Academic Storytelling
While we often think of academia as a hyper-specialized world, more and more we are asked to explain our work to non-specialists. It could be for job committees, fellowship and grant committees, administrators and senior colleagues or in the public-facing work we do. As someone who is committed to making my work legible in what many might think of as an esoteric field, I have thought a lot about how to explain academic work and its significance to those outside one’s specialty. I can help you do the same in a wide range of fields, including the humanities, social sciences, medicine, law, business, and finance. In addition, I excel at making the material flow. I help you find the story and knit it into an organic whole that makes your work compelling to the reader.
Developmental Editor and Writing Coach
As a developmental editor and writing coach my goal is to help you bring your project into print regardless of where you are in the process: whether you already have a manuscript and a contract with a press or simply a rough idea of an essay or book you'd like to write. Call me a nerd, but I enjoy working on holistic issues in a draft, including development, organization and structure. (One editor at a journal called me the “organization queen”)!
I am skilled at giving concrete advice and feedback that writers can use, helping you to craft a narrative appropriate for your audience. As a published writer myself and as someone who has served as a reader or on the editorial board of several journals and presses, I am very familiar with the academic publishing process. I have helped several clients secure publishing contracts and can help not only with manuscript preparation, but also with book proposals, inquiry letters and responses to readers’ reports.
Dissertation Coach & Editor
Writing a dissertation is hard, I know. I wrote one myself and, as an English professor for almost 20 years, have helped shepherd many students and clients through the process. Unfortunately, not every graduate program provides their students with the kind of guidance and structure that most of us need for taking on a project like this. That is where I come in. I have helped graduate students working in a variety of fields, from humanities and social sciences to health, education, business and finance, and public policy. I am a careful and efficient editor, knowledgeable in several citation styles, including APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and Oxford, and conversant in US and UK English. However, my favorite kind of work is serving as a writing coach, helping with organization and structure, working through ideas and transforming them into arguments, responding to committee feedback, and helping you create a writing schedule that will make the writing not only doable, but also--dare I say--pleasurable. I'm also especially good at helping writers who get stuck in a project or are suffering from writer’s block.
Reach out today to have a free, no obligation conversation.