Heather Clay is a writer and editor whose love of the written word and extensive experience in the fields of publishing and commercial writing make her the ideal “gun for hire” for a wide range of writing and editing projects. Heather graduated from Columbia University with a Masters in Fine Arts degree after stints at Elle magazine and in the fiction department of G.P. Putnam & Sons, where she worked as an editor of commercial fiction and non-fiction. She has read manuscripts for the New Yorker magazine — and been published in the magazine as a fiction writer — written commercial copy for Random House and other corporations, published a novel with Knopf, and penned articles for The New York Times, Parenting, and The Guardian. She has also worked as a writing teacher for both grade school students and adults. Clay loves people, writing, teaching, and collaborating in order to make an existing piece of writing “sing.” She knows what it’s like to be on both the side of the writer (vulnerable, brave, wanting feedback, needing to successfully convey something specific), and on the side of the editor, publication, or institution tasked with weeding through submissions to find that one piece of beautifully articulated writing that stops readers in their tracks. Her mission is to work with individual clients, students of writing, high school or college applicants, and corporations in need of fresh, pitch-perfect copy on a case-by-case basis, and to craft written work with a distinct, unforgettable voice that is perfectly suited to their needs.
Heather Clay
Studios
Banks
Heather Clay worked in the Banks studio.
Banks, an ell on the north end of the Lodge dormitory, was first used as an artist’s studio in 1970. Since then, it has played host to an extraordinary list of writers working in several disciplines. In all seasons, Fellows have enjoyed the pastoral view through the French doors facing a field…