Wylie O'Sullivan
Freelance Book Editor and Ghostwriter
About Wylie
I spent nine years at Free Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, where I was a Senior Editor by the time I left. I have primarily worked on narrative non-fiction—including memoir, social history, current events, social justice, biography, pop culture, travel, and the environment—and fiction. At Free Press I acquired and edited dozens of books, including Rebecca Traister's Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women; Annie Leonard's The Story of Stuff: The Impact of Overconsumption on the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health—and How We Can Make It Better; The Longshot: A Novel by Katie Kitamura; and Annia Ciezadlo's Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, and War.
In my freelance work I have edited or ghostwritten, among many others, Wildhood: The Epic Journey from Adolescence to Adulthood in Humans and Other Animals by Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and Kathryn Bowers; Abby Ellin's Duped: Double Lives, False Identities, and the Con Man I Almost Married; The Hostage's Daughter: A Story of Family, Madness, and the Middle East by Sulome Anderson; Judith Matloff's No Friend But the Mountains: Dispatches from the World's Violent Highlands; and Lucky Boy: A Novel by Shanthi Sekaran. My complete books list is available upon request.
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Author Testimonials
"Wylie is an editor with a remarkable combination of talents: she can lower your blood pressure at the same time that she's smartly suggesting you retool an entire chapter. This is invaluable and unusual alchemy. She was the only part of the process of writing my book that I found calming, and she worked with steady hand and eye to make the arguments stronger and the structure stable. Working with her was a pleasure from start to finish, and my book was far better for her."
—Rebecca Traister, author of Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women and Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger
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"Wylie was incredibly efficient and helpful. I couldn't have finished my book without her. She's thoughtful and smart and pulled so much out of me that ultimately made my book fuller and richer."
—Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, author of Stop Telling Women to Smile: Stories of Street Harassment and How We're Taking Back Our Power
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"Wylie O'Sullivan, my supportive yet formidable editor, guided me through the psychological warfare of memoir writing with almost biblical patience. Her perceptive editing shaped a manuscript into a story, and I was indeed lucky to work with her."
—Annia Ciezadlo, author of Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, and War