Editorial & Mentoring

I offer editorial guidance, mentoring, coaching, and teaching for writers. This can take different forms at different stages: finding the shape of something new, writing a full draft, revising a manuscript, or preparing work for publication.

I work with writers of imaginative storytelling in many forms – literary fiction, historical fiction, fantasy, horror, science fiction, crime, melodrama, and popular fiction. I also work across a wide range of nonfiction, including memoir, life writing, nature writing, and writing about place, history, gardens, food, current affairs, esoterica, and spirituality. I have a longstanding commitment to LGBTQ+ writing.

My editing, mentoring, and teaching draw on decades working in publishing and education, as well as a personal lineage that includes contemplative practice, tarot, and natural history. You can read more about my approach here. A core aim is to give writers tools to develop an independent editorial vision and trust their own instincts.

Editing and mentoring usually include reading, a meeting, written feedback, and a follow-up exchange via email. Coaching and teaching are shaped to the particular context.

 

Editorial

My editorial practice offers close engagement across the life of a book: from early stages of planning and drafting, through shaping work-in-progress, to revising complete manuscripts and readying them to send out.

I read closely, paying attention to the mechanics of craft and structure as well as the deeper dynamics of your story’s matter. We then meet on Zoom to discuss your work, clarify your intention, and sharpen the focus of the written feedback that follows. Publishing is part of that conversation too: we consider where the book might belong as well as possible routes forward.

  • Manuscript Review – An editorial assessment of how your book meets a reader: what lands and what falls short, the living world it embodies, and the clarity, pacing, and emotional charge running through the work.
  • Developmental Editing – A detailed root-and-branch diagnostic of the book’s internal workings, building on the Manuscript Review with chapter-by-chapter analysis and additional page-level margin notes.
  • Story Mapping – Exploring and testing the shape of your story, evaluating possibilities in plotting, character arcs, and narrative form.
  • Book Proposal Development – A diagnostic and developmental edit of your nonfiction proposal, focusing its content, shaping its structure, and clarifying its positioning.
  • Query Package Review – A final-pass review of your query letter, synopsis, and sample writing for coherence and clarity as you prepare to send to agents or publishers.
  • Short Story/Essay Review – A close editorial reading of a single piece, attending to the particular demands and possibilities of short forms.

 

Mentoring

From first thoughts to final drafts, mentoring gives you editorial insight and companionship as you develop your craft and strengthen your creative instincts. It involves close reading, conversation, and practical direction as your writing takes shape.

An initial Project Survey helps me understand your work, your aims, and the kind of support that will be most useful, establishing the basis for a shared way of working together. After this, we continue with Manuscript Mentoring or Revision Mentoring, depending on your stage in the process.

  • Project Survey – An initial exploration of your material: identifying its heart and possibilities, and clarifying voice, form, direction, and structure.
  • Manuscript Mentoring – Section-by-section guidance and support through the writing of a full draft, sustaining creative momentum while shaping story, building pace, and refining narrative style.
  • Revision Mentoring – Support in revising and self-editing a complete manuscript, with particular attention to strengthening your editorial judgement and exploring possibilities in publishing.
  • Partners Mentoring – Mentoring adapted for writing partners, combining the shared exchange of a workshop with the focus of triangulated feedback.

 

Coaching & Teaching

Flexible and interactive ways to support your creative practice, whether you’re stepping into a new stretch of writing, deepening your craft, or taking stock of a project.

  • Creative Coaching – Focused one-to-one conversations about creative process, craft, and professional matters, offering editorial and publishing insight to help you work through questions, choices, or challenges in your writing.
  • Creative Beginnings – Personalised guidance and instruction for writers forming a practice or opening up new material, with writing experiments, resources, and optional feedback.
  • Office Hours – Free group sessions held a few times a year: questions and answers, shared experiences, good-humoured discussion of writing and publishing.
  • Teaching – Masterclasses, workshops, studio talks, and courses on writing, craft, and publishing, offered online and in person.

 

Working With Me

If you’re interested in working together, please be in touch via this contact form for further information and details of fees. Tell me something about yourself and your writing: a short bio, any relevant experience of writing and publishing, completed manuscripts, courses, writing groups, and anything else that comes to bear on your writing.

For Mentoring or Coaching, also tell me what you are looking for.

For Developmental Editing or a Manuscript Review, a short overview of your project is helpful:

  • a brief description of your book and what led you to writing it
  • genre, category, and any comparison titles you’re using
  • word count and current manuscript status or likely completion date