Sermon Eyes

An editing service for rabbis, cantors, and other Jewish professionals.

Sermon Eyes offers three types of service related to different stages of writing, along with the holistic “Outside Eyes” coaching package:

Developmental Edit

$144/1k words. If you are working on a sermon or other written work, and find yourself in the “argument construction” phase of drafting, perhaps asking yourself questions like, “what am I really trying to say?”, this is the service for you. I will read your draft, produce margin notes in conversation with your text, and prepare a feedback letter of roughly 500 words. This option includes one Zoom or phone conference to discuss the work. (No B.S.: If you have a complete draft, you should consider skipping this phase unless you really don’t like where you’ve ended up). 

Style Edit

$216/1k words. You have found a core message you love. It fires you up thinking about how important this message is for your community. You want to communicate this message with clarity, emotion, and intellectual rigor. You are proud of your draft, but you want it to sing. Every great writer turns to an editor at some stage in their process, looking for an outside but overlapping perspective from a trusted reader to help sharpen the work. A style edit will include extensive margin notes, a feedback letter, and one Zoom or phone conference, all tailored toward honing in on and elevating your voice as a writer and spiritual leader. 

Line Edit

$252/1k. This tier is essentially a style edit + line edits/track changes, and an optional pre-revision Zoom or phone conference to hear more about your specific goals with the draft. Depending on your process as a writer/reviser, and the other responsibilities on your plate as we approach the High Holiday season, you may prefer to entrust me with your text as I edit the content for concision, impact and flow. I take this sort of work very seriously, will strive to engage with the text on its own terms and realize your vision in your voice. I will deliver a full revision and you can accept and reject each edit as it suits you.

HHD Outside Eyes Package

(varied rate). I am offering this package to a limited number of clients. In my high school’s theatre arts program,  “Outside Eyes” were a pair of classmates who coached you through writing and performing your senior year one-person show. I was not an actor, but still loved my role as a set of Outside Eyes. Opting for this package retains my services in helping you shepherd your work from its initial stages to a final draft by whatever combination of developmental notes, draft revisions, and conferences helps you accomplish the work. We will determine a rate together based on the quantity and expected wordcount of sermons/other work. 

I pledge a 48 hour turnaround time for any work below 5000 words. Outside Eyes customers will take priority in the editing queue. Rates are based on fair market value and commensurate with my skill and experience, but I also do not want them to be prohibitive, please reach out if this is the case. Click here to learn more.

Over the past months I have had the opportunity to write deeply about progressive Judaism in America as both a community and a set of values and ideas. This helped me discover a new gear as a writer, and I would like to continue engaging with this sort of work, even as I push on with my other artistic pursuits. One way to do that is to support all of the good work happening in Reform Judaism at the congregational and organizational level.  Please consider Sermon Eyes as a catalyst to your writing process as we approach High Holy Days 5783. 

I am currently completing my MFA in creative writing at UCRiverside, where I have studied creative nonfiction with essayists, authors and book critics. My own nonfiction has appeared in Jewish and non-Jewish online and print publications, and I serve as the unofficial communications officer for ACT. Over the past year I have gained extensive editorial experience interning at a publishing house in Los Angeles, and working on the editorial staff of my graduate program’s literary journal. I contributed copy to RAC’s 2018 civic engagement campaign, and have worked as a research assistant for two academic publications.

My goal with Sermon Eyes is to function as a true resource in helping you realize your vision.