gaona Ellis, forthcoming from Harvard Education Press, and Midcentury Tales from Rural Ohio, by R. C. Steinle Williams, published by Orange Frazer Press (2023).
Skills include copy editing, line editing, developmental editing, writing coaching, co-writing, and ghostwriting.
Documents edited include journal articles, book reviews, nonfiction books, book proposals, dissertations, theses, academic job market materials, memoirs, novels, short stories, and satire.

2014 - 2018

Faculty Associate

Arizona State University

Department of English & Writing Programs

Honors Faculty, Thesis Director, Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State University.
Designed and taught upper- and lower-division courses on the short story, critical reading and writing about literature, nineteenth- and twentieth-century British literature, advanced first-year composition, and basic writing.
Nominated for College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Teaching Award.

2006 - 2012

Associate Instructor, Teaching Fellow

Indiana University, Bloomington

Department of English

Designed and taught courses on fiction and literary analysis, professional writing, first-year composition, nineteenth-century British literature, and basic writing.
Nominated for Award for Outstanding Teaching by an Associate Instructor.

2009 - 2010

Book Review Editor

Victorian Studies

Copy edited more than 150 book reviews and proofread typeset reviews.
Commissioned book reviews and review essays from scholars worldwide.
Communicated regularly with book publishers.
Trained and supervised the Assistant Book Review Editor.

Publications and Peer Review

“Revising Tractarian Reserve: Elizabeth Missing Sewell, Victorian Didacticism, and Novel Form.” Victorian Review, vol. 46, no. 1, 2020, pp. 101-21.

“The Sounds of Narrative in Longfellow’s Evangeline.” Reconsidering Longfellow, edited by Christoph Irmscher and Robert Arbour, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2014, pp. 87-100.

“Feminist ‘Cant’ and Narrative Selflessness in Sarah Grand’s New Woman Trilogy.” Nineteenth-Century Literature, vol. 67, no. 3, 2012, pp. 337-65.

I've also served as a peer reviewer for the academic journals Nineteenth-Century Literature and Nineteenth-Century Prose.

Education

2014

PhD, English Literature
Indiana University, Bloomington

2006

MA, English Literature
Indiana University, Bloomington

2003

BA, English Literature

BA, Spanish

Arizona State University, Tempe

William Riley Parker Career Award for outstanding advanced graduate student working in field of British Literature (2013)
Patrick Brantlinger Victorian Studies Dissertation Year Fellowship (2011-2012)
David H. Dickson Award for Best Graduate Student Essay on American Literature (2008)

First-Year Departmental Fellowship (2005-2006)

Summa cum laude
Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State University
Writing Tutor, The Writing Center (2000-2003)

Testimonials

Jim Gaona Ellis, Author of Educators Are Designers,

forthcoming from Harvard Education Press

“My work was accepted at a more prestigious publisher because of Lauren’s experience and expertise. Without her guidance, support, and skill, this outcome would not have been possible. Lauren is a masterful editor who demonstrates an incredible ability to guide large, complex writing projects with precision, and helped me clearly define the scope and goals of my book. As a writing partner, she clarified my ideas, elevated them into magnificent prose, and organized the whole thing masterfully for publication. Writing professionally can be taxing, but Lauren's warm and supportive personality made the entire process enjoyable.”

Email: lauren@simekwritingservices.com