Author: Laura Bontje

Laura Bontje is a freelance editor whose clients include award-winning authors, Big 5 publishers, indie authors and those just beginning their writing journeys. Her areas of specialty include children's literature (from picture books to YA), mysteries/thrillers and upmarket fiction.

When she's not editing other people's books, Laura writes her own. Her picture books include Was It a Cat I Saw? (illus. Emma Lidia Squillari), When the Air Sang (illus. Sarah Whang), Marian's Big Dig (illus. Scot Ritchie) and more to come.

Laura served as managing editor of The Editors' Weekly from 2023 to 2025. She lives in London, Ontario.

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Welcome to the Grammar Table

August 7, 2025 by Laura Bontje | 1 Comment on Welcome to the Grammar Table

Look carefully along the streets of New York City and you might be lucky enough to spot the iconic turquoise sign and the grinning grammarian. At the Grammar Table, Ellen Jovin invites passersby to ask questions, resolve their “semicolonphobia” or simply vent about grammar. On a 2023 trip to NYC, I was lucky enough to […]

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A New Season for The Editors’ Weekly

June 19, 2025 by Laura Bontje | 6 Comments on A New Season for The Editors’ Weekly

In 2020, a pandemic furlough prompted me to launch the editing business I’d been researching for some time. By spring 2021, I’d handed in my notice and embraced full-time freelancing. Weeks later, I accepted a volunteer role with The Editors’ Weekly.  So in many ways, my time with the blog — first as proofreader, then […]

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Test Yourself: Looking Back on 2024

December 5, 2024 by Laura Bontje | Leave a Comment

Pop quiz! How well do you remember the tips you’ve learned in 2024? I’ve pulled some questions from a selection of this year’s posts about editing tools, Editors Canada and editorial niches. If you need a refresher, you can help each other out in the comments or find the answer in the original post (each […]

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Discussion Scenario: Editing While Under the Weather

September 26, 2024 by Laura Bontje | 8 Comments on Discussion Scenario: Editing While Under the Weather

[Content note: This post contains non-graphic discussion of mild pneumonia.] By their very nature, dilemmas don’t offer a clear right answer. So this week, I’m turning the advice over to you. I’ll be honest: this has been a challenging September. I’m feeling much better now, but I spent the first part of the month exhausted […]

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Trello for Editors: Three Ways to Make It Your Own

August 29, 2024 by Laura Bontje | Leave a Comment

In any project-driven job, it’s important to have a system for tracking your workflow and deadlines. Project management tools can vary from paper to-do lists to free or paid software. But it can take time to find the system that works best for you, especially when you’re not sure how best to optimize it for […]

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A Brief Summer Break

August 1, 2024 by Laura Bontje | Leave a Comment

Whether you’re editing on a boat, visiting the office as usual or balancing work with parenting, I hope your summer is going well so far! The Editors’ Weekly will be taking a brief summer break, and we’ll be back in your inbox on August 15 with more great tips. In the meantime, why not use […]

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Goodbyes and Hellos: Changes to Our Editorial Team

July 4, 2024 by Laura Bontje | Leave a Comment

It’s been many years since I was in school, yet July still feels like a time of transition — a month where one grade has ended and a new one is on the horizon. So it seems fitting that we’re celebrating this year’s “graduating class” of Editors’ Weekly team members in July and welcoming our […]

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Volunteer Posting: French Blog Editor

May 30, 2024 by Laura Bontje | Leave a Comment

Calling all French-speaking editors! As you may know, The Editors’ Weekly has historically operated in English. Earlier this year, Editors Canada launched l’Hebdomadaire des réviseurs to share French-language content alongside the English posts here at The Editors’ Weekly. And now we need a managing editor for this new companion blog! If you’re interested in learning […]

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The Editors’ Weekly in Your Inbox

April 22, 2024 by Laura Bontje | 17 Comments on The Editors’ Weekly in Your Inbox

The Editors’ Weekly is available to browse online, but we know many of you enjoy having new posts sent directly to you! When we shifted to a new website this year, our blog subscriptions were inadvertently paused. We’ve corrected what we believe to be the cause behind the scenes, so if you’re an existing subscriber, […]

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What Do You Hope to Read in The Editors’ Weekly?

