One of the most valuable traits among professionals working for nonprofit organizations like the American Botanical Council (ABC) is the ability to wear many hats. No one at ABC exemplifies that trait more than Kelly Saxton, our newest writer and editor. When we first hired Kelly, the most we could offer her was a part-time position in our publications department. Within a few months, Kelly's "can-do" attitude and multiple talents convinced us that employing her full-time was definitely in our best interests.
Kelly came to us in March of 2007 fresh from University of North Texas in Denton where she received a master of arts in English. Her master's thesis is titled Stranger than Fact, an examination of how fiction and nonfiction are commonly misused by creative writers. According to Kelly, fiction should have allegorical purpose and an accurate portrayal of the reality in which the story resides.
Among Kelly's first assignments at ABC was taking over management of book reviews for HerbalGram. Publishing book reviews is a multifaceted process that includes acquisition of newly published books, sending books to appropriate reviewers, and editing the reviews once they have been submitted. Kelly performed admirably in all stages of the process and began turning in quality book reviews for publication in HerbalGram within a matter of weeks.
Kelly has also proven herself as an able writer at ABC. To date she's published 25 articles for HerbalGram, spanning various topics in departments like World News, Grants and Awards, and In Memoriam. For HerbalEGram, our monthly online publication, she has bylines for 38 articles. Developing these articles requires a number of skills including the coordination of peer review, interviewing subject matter experts, fact checking, proofreading, and writing. As an editor, Kelly has worked with many of our contributing writers from industry, academia, and elsewhere who so graciously submit articles. Kelly has done an excellent job providing them with the necessary editorial support to publish their articles in HerbalGram.
Always looking to expand her areas of responsibility, Kelly has taken on a number of administrative projects that provide more efficient operations within the ABC publications department. An example of this is the maintenance and modification of the HerbalGram database. The database contains hundreds of records that allow us to track the status of the many articles we pursue for publication in HerbalGram. Kelly quickly trained herself in the ways of the database programming and expanded the capabilities of the database, allowing us to more efficiently track the status of other publications like HerbalEGram and our new Product-Specific Monographs series.
Kelly Saxton is one of the reasons why thousands of ABC members and other HerbalGram and HerbalEGram readers find so much benefit in these publications. It's not just the interesting subject matter that makes these publications meaningful; it's the dedication and skill of people like Kelly who add so much value to ABC's publications.