Member Spotlight: Adrienne Koch

by Lilith Wood

Adrienne Koch—editor, writer, singer, dreamer

I ignore the black-clad man and woman seated on the bench a few feet away. They're drinking coffee and talking, and don't seem to be looking for anyone. I just stand there, scanning the parking lot of the Bainbridge Island Ferry Terminal for anyone who looks like an editor. After a few minutes I glance over at the two on the bench again. The woman looks up slowly and smiles. "Hi," she says. Her voice is soft, and she has large, wide-set eyes the color of amber. Adrienne Koch, Editorgirl.

I sit down next to Adrienne and she introduces the guy as Bret. He manages to give a pleasant impression without actually saying hello or making eye contact.

"We had to get some coffee and food, because I was feeling faint," Adrienne says. She's just come from her martial arts class, and looks a little flushed. She says she's a little spacy, and there's a stiffness in her neck.

All I know about Adrienne at this point is what I've seen on her website, Editorgirl.com. A friend of hers is working on an illustration that will depict Editorgirl in flowing cape and aerodynamic superhero garb. In her post-workout state, Adrienne seems a bit retiring for a superhero, but she mentions that she joined the martial arts class to let off steam, so I know she must have other, more fierce incarnations. She's an all-purpose freelance editor, and will wrangle anything from your novel to your grad-school application essay.

After Adrienne eats and starts to revive, we walk slowly through downtown Bainbridge. Bret trails along behind us, reading the paper. He's tall and thin, and wears jeans, pointy-toed black shoes, a black wool coat and a black wool cap over his longish, stick-straight hair. He seems bent on being only a shadow. As we walk, Adrienne and I talk about what a bitch it is to write short stories. We sit on the wooden chairs outside the Blackbird Bakery. The trees above us dapple the sunlight and there's live chamber music emanating from some spot nearby but out of sight. Adrienne is so calm, and such a good listener, it would be easy to forget that I'm the interviewer. I want to talk her ear off, and she doesn't look like she'd mind a bit.

Adrienne is a writer, too. She's written articles, short stories and creative non-fiction, but her big project is a novel she's been chipping away at for a few years. "It has a beginning and an end," she says, and she's working on getting from the beginning to the end. While she's writing, she has to tell Editorgirl to back off. But then it helps, too, to be an editor. She says her experience editing other people's work has helped her look back at her own work and say, "Okay that really sucks, but I can fix it." Her novel has magical elements to it, she says, because as a kid she loved the Oz books, Roald Dahl, and detective stories.

Adrienne grew up in Seabeck, a little town on the Kitsap Peninsula. Her family hosted exchange students from Germany, France, New Zealand and South Africa. As an adult, Adrienne lived in France, Spain and New Zealand, but now lives in Bainbridge. She likes it because a lot of creative people live there, and it's close to Seattle.

I ask Adrienne if she sees herself ending up in the Puget Sound area. After all, she grew up here, rambled all over the place, and came back. She smiles and says no. Then her eyes slide over to Bret and she says, "Bret is not only my friend but also my..." She rolls her hand in the air as if there might not quite be a word for what Bret is. Bret declines to provide the noun and Adrienne finishes with, "...musical partner." It turns out she not only writes and edits, but also sings.

I ask Bret what he does. "I provide ambience," he says with a faint smile before sinking back into his newspaper.

Adrienne says, "He plays guitar, and other instruments. Mostly guitar." Right now they're writing, planning, rehearsing, and working to perfect live performances. They've known each other for several years, bounced lyrics back and forth and talked about forming a duo; now they're really doing it.

Adrienne says if their music takes off, they'll go on the road. And who knows what could happen? Maybe they'll make it big. Maybe she'll have a home in New York and one in London. She has a glow as she says these things, and it feels like she's sharing a secret with me that could be breaking news. She doesn't temper these statements with the eye-rolling sarcasm and self-deprecation that some writer/editor types do. She doesn't let the odds bother her at all; in her relaxed way, she seems to believe that things are possible. Adrienne goes on to say wistfully that if she becomes famous then people would recognize her, and she wouldn't be able to be "that girl in the corner of the coffee shop, observing and jotting." She says this as if the girl in the coffee shop is on the brink of extinction and it'll be sad to see her go. I rattle my straw in my iced Americano and look over at Bret. I think he already looks famous.

I ask Adrienne if the singer and the writer/editor can coexist. She says they can; they do. One reason she loves editing is because it puts her in contact with other creative people, and that feeds her own work. I ask her what she thinks about people who ask friends to edit their work. "I think that's a really bad idea," she says, "It can do horrible things to your friendship. Ultimately you just want your friends to tell you your work is marvelous and they can't think of a thing that should be changed. You should get a professional," she says, "to get in there and make it better." Adrienne is definitely a professional, but I can see that she is a writer's friend, too. Editorgirl offers a gentle guide through the writing process, whipping prose into shape with compassion and diplomacy. And all of us who might need Adrienne's assistance—writers and applicants and entrepreneurs—could use some of her faith that dreams can come true.

Lilith Wood is a twenty-something writer/editor/radio type with a biology degree, delusions of grandeur, and a tricky double case of wanderlust and homesickness.