What do you charge?
My rates vary depending on the project, but I aim for $35 to $45 per hour. If you prefer to pay on a per-project basis, we can negotiate based on anticipated time and intensity. I’m always happy to discuss your budget and what arrangement will work best for you!
Why hire a human?
Using language to express novel ideas in novel ways is one of the things that makes us human.
While chatbots can scrub the internet for information and try to imitate the cadence of real writing, they don’t create anything new. They depend on existing web content, which is demonstrated by the fact that they often provide incorrect information. The same goes for AI editing programs—they work from a set of rules, but often misapply them because they don’t understand the expressive subtleties of language.
A computer can’t formulate an innovative piece of writing. It can’t collaborate with you through every step of the editing process. It shouldn’t be the last to touch your content before you send it out into the world to entertain, inform, or persuade other human beings.
Why would a writer/editor have a theology degree?
I’ll admit it—my favorite thing to write about in my free time is religion. You can find that content on my blog. However, degrees in religious and theological studies aren’t as niche as they might seem.
First, it’s a well-known maxim that the more you read, the better you write. As anyone who has studied the humanities can attest, there’s a lot of reading and writing involved! Through college and graduate school, I had six years to hone the crafts of writing and editing within an engaging community of writers: my professors and classmates. I brought this experience into my career outside academia.
Beyond that, studying religion very often means studying life. Religion has been tied up with philosophy, politics, social life, art, music, literature, food, and even economics for thousands of years. A divinity school graduate is well versed not just in how people see God, but how they see each other, themselves, and the wider world—and that’s a whole lot to write about.
Sarah Grace Engel 