April 4, 2024 by Laura Bontje | Leave a Comment

The Editors’ Weekly wouldn’t be what it is without the wonderful contributors who volunteer their time to share their wisdom each week. It also wouldn’t be what it is without you, dear readers. We’ve got some great content coming up this month! As planning progresses for spring and summer 2024, we’ve got a question for […]

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New Websites for The Editors’ Weekly

February 1, 2024 by Laura Bontje | Leave a Comment

With the launch of Editors Canada’s new website comes a refreshed look for The Editors’ Weekly! Take some time to look around and explore! One of the biggest changes for the blog is the creation of a dedicated site for French content. While The Editors’ Weekly currently operates in English, we do get occasional posts […]

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Closing the Book on 2023

December 21, 2023 by Laura Bontje | 2 Comments on Closing the Book on 2023

Dear readers, The Editors’ Weekly will be taking a holiday break, with no posts on December 28 and January 4. We’ll be back in the new year with new posts about the academic editing special interest group, the Editors Canada national executive council, embracing neurodivergence as an editor, an exciting new project for language lovers […]

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Book Recommendations for Editors

November 30, 2023 by Laura Bontje | 4 Comments on Book Recommendations for Editors

As winter holidays approach, it’s a great time to start thinking about books! This year, we asked the student affiliate Facebook group and the Editors’ Weekly blog team for their book recommendations for editors. Whether you’re looking for a literary gift for the editor in your life or planning to curl up with some reading […]

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The Other Kind of Editorial Cartoon

September 14, 2023 by Laura Bontje | 7 Comments on The Other Kind of Editorial Cartoon

There are certain feelings that every editor is bound to experience: the joy of making a great catch, the frustration of dealing with a difficult project, the excitement of taking a selfie with a favourite punctuation mark — wait, maybe not that last one. That is, unless you’re Bespectacled Editor, the passionate, wry heroine of […]

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Letter from the Editor: Write for The Editors’ Weekly

August 24, 2023 by Laura Bontje | 4 Comments on Letter from the Editor: Write for The Editors’ Weekly

Happy summer, readers! The Editors’ Weekly is taking a break for the rest of August. It’s time to enjoy the last weeks of summer — and of summer reading! Have you read any great books lately? This summer, I set myself a goal of reading only Canadian literature, and it’s been fantastic! (Need a good […]

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Preparing for Traditional Publishing: Tips from Agents and Editors

June 29, 2023 by Laura Bontje | Leave a Comment

When a client comes to me for editing, one of my first questions is how they hope to publish. Why? Because an author who is self-publishing will use freelancers for each stage of the editing process, whereas an author who secures a traditional publishing contract will receive additional editing through their publisher.   The journey to […]

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Freelancing While Parenting Young Kids

May 25, 2023 by Laura Bontje | 7 Comments on Freelancing While Parenting Young Kids

Laura will be co-presenting “Introduction to Picture Book Editing” at Editors 23: Editors in Real Life, taking place from June 17 to 18 at Toronto Metropolitan University. Conference registration is limited, so reserve your spot now! Do you want to know the trick to keeping it together when freelancing with young kids? So do I. […]

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Editing for Authors on a Budget

February 16, 2023 by Laura Bontje | 6 Comments on Editing for Authors on a Budget

As a freelance fiction editor, I find it incredibly rewarding to help an author shape their story or find their voice. And as an author, I know firsthand how transformative the insights of a strong editor can be. But professional editing can be expensive, so what do you do when an author has a limited […]

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The Pros and Cons of Sample Edits

December 1, 2022 by Laura Bontje | 6 Comments on The Pros and Cons of Sample Edits

If you asked 10 editors how they approach sample edits, you’d probably get 10 different answers. Some editors charge for sample edits, some offer samples for free and some don’t do sample edits at all. Some editors begin on page one, and others edit an excerpt from the middle. So if you’re a new freelancer, […]

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Editing Picture Books without the Pictures

September 6, 2022 by Laura Bontje | 2 Comments on Editing Picture Books without the Pictures

Picture books: the artwork is so integral that it’s part of the name. But unless you’re working with an author/illustrator, editing a picture book usually means analyzing a text-only manuscript. For contemporary picture books, the illustrations are more than adornments; they’re a critical part of the storytelling. At the manuscript stage, it’s a balancing act: […]

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On Editing an Editor: Margaret Kingsbury and Laura Bontje in Conversation

June 14, 2022 by Laura Bontje | 2 Comments on On Editing an Editor: Margaret Kingsbury and Laura Bontje in Conversation

Editing a first-time author calls for a blend of sharp-eyed clarity, cheerleading and hand-holding. What if the author is also an editor? As part of a series of blog posts featuring conversations between author-editors and their editors, The Editors’ Weekly asked two editors to reflect on their experience of working together as critique partners. Laura […]

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