About Me

On holiday in Holland MY name is Robert Ritter. While working full-time at Oxford University Press in Oxford I began in 1992 to work part-time on the Oxford Dictionary for Writers & Editors and the Oxford Guide to Style. Over the intervening years the project has mutated from one medium-sized book to two large ones.

Throughout the course of twenty years in publishing I’ve held a wide range of editorial and production posts both in England and the USA. At one time or other I’ve been a proofreader, copy editor, copywriter, production controller, assistant editor, desk editor, project manager, training manager, and commissioning editor for various publishers, such as the Practising Law Institute, Prentice Hall, Simon and Schuster, and OUP.

I recently left OUP after more than a decade to concentrate on completing OGS. I have also been a consultant/tutor for the Publishing Training Centre at Book House, London, and have been consultant editor for several freelance projects, including the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England and the historical journal Past & Present. Currently I’m the Publications Manager for the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies.

I was born in New York and grew up in Ridgewood, New Jersey. Before entering the tweedy world of publishing I was—among other things—a jazz drummer and diamond courier in Manhattan. I was educated at Buckell and Oxford universities, and recently completed an advanced diploma in computing at Oxford, for which this website was one of my projects.

I am married to an Englishwoman, Elizabeth, and have been a permanent resident in England for a dozen years now. We have three children—Olivia, James, and Theodore—and live in the Vale of White Horse, in a village about fifteen miles from Oxford. My interests are antiquarian books, fencing, rowing, and travel, though not all at the same time.