Raquel Beatriz Pidal
Managing Editor, Developmental Editor, Writing Coach
Raquel Beatriz Pidal (she/they) is a professional editor and writer with nearly two decades of experience in publishing. Her calling is helping writers bring their stories to life, and she enjoys using her extensive knowledge of and lifelong passion for story to guide writers from their first ideas and rough drafts to beautiful books. At Tree of Life, she provides developmental editing, line editing, copyediting, project management, and writing and publishing coaching to a diverse roster of clients. They are especially interested in stories of the immigrant diaspora; racial, gender, and social justice issues; environmental conservation; and LGBTQ+ rights, and they have a keen interest in uplifting traditionally marginalized voices.
Raquel specializes in literary fiction and narrative nonfiction, especially memoir, where her expertise lies in helping writers coax forth and showcase the emotional truths that give their specific stories universal appeal. She loves coaching writers through all stages of development, with a special focus on in-depth manuscript analysis that provides actionable, constructive feedback, and she treats the writer-editor relationship as a truly collaborative creative partnership.
From 2002 to 2005, Raquel served as Program Director and Youth Services Director of the Writers Room of Bucks County, a writers’ educational nonprofit that served thousands of writers in the tristate area with classes, writing services, and a literary magazine. In 2006, with Joy Stocke, she helped cofound the Wild River Review, an online literary magazine published for ten years that focused on showcasing a diversity of voices, perspectives, and topics from around the world. After two years working in book publicity at Harvard University Press, they went on to serve as Editorial Director for eight years for Winans Kuenstler Publishing and its imprint, Platform Press, a hybrid publishing company providing ghostwriting, editorial, design, and publishing services to nonfiction authors. Here she edited and managed dozens of nonfiction titles and ghostwrote two memoirs. For four years she was Managing Editor of Wild River Consulting and Publishing, where she helped to developmentally edit numerous titles and oversaw project management and client relations. She has also worked independently with writers and publishers, including Burgess Lea Press (now an imprint of Quarto Books), Beacon Press, Brandeis University Press, and Westchester Publishing Services.
Raquel has a BA in English with a minor in Creative Writing from Ursinus College and an MA in Publishing and Writing from Emerson College, where they were awarded a graduate fellowship and a Bookbuilders of Boston scholarship. They have won several awards and honors for their fiction and nonfiction writing. She currently serves as Assistant Professor of Publishing at Emerson College, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate students. She is a mouthy feminist, a mediocre crafter, and an easily excitable birder who gets a lot of delight from the natural world.