Writing has been a central part of my life and how I make sense of the world since early childhood. As a young girl, sounding out lines from the newspaper to family friends and neighbors was a sure way to earn some praise and perhaps a piece of cake at the local cafe. This doting attention spurred within me an early love for reading and writing which became central to survival in a new society when my family moved from Spain to the United States just before I started first grade. Making sense of an English-speaking world suddenly meant that reading and writing took on even greater importance for me as the oldest child in an immigrant family. I grew up to become the first person in my family to graduate from highschool, then college (B.A. in Philosophy and Religious Studies, College of Charleston), and finally to earn a Ph.D. (History, UC Santa Cruz). Each of these steps was driven by a deepening sense that writing was a powerful tool for understanding and engaging with the world.

Throughout my professional trajectory, I taught writing as a way to pass along the skills that I learned across the decades. As a college student, I tutored writing for philosophy students, guiding them to develop well-integrated and logical arguments. Later, as a professor, I frequently taught advanced composition courses that guided students through the foundations of research and writing in the field of historical sociology. I also mentored graduate students writing their first publishable articles and dissertations. It was in this later work that I began to use developmental editing as a tool for mentoring future scholars as they learned how to draft, revise and publish their work.

You can learn about my research and writing at www.anacandela.com.