Fiction is my major area of editing, but I also work with narrative non-fiction such as biography and history. For those with few or no publications, I recommend beginning with an assessment, to be followed by a substantive and structural edit (on content and overall shaping) where required, along with a full copyedit (on language and details) using Track Changes. Though an extra step, the assessment will ultimately save time and money for the writer.
ABN: 64 975 206 778
Services
I have given courses in Creative Writing to small groups of advanced students, and I occasionally mentor individual writers at the advanced level. This is in addition to my assessment and editing services. My detailed manuscript assessments make recommendations that are then addressed by the authors before they return the work to me for editing. The assessment fee varies between $350.00 and $650.00 depending on the size of the manuscript (number of words). An edit consists of the following stages:
- a substantive and structural edit of the whole manuscript, depending on whether this has been carried out by the author in response to my recommendations and revisions;
- a first full copyedit (focusing on language, expression, spelling, punctuation, some formatting and any other details), that may include further revisions of content and structure;
- a second full copyedit that also covers any of the above items not fully addressed in the previous edit;
- a final revision if and when the manuscript is accepted for publication.
Special interests
I specialise in structure and point of view in the novel and the short story, partly because I find these aspects endlessly intriguing and partly because they are least well managed by less experienced writers. Structure in the biography is paramount, but how do you manage it creatively when you want to maintain the chronology and general order of something that is ‘true’? In fiction, structure is often confused with plot, and I make a point of distinguishing them from one another.
I love and have worked with poetry, but since I prefer that the poet retain far more creative autonomy, my editing method is not the same as for prose.
Besides literature, history is one of my interests, and local histories have been part of my editing experience.
Experience
I have run creative writing courses since the publication of my memoir, Into the Wadi (Fremantle Arts Centre Press) in 2000. My freelance editing business started earlier, in 1999, and in the beginning I took on anything that came my way (training manuals, education reports and programs, government commissions). Working with my writing students, I began to focus my editing, too, on creative writing: the novel, the short story, the memoir and the autobiography.
Examples of work
Some of my most recent editing work (since 2016) has been: Traverse, a memoir by Tineke Van der Eecken (shortlisted for the 2016 TAG Hungerford Award), The Seventh Sister, a novel by Trish Versteegen (shortlisted for the 2018 TAG Hungerford Award); Can the Real JR Stand Up, Please?, a young adult novel by Nadia L. King (who also won the 2019 Stuart Hadow Short Story Prize; novel published in the UK by Dixi Books, 2021); Isla Rising, a novella by P.J. Johnson. I am currently working on Leda Kills the Swan, a form of narrative fiction by A.R. Banister-Jones (draft published by Tellwell in 2022). I ran a full day workshop on editing for writers in 2022 at the Peter Cowan Writers Centre in Joondalup, WA.
Qualifications, accreditation and awards
PhD in French Literature with Minor in English Literature from Indiana University, Grad Dip Ed in English from Edith Cowan University. Winner, in 2000, of West Australian Premier’s Book Awards for memoir, Into the Wadi (Fremantle Arts Centre Press); IPEd accredited editor since 2008 (first year accreditation exam was held).
Software and computing skills
Electronic editing in Microsoft Word, using Track Changes.
