Three Metamorphoses; Looking for New Editing Projects

News about a book I edited, with a call for new editing projects.

Earlier this year, I had the profound pleasure of copy-editing an enthralling book of hybrid forms, Three Metamorphoses: Novellas in Verse and Prose by Amit Majmudar, for Orison Books. Here’s how the publisher describes the book:

Amit Majmudar's textual triptych Three Metamorphoses recasts and transforms foundational stories from Islam, Christianity, and Hinduism in verse and poetic prose. But these are no simple retellings: mystical Islamic origin story adopts narrative devices from Milton, the Christian Gospels are interwoven with Greek tragedy and modern politics, and virtuosically shifting Hindu verse forms take their cue from Ovid. There is perhaps no other poet today who could accomplish such a wide-ranging tour de force.

That last sentence, I assure you, is not hyperbole. Though I had a job to do, I found something delightful on every page, and by the end of the first section, “Azazil,” I was in love, bowled over, amazed. I only found more to love as I dove deeper in. You can get an idea of what it’s like by reading the first part of “Azazil” at The Kenyon Review.

Praise for Majmudar’s book:

In Three Metamorphoses, Amit Majmudar brings a particularly contemporary, particularly American brand of pluralism to bear on our most ancient human stories. In the spirit of great syncretist-poets like Vyasa, Ovid, and the Gospel writers, he approaches his own impossible, beautiful undertaking first as a true poet and storyteller. The book does what it does, without fear, and the force of Majmudar’s language and imagination makes it work. The result is the only serious recent book I can think of that functions simultaneously as a collection of adventure stories and a philosophical page-turner.

—Joshua Mehigan

Amit Majmudar relives our foundational narratives with a wild brilliance. The questions are dead serious: Can we love without idolatry? Can we wield power without estrangement? But the invention is coruscating. You might think of the midrash that God created the universe in a spirit of play. You’ll find Adam and Eve in Paradise like “two pandas locked in a cage, the male refusing to mate.” U.S. counterinsurgency will infiltrate the Gospels and Greek tragedy. In a section informed by Indic cosmology, the text itself wheels off the page. Always Majmudar finds lines — “the minutes that passed through me had little hooks”; “she is any river / where something is drowning” — that do what great poetry does: open silence, lead us to our unknown life.

—D. Nurkse

Three Metamorphoses will be published on October 1, 2025. You can learn more about the book and the author on the Orison Books pre-order page.

Orison Books is a non-profit literary press which focuses on the life of the spirit from a non-ideological standpoint. Another of my favorite books in Orison’s catalog is the poetry collection Obscura by Frank Paino.

The robust poetic invention in Three Metamorphoses made copy-editing the book an intellectually challenging task. After my work was done, Orison editor Luke Hankins passed along this note from the author:

Thanks so much to Joshua for knowing exactly when the typographical or syntactical elements were deliberate and to be left alone. He really has a sense of what the pieces are doing with the language, so what could have been a difficult process was seamless and efficient, thanks to his perceptiveness!

Previously, while staying on his crinum lily farm, I edited a new book on gardening by Jenks Farmer, author of the ‘stack Plant People. (Secrets of Southern Gardening is in the layout phase and doesn’t yet have a publication date, but you can see Jenks’s posts and updates about it here.) On top of copy editing, I did deep developmental editing which included reorganizing chapters and, in some cases, rewriting passages. And again, the author was very pleased with the outcome.

So, having succeeded with these two projects, I’m hanging out a shingle as a freelance editor now and scouting for my next project.

Do you have a book — of any sort — in need of an editor’s eye? Get in touch and tell me about your project!

You can reach me by DM on Substack or by email at joshua.j.lavender [at] gmail.com. Or you can leave a comment on this post.

A quick overview of my qualifications: I hold a bachelor’s in English literature from Georgia College and an MFA in creative writing, with an emphasis in poetry, from the University of Maryland, College Park. I’m a former English professor, and previously I’ve edited an alumni magazine and a literary journal. For nonfiction, I know AP, APA, and Chicago styles pretty well, and I know MLA style intimately. I’m a quick learner when it comes to style guides. I’m also adept at picking up an author’s particular voice and shaping my editing around it.