The close working relationship between an editor and a writer is intense and complex. Of course an editor requires a broad familiarity with the traditions of grammar and composition, and a highly developed sensitivity to formal considerations and the practicalities of the production and printing process.

Moreover an editor needs a good ear: an ability to approach a piece of writing as the creation of someone's particular voice. The task requires empathy, flexibility of mind, and a capacity for keeping close track of one's ongoing responses as a reader.

Whether working with dramatically textured writing in verse or prose, whether a given piece is fiction, nonfiction, or a creative hybrid -- a business letter or an epic poem -- an editor must serve as the reader's advocate, anticipating confusions, addressing awkwardness or obviousness, and helping reawaken tired or derivative language.

I have served as editor for more than a hundred books and countless other pieces of writing. I continue to be interested in editorial work in the fields that are important to me, though I am now very selective about which projects I take on.

"I have been edited by some very astute people, but never one with such a passion for the details of the English language and such a gimlet eye not only for my violations of its rules but for the rhythm of my sentences and the cultural rhyme of my occasional outbursts of criticism and sarcasm. Gawd. There were times when his skill and dedication sent me nearly clawing up the oak tree outside my window - because he was mostly right and I was mostly wrong. In fact, so pervasive is his hand in every chapter that I am going to depart from the usual writerly custom and say that any mistakes left are entirely Jim's. Just kidding."

"I am especially indebted to Jim Schley, my editor, who gave this book inspired attention and guidance throughout, and kept my spirits up when the going got rough."

"I am very lucky to have had Jim Schley as the copyeditor for this eccentric visual production."

"Jim Schley, our editor, who possesses not only a poet's ear and a sharp pencil but an all-too-rare combination of agile mind, alert eye, and flawless tact and wit, added immeasurably to the manuscript; in this day of phantom editors, we felt blessed to receive such intelligent and judicious attention."

The following is a partial list of Jim Schley's book acquisitions and editorial projects.

Wolfgang Zuckerman, End of the Road: From World Car Crisis to Sustainable Transportation (Chelsea Green, 1991)

Peter Heller, Set Free in China: Stories from the Edge (Chelsea Green, 1991)

Edward J. Renehan, Jr., John Burroughs: American Naturalist (Chelsea Green, 1992)

Mark Jerome Walters, A Shadow and a Song: The Struggle to Save an Endangered Species (Chelsea Green, 1992)

Ted Levin, Blood Brook: A Naturalist's Home Ground (Chelsea Green, 1992)

Helen Nearing, Loving and Leaving the Good Life (Chelsea Green, 1992)

Christopher Merrill, The Grass of Another Country: A Journey through the World of Soccer (Henry Holt, 1993)

Robert Nichols, From the Steam Room: A Comic Fiction (Tilbury House, 1993)

Ernest Hebert, Mad Boys (University Press of New England, 1993)

Susan Howe, The Birth-mark: Unsettling the wilderness in American literary history (Wesleyan University Press, 1993)

Heather McHugh, Broken English: Poetry and Partiality (Wesleyan University Press, 1993)

Michael Potts, The Independent Home: Living Well With Power from the Sun, Wind, and Water (Chelsea Green, 1993)

Gene Logsdon, The Contrary Farmer (Chelsea Green, 1994)

Athena Swentzell Steen, et al., The Straw Bale House (Chelsea Green, 1994)

David Dobbs and Richard Ober, The Northern Forest (Chelsea Green, 1995)

Christopher Merrill, The Old Bridge: The Third Balkan War and the Age of Refugees (Milkweed, 1995)

H. Patricia Hynes, A Patch of Eden: America's Inner-City Gardeners (Chelsea Green, 1996)

Sam Clark, Independent Builder: Designing and Building a House Your Own Way (Chelsea Green, 1996)

Daniel Berman and John O'Connor, Who Owns the Sun? People, Politics, and the Struggle for a Solar Economy (Chelsea Green, 1996)

