Frederica Morgan Davis
Writer | Editor | Arts Professional
Editorial Services
My joy is to work with writers to shape their manuscripts and help identify their current goals and what it takes to reach them. I am available for prepping novels for agent querying, editing short stories, essays, or novel excerpts for publication, MFA applications, or fellowship/residency submissions. My services can be employed to meet you in any stage of your writing: I am available for reading early drafts and providing developmental feedback, or at the polishing stages, for proofreading, fact checking, and line edits. Or I can simply be a fresh set of eyes when you want encouraging, honest feedback and a nudge to keep going. Please contact me for more information about rates and availability. I look forward to reading your work.
I have three years of experience as an editor for the literary journal, Shenandoah, where I apprentice with Beth Staples, my mentor since 2015. There I read hundreds of submissions every year, and work closely with a handful of authors each issue to prepare their manuscripts for publication, as well as proofreading, fact checking, and copyediting issues.
I earned my MFA in Creative Writing from UNC Wilmington, where I was a fellow in The Publishing Lab for three years. I've been lucky to staff Ecotone and Lookout Books, where I gained editing wisdom from Anna Lena Phillips Bell and Emily Smith. I've been a proofreader for two issues of Chautauqua journal, as well as lead fact checker for two titles with Lookout Books.
My editing skills and the craft of providing generous and constructive feedback have been finely honed at juried conferences and workshops I've attended: LitCamp with Sarah McGrath, Tin House with Steve Almond, One Story with Patrick Ryan, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers with Luis Alberto Urrea, Writing x Writers with Pam Houston, and Summer Literary Seminars with Dawn Raffel and Laurie Stone. I'm also indebted to David Schuman who provided excellent instruction in Flash Fiction, and was my undergraduate fiction instructor at Washington University in St. Louis, and I hold the deepest gratitude always to my generous, superwoman thesis committee: Rebecca Lee, Nina de Gramont, and Wendy Brenner.
Select Pieces Edited for Publication
Nonfiction
"Up Home", Anne P. Beatty, Shenandoah
"What If My Boss Had Been a White Person?", Lynette Benton, Shenandoah
"A Haunting", Sarah Beth Childers, Shenandoah
"The Man in My Chair" and "The Boy on the Tracks", Max King Cap, Shenandoah
"A History of Hatred and Love in Wilmington, North Carolina", Lauren Krouse, Shenandoah (Pushcart nominated)
Fiction
"This Desert Was an Ocean", Laura Price Steele, Shenandoah (novel excerpt)
Teaching Experience
Classroom
Literary Journal Community Engagement Marketing & Media Project Classroom Mentor
W&L Fall 2020
Introduction to Publishing,
Fiction Workshop Leader
UNCW Young Writers Workshop
Summer 2018 & 2017
Introduction to Bookbuilding, UNC Wilmington
Instructor, Fall 2017
Teaching Assistant, Spring 2016, Spring 2017
Introduction to Publishing, UNC Wilmington
Teaching Assistant, Fall 2016
Guest Lectures & Panels
November 2019, UNCW Writers’ Week, “This is My Body Publishing Panel with debut author Cameron Dezen Hammon, Publisher Emily Louise Smith, and Editor Beth Staples” (moderator)
Undergraduate Guest Lectures
University of North Carolina, 2017-2018
Literary Journals: Submissions & Behind the Scenes, Honors Introduction to Creative Writing
Writing Funny and the Female Perspective, Fiction Writing I
Gatekeepers of Publication & the VIDA count, Editorial Process
Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Forms of Literary Fiction
Writing Women and Relationships in Fiction, Fiction Writing I