The Sixth Day of Christmas: Marcus Goodyear

An editor, a poet and a philosopher/thinker about the workplace. That’s a lot, but even collectively it doesn’t quite do Marcus Goodyear justice.

Marcus is senior editor for The High Calling, the High Calling Blogs and Faith in the Workplace. I connected to him in blogs and blog comments via L.L. Barkat, a managing editor at the High Calling Blogs (and author of Stone Crossings and the recently published book of poems InsideOut).

He takes editing seriously. Here’s what he says on his web site: “When I agree to edit a work, I take such a commitment very seriously. I am a tough editor. I will not hesitate to change verbs, cut sentences and paragraphs, and work on issues of style like pacing. I do not attempt to usurp a writer’s style, but too often writers are simply avoiding the work of revision and editing under the guise of defending their stylistic integrity.”

Marcus was my editor for an article I wrote for High Calling. Marcus takes editing seriously. Trust me.

He writes poetry, including one we republished at TweetSpeak Poetry called “Sometimes I Cannot Always Be There,” which he called a poem for All Saints Day. He’s written poems about Eve’s garden, the risen Christ, zombies, mowing dead grass after church on Sunday, and the Large Hadon Collider (he may be the only person in the history of the planet who’s written a poem about the Large Hadon Collider, not to mention the fact that it was about motherhood and the Large Hadon Collider).

And his writing about work, well, you have to read it for yourself: an interview with Michael Card on freedom and slavery; the work and faith movement; and “why I don’t go to church.” He actually does go to church but the title certainly pulls you into the article.

Marcus is a husband and a father, too.

Explore his blog, goodwordediting.com. Follow him on Twitter. Enjoy his writing and his poetry – and in the process you’ll learn that he edits himself harder than he edits anyone else.

(Over at the High Calling Blogs, we’re celebrating the 12 days of Christmas by highlighting a blog or web site of someone besides ourselves during this season of Advent and Christmas.) (Which is what we should also be doing the other 353 days of the year.)