Rebecca McBride: Profile

Rebecca McBride offers freelance writing, editing, and research services to organizations, companies, and individuals. Here is a brief profile of her educational and professional experience—how she got from there to here.

Rebecca graduated from The Harley School in Rochester, NY, after spending her junior year of high school at the American Community School in Beirut, Lebanon. She earned a bachelor's degree in English from Oberlin College and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Pennsylvania.
In her doctoral dissertation, Richard Wright's Use of His Reading of Fiction, 1927-1940, she studied the influence of writers such as Dreiser, Farrell, and Hemingway on Wright's apprenticeship, which ended with the publication of Native Son in 1940. "As a black man, a Communist, an American realist interested in James, Joyce, Stein, and Dostoyevsky, the Richard Wright of the thirties has proved to be a writer of allusive depth and significance to the American literary tradition."
For her graduate assistantship, Rebecca taught courses on American literature, including the study of black characters in American fiction, at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Later, she taught writing at Columbia-Greene Community College in Hudson, New York.
After working as a researcher for an author, an assistant for a film producer, and program assistant for a skills training project, she began writing feature stories and reviews on a freelance basis for a number of magazines and newspapers (see Writing). At the same time, she became public relations/publications officer for Regents College, the University of the State of New York. She was instrumental in creating a complete set of publications with a new design and approach. She wrote the college's viewbook, brochures, and newsletter, which involved interviewing students and writing their stories, as well as the catalog and other informational pieces.
Currently senior writer/editor for Welfare Research, Inc., Rebecca is responsible for the organization, clarity, accuracy, and overall quality of all project and corporate publications. She writes and edits reports, manuals, grant proposals, brochures, and newsletters.
As a consultant/freelance writer and editor, Rebecca McBride edits reports, guides, and manuals; writes articles, brochures, and grant proposals; identifies funding sources; interviews subjects; and conducts research. Editing services include developmental editing, copyediting, and proofreading.
Areas of past work include literature, child welfare, youth, education, housing, and health. Additional areas of work are welcome.