I’m a London-based book editor and literary consultant with over twenty-five years’ experience working with authors, agents and publishers.
As a former Editor at Penguin Books, I’ve worked with both established and debut authors across literary and commercial fiction and non-fiction. I’m an Associate Editor at The Literary Consultancy and a Bridport Prize shortlist reader (First Novel and Memoir), and regularly support writers in preparing their work for submission to agents.
Over the past twenty-five years my clients have included a diverse range of writers, most of the London publishers (including Chatto & Windus, Vintage and Granta) and a number of literary agents, The Literary Consultancy and New Writing North. The variety of projects I’ve undertaken ranges from structural and stylistic edits to concept development and significant rewrites, and over the course of my career I’ve collaborated with British and American authors from varied backgrounds, including journalism, screen writers, academics, creative writing teachers and even a singer/ songwriter. I’ve also mentored writers from as far afield as San Francisco and New York, and as close to home as North London and Norfolk – sometimes over a period of six months and sometimes over a number of years.
Every year since 2015 I’ve been one of the advisory judges shortlisting for the Bridport First Novel Prize, in 2020 I was one of the shortlist judges for the Northern Writers’ Award and in January 2023 began shortlist reading for the Bridport Memoir award.
I’ve also been fortunate enough to have mentored both Bridport and New Writing North winners and helped them develop their writing before guiding them towards the submission process. As the author of fourteen Afterwards for the Pan Macmillan Classics I’ve some experience of what it’s like to be on the other side of the writer/ editor relationship.
During my eight years at Penguin I worked on all the adult imprints – latterly at Penguin Press on the Allen Lane and Penguin Modern Classics lists –and was lucky enough to be the first person at Penguin to read and champion Zadie Smith’s submission for her debut novel. In my first year as an editor, I published two top ten best-selling books.
Before starting my career in publishing I studied English and French at Queen’s College, Oxford.
Snapshot fiction report | Full Fiction report | Submission Package report | Mentoring
