User:Donnaluise/sandbox/Donna L. Ferrier

Donna L. Ferrier

Donna L. Ferrier (born May 3, 1967) is an American writer and editor. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English and Communications from Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia, and has written and edited all types of publications, including books, magazines, newsletters, advertisements, press releases, and web (i.e., content) copy. Donna was born in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. After she graduated college in 1989, she worked as a full-time writer, editor, and layout artist in the DC area for fifteen years before relocating to Oklahoma in 2004 where she has freelanced full-time for the past 11 years. Her clients come from all over the world.

Career

After graduating college in 1989, Donna began her writing and editing career as a proofreader and copy editor for the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) from 1989-1994, where she worked in a fast-paced production department, proofreading and copy editing all articles for the association's flagship publication, Training and Development Journal (the name of which was later changed to Training and Development), along with multiple newsletters per quarter, conference program books, booklets, and the association's quarterly newspaper. She also proofread and copy edited ASTD's monthly booklet, Info-Line, and other books as they were written. Once a year, Donna wrote an audio video catalog for ASTD's Training and Development Conference.

After Donna left ASTD in 1994, she was hired as a technical writer and editor for the Document Management Industries Association (DMIA), where she wrote, edited, and coordinated production and mailing for two-color printing industry newsletters, one for DMIA and the other for its sister organization, the Society for Service Professionals in Printing (SSPP). She planned article content, developed production schedules and art ideas, and managed the publications from concept to finished product. She also wrote, edited, and coordinated production for the Electronic Prepress Home Study Course, as well as edited and proofread membership directories, educational brochures, and product catalogs, and tracked them through the production process.

Unfortunately, due to the economic recession of the early to mid 1990s, Donna was laid off after two years and temped from 1997-1998, for EEI Communications, Inc., a prestigious agency, in Alexandria, Virginia, that recruits highly qualified freelance writers, editors, and designers to temporarily work in corporate offices in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. EEI routinely sent Donna on long-term assignments that lasted several weeks at a time. During those two years, she worked as an editor and print production coordinator for such prestigious DC-based companies as the American Geophysical Union and SmithBucklin Associates, among others. On her assignments, Donna spent her time copy editing magazines, educational materials, newsletters, and books and seeing them through the production process, much like she did for ASTD. She was also responsible for developing schedules and coordinating with numerous staff members, clients, and designers, to publish these products.

From 1998-2004, Donna was the Assistant Editor of Officer Review magazine with the Military Order of the World Wars, a nonprofit military association in Alexandria, Virginia, where she edited and desktop published the magazine, wrote articles, sold advertisements, maintained production schedules, coordinated printing and mailing, proofread all pages, and checked all digital bluelines. She also performed print-buying functions for the association’s four-color brochures.

 Book Editing and Publishing Career

In 2004, Donna resigned her position at the Military Order of the World Wars to leave the Washington, DC, area and move to Oklahoma. She has been a full-time freelance editor since. About a year after Donna arrived in Oklahoma, she was contacted by a couple of Vietnam War veterans who wanted her to edit and design their book. Three months later, Honor & Courage by Garry Bowles and Ed Polonitza was published by Kensington Pond Books. This book launched Donna's career in book publishing. To date, the bulk of Donna's editing and design workload is comprised of book manuscripts.

After the publication of Honor & Courage, Donna edited, designed, and published numerous titles under Desktop Prepress Services and later Desktop Prepress and Publishing Services. Now that there are a wide variety of self-publishers available to authors, Donna mostly does the editing and layout work now, and her authors simply choose their own publishers. While the majority of the titles Donna has edited and designed are Christian titles, Donna edits and designs virtually any book on any topic.

Personal Life

Donna has been a born-again Christian since 1988. She grew up the only child of her mother, a legal secretary, and her father, a mechanical draftsman.