As an editor, I’m an advocate, confidante, and writing coach with one goal: helping my clients craft clear, eloquent prose that realizes their vision for their project. I have a keen eye for detail coupled with a talent for understanding the big picture, and I excel at making complex, highly technical projects accessible to readers of all levels.

I specialize in narrative nonfiction, biography, history, and memoir, but I’m always eager to try my hand at new genres and styles. My areas of interest encompass both the popular and more esoteric, including music and the arts, history, anthropology, literature, and gender and race studies as well as biological and environmental sciences, thanks to my B.S. in Zoology from the University of Wisconsin. I also hold a Certificate in Editing from the University of Washington, and I am a member of the Northwest Independent Editors Guild.

Overview of Services:

Developmental Editing (also known as a “Structural Editing”)

  • This is a “big picture” edit of a completed manuscript.
  • Focuses on overall structure, organization, and flow.
  • Identifies gaps in content, suggests new content, and deletes unnecessary or out-of-date content.
  • Comments on clarity, voice, theme, pacing, and factual inconsistencies.
  • Culminates in a written critique of the manuscript.
  • Sometimes developmental editing involves working with an author to develop a project from initial concept, outline, or draft through subsequent drafts.

Substantive Editing (a.k.a. “Line Editing”)

  • This is a comprehensive, “paragraph-by-paragraph” edit that focuses on the language and organization of existing content.
  • Streamlines transitions.
  • Reorganizes, tightens, rephrases, trims, or suggests rewrites for sentences or paragraphs for readability, flow, and clarity.
  • Queries the author about inconsistencies and ambiguous, confusing content.
  • Edits for consistency of tone, repetition, and overused words.
  • Highlights names, dates, and cited sources for fact checking or confirmation by the author.

Copyediting (a.k.a. “Mechanical Editing”)

  • This is comprehensive edit, usually of a final draft, that focuses on mechanical issues.
  • Corrects spelling, typos, grammar, punctuation, syntax, and word usage.
  • Checks for and implements a consistent style and format (e.g., treatment of capitalization, punctuation, numbers, hyphenation, use of abbreviations, etc.).
  • Includes a style sheet that documents formatting and style decisions.

For a developmental/structural edit, I prefer to work from a hard copy of the manuscript. For substantive editing or copyediting, I usually edit on an electronic version (using the “track changes” and “comments” functions in Word). It is easiest if I have one document (the entire manuscript) rather than separate documents for each section or chapter. Documents must be double-spaced and use Times New Roman or Courier twelve-point font. Regardless of the type of editing, I recommend that the author suspend work on the manuscript while it is being edited; feedback will reflect an analysis of the version provided to me, not subsequent versions.

Once services are contracted, I require a 50% deposit before editing begins, with the balance due upon completion. Please contact me for rates and more information.