My Services
As a writer, you want your words to express your ideas clearly, in an attractive style appropriate to your target audience.
Whether you’re an academic looking for editing support at any stage of a monograph, a scholar putting together an edited collection, a nonfiction writer preparing to send a manuscript to an agent, a postgraduate student submitting a thesis, or a Spanish-speaking author aiming to reach an English-language readership, I can help you produce and publish your best work.
EDITING
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Substantive and structural editing involves working closely with writers as the text is written, revised and polished. For example: In the early stage of the writing process, I work with authors to develop ideas, structure the text and choose the appropriate register. In the middle stages, I support authors in decisions about what to keep and cut from the text. For texts in a more advanced stage (for example, an academic manuscript that has been through peer review with revisions requested), I assist with revisions and rewriting.
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Stylistic editing is appropriate for writers who are confident about their ideas and the structure of the text but want a professional editor to help ensure they use the best language and style for the target readership. Before your text goes to the copyeditor and printer, I make suggestions for improving word choice and sentence structure, and identifying spelling, grammatical and other errors. Examples include academics writing for a nonspecialist audience or authors whose first language is not English who want an editor to help refine their written English.
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Copyediting comes after a work has been written and edited for content, structure and style. As a copyeditor, I go through your text with a fine-toothed comb, focusing on all elements (consistency of spelling and application of publisher’s house style, layout, images, tables, headings, page numbers, references, bibliography, etc.). I can work for publishers to prepare the final copy for the typesetter, or with individual authors who want a clean manuscript to submit to an agent or publisher..
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This is the final stage of the editing process before publication. As a proofreader, I focus on correcting typos, layout problems and other errors or inconsistencies missed at the copyediting stage or introduced accidentally during typesetting. For typeset texts, I compare page proofs to the copyedited text. In cases of work prepared for submission rather than publication (e.g. a PhD thesis or an article or book submitted to a journal, publisher or agent), I work with the final version in Word.
Please note that proofreading is not the same as stylistic editing or copyediting. If a text requires substantial changes to grammar, sentence structure, the proper use of punctuation and/or correct referencing and bibliographical formatting, it will need a stylistic edit or copyediting (see above) or something between, known as a proof-edit.
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Kimberlé Crenshaw and the African American Policy Forum, #SayHerName: Black Women’s Stories of Police Violence and Public Silence (Haymarket, 2023).
Patricio Simonetto, A Body of One’s Own: A Trans History of Argentina (University of Texas Press, 2024).
TRANSLATION
I translate academic and other nonfiction texts from Spanish to English.
I have lived and worked between English and Spanish for more than thirty years, first as a PhD student writing a thesis on Basque history and later teaching and researching Spanish and Latin American history at university level for two decades. I work fluently across Iberian and Latin American Spanish as well as North America and British English.
Sample Translations
Jorge Marco and Gutmaro Gómez Bravo, The Fabric of Fear: Building Franco’s New Society in Spain, 1936–1950 (Liverpool University Press, 2023).
Diego Falconí Trávez, From Ashes to Text: Andean Literature of Sexual Dissidence (Polity Press, 2022).
I offer nonfiction writing support for individuals and groups at any stage of writing, for projects large or small. I specialise in mentoring academic writers in the humanities and social sciences, whether you are submitting work to an academic journal or publisher, or writing for a broader audience.
My flexible service caters to authors’ and groups’ projects and budgets.
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All services focus on practical, achievable goals:
planning and time management;
deciding where to submit your work, e.g., an academic journal or publisher, online publication, independent or trade publisher;
preparing a book proposal;
outlining and structuring an article, essay or book;
implmenting revisions;
working to the word limit;
choosing the best title, chapter and section headings;
writing the best abstract to attract readers;
refining your writing for your target audience while bringing out your unique voice; and
planning for the future.
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Our work will include video planning and feedback sessions as well as email check-ins. I will read and provide regular feedback on your writing, suggesting readings and techniques to keep you going between our meetings.
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I offer one-off workshops or a series of sessions, in person or online. This service is particularly valuable for groups or early-career scholars, or scholars working together on a collaborative project (for example, group workshops can be supplemented with mentoring for individual participants (see above)).
Please contact me to book a 15-minute meeting to discuss your goals and how we can work together.
