I often smile at the photos in my mum’s album of my grandpa holding up the oversized flashcards he made to teach me to read—at two. By three, I was reading them on my own. My mum read to me every night, and when she couldn’t, she left me with story tapes. When I wasn’t listening to them, I was inventing stories of my own.

That early love of language stayed with me. English was always my favorite subject, nurtured by teachers who recognized and encouraged my curiosity. I went on to study English and Irish literature in Canada, England, and Northern Ireland, and that same love of stories has taken me to 27 countries and led me to live in five. Each place has deepened my appreciation for the ways stories shape how we see and understand the world. Words and I have had a long relationship—one I can’t imagine ever ending.

My background in English literature and professional editing shapes the way I approach every manuscript. I earned my bachelor’s degree with honors in English Literature and completed the Professional Editing Program at UC Berkeley, earning top grades in all courses. Alongside formal training, I bring experience working with undergraduate and graduate writers in academic settings, as well as editing narrative nonfiction, short stories, and business writing. This range of work has given me a strong command of structure, clarity, and voice across genres — skills I bring to each project with care and precision.

As a writer myself — particularly in travel and narrative nonfiction — I understand the vulnerability of sharing early drafts. I’m drawn to stories that wander through place, memory, and identity. I love helping words capture the texture of a landscape, the subtle pull of the past, and the moments that make a life feel vivid on the page. My approach to editing grows from that love, guided by empathy, grounded in attention to detail, and always rooted in a deep respect for the vision and voice behind each story. There’s something magical about seeing a story carry both the writer and the reader across time, space, and emotion, and it’s the kind of work I never tire of returning to.

Editing is a conversation: a collaboration between your vision and my guidance. I work alongside your words, honoring your voice while helping your story shine, shaping structure, clarifying meaning, and coaxing out the moments that resonate most. It’s a delicate dance — balancing narrative, detail, and the unique rhythm of your voice — and my goal is to make that dance feel effortless so your story lands exactly as you imagine it.

In Medicine Hat, Alberta — yes, it really is called that, and yes, I still get a kick out of saying it — I carve out a life among words. Mornings might find me coaxing a manuscript into clarity; afternoons, stirring a pot on the stove or paddling across quiet waters. Evenings often settle into notebooks, long stretches of reading, or maps unfolded across the table as I trace the next journey. Paper finds its place throughout the house—on shelves, in bags—and sometimes becomes the subject of gentle insistence that my children might discover its magic as irresistible as any screen. Beyond the pages of my own editing work, I have the privilege of collaborating with an extraordinary academic editing firm, a team of brilliant, generous people who inspire and challenge me in ways that continue to shape my own work.