Hi, hello, welcome 👋
If you’ve found your way here — I’m so glad you did. I’m Toni. I’m a developmental editor, a bookseller, a mom, and a person who has genuinely never met a TBR pile she didn’t immediately make too ambitious 😆
For years, most of my writing about books has lived on Instagram — in captions and comments and DM threads with the incredible community over at @readwithtoni. Those conversations are honestly some of the best parts of my week. But I’ve been wanting a quieter space. Somewhere I can think out loud a little longer about the things I care about most: how stories work, why certain books stay with us long after we’ve finished them, and what it’s actually like to spend your days inside other people’s manuscripts.
So here we are. The Reading Room. Pull up a chair ☕
What you’ll find here
I’m not going to pretend this will be some polished newsletter full of industry tips or “10 ways to fix your first chapter.” There are plenty of those out there and some of them are very good — but that’s not really my thing.
What I want this to be is more like the conversations I have with writers during an edit — honest, thoughtful, and specific. The kind of conversation where we dig into why something isn’t landing and figure it out together. I’ll be writing about:
- Story craft — what makes a character arc feel earned, how pacing actually works (it’s trickier than you’d think), and why dialogue is so much harder than it looks
- What I’m reading — the books that made me stop and reread a paragraph, or completely rethink how a narrative can move. And yes, occasionally the ones that made me wish I had trusted my gut and DNF’d after chapter one 🙃
- The editing life — what it’s like to work inside someone else’s story, what I’ve learned from doing this for fifteen years, and the things I find myself coming back to again and again with the writers I work with
I truly believe that a good developmental edit doesn’t change your story — it helps you find the one that’s already there. The story is in the draft. Sometimes you just need someone to help you see it.
I’m really looking forward to building this space. If you’re a writer, a reader, or just someone who loves talking about books — you’re in the right place. All are welcome ❤️
— Toni
