Why I work with authors 

I was a writer before I became an editor. I started out as a reporter for The Whig-Standard, and moved on to work as a communications officer for nonprofit health-care organizations in Kingston, Ontario. I've written news stories, feature articles, profiles, book reviews, speeches, and annual reports. I also wrote two creative nonfiction books. They were "just" local histories, but they were also good stories about big personalities trying to work together for a cause bigger than themselves. 

So I know what it's like to write, to wake up in the middle of the night with a sentence running through my brain that I think is so good I have to scrawl it down. (In the cold light of morning, it's never as brilliant as it sounded!) I understand the soul-wringing effort of writing. I empathize with your creative dilemmas and admire your perseverance. ​And I'm delighted  to play a part in your success. 

What I value - a very short editing philosophy

Listening

​Editing is a form of listening in a noisy world where true listening is rare.

When I was about ten years old, I sat on the top step of a friend's house reading Winne the Pooh. The neighbourhood kids were yelling, rolling and flipping on the grass. I barely heard them. Suddenly, I became aware of a weird silence. The kids stood still as statues, taunting grins on their faces. I closed the book and ran home, feeling crushed. I'm amused, now, by my serious little self.

Those awesome powers of concentration serve me well as an editor. I listen to the story you have written and also to the undersong – to the deeper story that maybe isn't yet singing on the page, that I can help you bring out. 

Respecting your voice

​I respect you and your voice. My goal in editing is to uncover your voice and to suggest changes in harmony with your voice. In the end, my work will be invisible. It will be your voice that readers will hear.

Being of service

For me, editing is not adversarial. It's not a battle of wills. It's not about being right. It's an act of service.
To be of service, I have to keep my ego in check.  I want you to be happy with my editing, and I offer my perspective as a highly sensitive reader. But you may not agree with all of my suggestions, and that’s okay. If we disagree, we talk it through and learn from each other. I'm  willing to question myself, to revisit an editorial decision, to let it go.

​As a freelance editor, I am free to be of service to you, the author. I’m not in the role of a gatekeeper; I don’t reject or accept your work for publication. I don’t hold the purse strings. I'm in service to you, and together we are in service to the story. 

What training and skills I bring

I worked as a writer for about 15 years, and those skills serve me well. But editing is a whole new skillset. I took became an editor after working as a writer for about 15 years. After a series of crises, I needed a change. What else could I do? Somehow, I thought of editing. I took copy editing at Ryerson in 2004, and I was hooked. I'd stumbled upon what I'd wanted to do all along! It took me a decade to finish the Certificate in Publishing, but I did it. I also read oodles of books on writing fiction and creative nonfiction, joined Editors Canada, and attended a lot of seminars, webinars, and conferences. I'll never stop learning. That's one of the things I love about editing.

Where I live

I'm lucky to live in Kingston, Ontario, a block from the lake and a half-hour drive to the woods and inland lakes of the Canadian Shield. My husband, Dave, is a jazz musician, and we have three sons, all grown up now. James is cyclist and bike mechanic, Paul is a musician and home builder, and Jonathan is still figuring it out. We also have an adorable golden retriever and two cats. 

Music and moving around outdoors are important to me. I'm an amateur flute player - standing up and breathing notes into life is a wonderful antidote to staring at the screen. I also love to walk, hike, bike and swim.

Courses I teach

I'm an instructor for the Editing Certificate Program at Simon Fraser University. All the courses are online.
I teach EDIT330: Structural Editing, a course that I substantially revised in 2021. I also teach EDIT320: Stylistic Editing, and EDIT110: Introduction to Editing.

From 2014 to 2020 I also taught  WRIT 265: Editing in Academic and Professional Contexts, an online course at Queen's University. I developed the course with Maureen Garvie.