About Kayla

Kayla Reuter is a freelance copy editor living in Chicagoland.

Beginning at a young age, my grade school lexile levels were consistently above average, and I was drawn to visual books and others with exciting, unusual plots. My middle and high school years were spent constantly reading some kind of fiction and usually writing embarrassingly detailed fan fiction about my favorite bands at the time. High school was an era of immense creativity for me: reading, drawing, photography, creative writing, collaging, fashion, interior decorating, pumping all kinds of music into my ears, and even a short stint of sewing. This was a time when I was positive I’d grow up to become a photographer; but after I unexpectedly took on the copy editor role for my high school’s yearbook two semesters in a row, I had an epiphany that sparked my love for grammatical perfection.

Community college followed, and my creativity hit a massive tree those two years because my mental health went downhill, and I struggled taking on so much responsibility. My subsequent years at Northern Illinois University, however, really hit it home that I wanted my career to focus on writing and editing. I connected with so many talented peers, learned valuable writing techniques (huge shoutout to Professor Tim Ryan for single-handedly transforming my writing style), and immersed myself in countless English courses. In my final semester of NIU, I assumed the copy editor role at The Northern Star, a student-run newspaper serving the DeKalb- and NIU-areas (a position at the Star that’d been eliminated since 2012, so I was setting a new standard).

Early 2019 slapped me across the face with another epiphany: I want to run my own editing business. So here we are! In my free time, I write poetry, hunt for new and old music, binge shows, lift weight, or study Korean.