Our Words Matter
Elizabeth Lyon, author and book editor
Every writer deserves to complete the circle from inspiration to creation to readers.
Elizabeth Lyon’s next book
Release date to be announced.
Unforgettable: A White Girl’s Summer at a Black College is a memoir that reveals shocking and surprising events during the Long Hot Summer of 1967. As a seventeen-year-old from Phoenix, Arizona, Elizabeth has no idea she will be the only White student in a humanities program at a southern college. What she learns will change her life.
About Elizabeth Lyon
Elizabeth Lyon is an author and independent book editor who has taught thousands of writers and helped hundreds of book authors to complete their projects. She has guided editing clients toward publication with large and small publishers. Others have self-published and won contests.
Books by Elizabeth Lyon
Books published by US Penguin/Random House:
- Nonfiction Book Proposals Anybody Can Write
- The Sell Your Novel Tool Kit
- A Writer’s Guide to Fiction
- A Writer’s Guide to Nonfiction
- Manuscript Makeover
Self-Published:
- Mabel: The Story of One Midwife (out of print)
- Writing Subtext
- Find Your Novel’s Best Title
Book published by M. Evans & Co.—sold to Rowman & Littlefield:
- National Directory of Editors & Writers (out of print)
Awards
Recipient of the 2020 Stewart H. Holbrook Legacy Award from the Oregon Writers Association “in recognition of significant contributions that have enriched Oregon’s literary community.”
Willamette Writers 2025 Legacy Award
Judge of the Elizabeth Lyon Nonfiction Category in the Willamette Writers conference contest
Speaking Engagements and Workshops
~ In past years: 30+ conferences, organizations, retreats, workshops
throughout the United States and in British Columbia
~ Not available for speaking engagements until 2027
Services
Contact Elizabeth via email for more information on the following services.
Consultations
Elizabeth Lyon offers personalized consultations on all aspects of writing, revision, and publishing, available by phone, Zoom, or email. Are you wrestling with a marketing problem such as a query letter, nonfiction book proposal, novel synopsis, author platform, or simply trying to decide which path to publication is right for you? Are you buffaloed by a challenge involving craft for a novel, memoir, or nonfiction project? Elizabeth draws on decades of experience to give you clear, practical guidance.
Editing
For writers who want a close, expert read on their pages, Elizabeth Lyon provides editing services for manuscripts of up to 30 pages (7,500 words)—to begin with. Each submission receives detailed margin comments, line corrections, and a comprehensive written report addressing areas needing revision. Thirty pages is enough to demonstrate weaknesses, and strengths, in craft, whether for novels or nonfiction. Typically, that sample of your writing is enough to clarify your next step.
Client Successes
Novelists
Writers of novels have celebrated their book publications with Ballantine, HarperCollins, New Harbinger Publications, Pegasus Publishing, Penguin Putnam, Signet, Black Cats Press/A Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing, Boaz Publishing, Five Star Publishing, Limberlost Press, MLR Press, Quercus Books (Canada), Ronsdale Press (BC), She Writes Press. Countless other editing clients have completed the circle with self-publishing.
Nonfiction Authors
Writers of nonfiction have celebrated their book publications with AMACOM, Berkley, Career Press, Crossing Press, Doubleday Publishing, HarperCollins, Oxford University Press, Random House, Scribner, Simon & Schuster, Skyhorse Publishing, St. Martin’s Griffin, St. Martin’s Press, Time Warner Books/Grand Central Publishing, Wiley/Reinhold, John Wiley, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Chelsea Green, Greenleaf Publications (UK), Greenwood Publishing Group, Jossey-Bass, LifeLine Press, Liguori Press, Lyons Publishing, Marlowe and Company, McFarland Publishing, NewSage Press, Ooligan Press, OSU Press, O Street Publishing, Permuted Press, Rodale, Regnery, Shambhala Publications, U.S. Games Systems. Countless other editing clients have completed the circle with self-publishing.
I am forever grateful to Natasha Kern, literary agent, and Dennis and Linny Stovall, former owners of Blue Heron Publishing. All three were my original mentors who facilitated my editing and publishing career.