AARON STRAIN, Ph.D

“I started Clear Path Editing because I love helping people imagine, write, and publish the book they want.”

I am a multi-award-winning author with books published by a top university press (Duke), an academic-trade crossover press (Beacon), and a major trade press (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux).

On the other end of the publishing process, I’ve reviewed book proposals and manuscripts for California, Yale, Duke, Chicago, Georgia, New Mexico, and Minnesota University presses, and am co-editor of a book series at the University of Florida Press. For many years, I served as an informal developmental editor and writing coach for friends and colleagues—and realized that I really love helping people imagine, write, and publish the book they want. Clear Path Editing was born from that passion.

My own writing sits at the nexus of academic and popular writing. My books have garnered glowing reviews in flagship academic journals and venues like The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, NPR, The Atlantic, and Boston Globe. They’re assigned in graduate and undergraduate seminars, and one of them is being made into a feature film.

Writing scholarly books for broader audiences has taught me important lessons about how to make academic writing better that I bring to my editing practice.

I have a Ph.D in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley and an M.A. in Latin American Studies from Stanford University. I am currently Professor and Baker Ferguson Chair of Politics at Whitman College.

My training and scholarship are interdisciplinary, and I work with a wide range of writers from the social sciences, humanities, and environmental sciences.