James Kachadorian, The Passive Solar House (Chelsea Green, 1997)

John Roulac, Hemp Horizons: The Comeback of the World's Most Promising Plant (Chelsea Green, 1997)

Alan Weisman, Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World (Chelsea Green, 1998)

Thomas Glynn, Hammer, Nail, Wood: Build Yourself (Chelsea Green, 1998)

Michael Phillips, The Apple Grower: A Guide for the Organic Orchardist (Chelsea Green, 1998)

Rob Roy, Mortgage-Free! Radical Strategies for Home Ownership (Chelsea Green, 1998)

Joan Dunning and Doug Thron, From the Redwood Forest (Chelsea Green, 1998)

Daniel Wing and Alan Scott, The Bread Builders: Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens (Chelsea Green, 1999)

Terre Vivante, Centre Ecologique Européen, Keeping Food Fresh: Old World Techniques and Recipes (Chelsea Green, 1999)

Michael Potts, The New Independent Home: People and Houses That Harvest the Sun, Wind, and Water (Chelsea Green, 1999)

Eliot Coleman, Four-Season Harvest: Revised and Expanded Edition (Chelsea Green, 1999)

Ed Koren, The Hard Work of Simple Living (Chelsea Green, 1999)

Rob Roy, Stone Circles: A Modern Builder and the Neolithic Revival (Chelsea Green, 1999)

Alan AtKisson, Believing Cassandra: An Optimist Looks at a Pessimist's World (Chelsea Green, 2000)

Jody Procter, Toil (Chelsea Green, 2000)

Beth Robinson Bosk, editor, The New Settler Interviews: Volume 1, Boogie at the Brink (Chelsea Green, 2000)

Tim Matson, Round-Trip to Deadsville: A Year in the Funeral Underground (Chelsea Green, 2000)

Paul Lacinski and Michel Bergeron, Serious Straw Bale: A Home Construction Guide for All Climates (Chelsea Green, 2000)

Daniel D. Chiras, The Natural House: A Complete Guide to Healthy, Energy-Efficient, Environmental Homes (Chelsea Green, 2000)

Jody Gladding, Artichoke (Chapiteau, 2000)

Eva Hooker, The Winter Keeper (Chapiteau, 2000)

Paulina Wojciechowska, Building with Earth: A Guide to Flexible-Form Earthbag Construction (Chelsea Green, 2001)

Julia Alvarez, A Cafecito Story (Chelsea Green, 2001)

Carlo Petrini, editor, Slow Food: Collected Thoughts on Taste, Tradition, and the Honest Pleasures of Food (Chelsea Green, 2001)

Ianto Evans, Linda Smiley, and Michael G. Smith, The Hand-Sculpted House: A Practical and Philosophical Guide to Building a Cob Cottage (Chelsea Green, 2002)

Christopher and Dolores Lynn Nyerges, Extreme Simplicity: Homesteading the Urban Frontier (Chelsea Green, 2002)

Daniel D. Chiras, The Solar House: Passive Heating and Cooling (Chelsea Green, 2002).

Peter O'Leary, Gnostic Contagion: Robert Duncan and the Poetry of Illness (Wesleyan University Press, 2002).

Ilya Kaminsky, Musica Humana (Chapiteau, 2002)

Wyn Cooper, Secret Address (Chapiteau, 2002)

Paul Scheckel, Home Energy (Chelsea Green, scheduled for 2003)

Daniel D. Chiras, Green Building (Chelsea Green, scheduled for 2003)

William S. Coperthwaite with photographs by Peter Forbes, A Handmade Life: The Search for Simplicity (Chelsea Green, scheduled for 2003)

In addition Schley has served as copyeditor, art editor, production editor, proofreader, or indexer for dozens of additional books, including works of poetry, fiction, literary criticism, social history, philosophy, natural history, art history, anthropology, geography, Native American studies, feminism, environmental studies, and contemporary political commentary.