Kelly Smith Trimble
Editorial Director, Discovery Digital Studio
What was your path to becoming an editor?
I remember doing editorial projects on my own as early as elementary school, but I’ve been working officially as an editor since I was a teenager, which was many moons ago. I was editor in chief of both my high school and college newspapers, and also edited the literary journals for both schools. During college, I completed a summer internship at Time Inc. for lifestyle magazines. After college, I immediately was offered a full-time position at Time Inc. and then spent more than a decade at the company as a magazine editor in various roles focused on home and garden media. Around 2010, I made the transition from print to digital by taking a position as the online editor for a major gardening company and have been (mostly) digital ever since. I came to HGTV in 2012 and am now the senior editorial director for HGTV.com. In 2019, I published my first book, a collection of daily advice for food gardeners called Vegetable Gardening Wisdom (Storey Publishing).
How and when did you learn to write? Do you think writing can be taught?
It’s hard to pinpoint a time when I first learned to write, because I’ve been writing my whole life. But I know that becoming a writer started with being a reader. I spent much of my childhood reading or outdoors, or (ideally) reading outdoors. My formal education in writing really started in grade school with amazing teachers and continued into college, where I was an English major. As an English major, I really honed my research, critical reading, and persuasive argument skills, which I think made me a better editor as well as writer. Transitioning from academia to my publishing career, I had several mentors who helped me learn to evolve earlier academic skills to write more clearly for many different audiences — it’s so important to understand and empathize with your reader and their needs. I definitely think writing skills can be taught, though it helps to start at an early age, and it starts with a love of reading — deep reading and comprehension, not just skimming.
What feedback have you gotten from your readers that is new/different than before?
We pull a lot of research on what readers are seeking, particularly through search engine data, and have found that they’re looking to fill extra time with gratifying personal pursuits like crafting, cooking, decorating, and — my own favorite — gardening. Thankfully, that’s exactly what we love and can deliver in the form of inspiring project ideas, clear how-to instructions, and skill-building information. This is something we’ve always focused on, but it’s nice to see a larger audience making time for these activities and recognizing the sense of fulfillment they can provide, now and in the future, on a daily basis.
What are you currently reading?
I’ve had a touch of wanderlust the last few weeks and just finished two adventure travel books by female authors — Land of Lost Borders: A Journey on the Silk Road by Kate Harris and The Yellow Envelope: One Gift, Three Rules, and a Life-Changing Journey Around the World by Kim Dinan. Before that, I read both of young Irish author Sally Rooney’s novels, Normal People and Conversations With Friends. I’ve also been dipping in and out of two other Irish books on place and identity — The Garden Awakening: Designs to Nurture Our Lands and Ourselves by renowned garden designer Mary Reynolds and If Women Rose Rooted by Sharon Blackie. The common theme here is Ireland and travel, because I was looking forward to my first trip to Ireland this spring, which had to be put on hold. Thankfully, reading provides me with a way of engrossing myself in a place through language when physical immersion isn’t possible. I am also constantly reading, re-reading and referring to my embarrassingly large collection of gardening books and cookbooks, and I just started diving into Fanny Singer's new collection of writing about life with her famous chef mother, Alice Waters, called Always Home.