Let’s co-create your book.
I’m a developmental editor, publishing strategist, and creative coach with more than fifteen years of helping writers get unstuck, find their authentic voice, and tell their story. I was editor and associate managing editor at Penguin Random House, and inaugural editorial director at Page Two. I’m one of the few editors in the world who has worked in house for both traditional and hybrid publishers.
I’ve edited almost 200 books (testimonials), and I know how to help writers navigate the challenges that are an inevitable part of the book-writing process. I specialize in editing memoirs and business books.
But what really lights my fire is giving all writers permission to be artists. I believe you are a writer by virtue of writing. I have helped hundreds of writers fall in love with their books, and I can help you too. I use a variety of practices to help you figure out your idea, write your manuscript, and position it for the marketplace.
I’m a trained teacher, experienced in guiding writers at all levels. I hold an MA in English, a postgrad certificate in teaching and learning in higher education, and 200+ hours yoga teacher training. I’ve also studied practices in Editing Indigenous Manuscripts.
I know the highs and lows of the writing process because I’ve worked on both sides of the table. My travel memoir about searching British Columbia for Champion trees, Tracking Giants: Big Trees, Tiny Triumphs, and Misadventures in the Forest, was released in May 2023 and became an instant bestseller.
My other passion, besides the creative process, is living sustainably. After years in Toronto and Vancouver, I now live in a log house on a small island in the Pacific Northwest, Canada. I have the confidence of an Irish Leo, but I’m also Canadian, so I’m sorry about that.
Just the facts:
- I worked as editor and associate managing editor at Penguin Random House from 2008 to 2016. I understand the demands of traditional publishing, from securing an agent and writing a book proposal to working effectively with your publishing team.
- From 2016 to 2022, I was Editorial Director at Page Two, the leading hybrid publishing house in the world. I know how to work outside the confines of traditional publishing, and meet the unique demands of entrepreneurs.
- I’ve edited authors including Naomi Klein, Michael Bungay Stanier, Charles Foran, Gary Barwin, Tzeporah Berman, Yann Martel, Edmund Metatawabin, Astra Taylor, John Vaillant, Paul Seesequasis, Clayton Thomas-Müller, Kate Harris, and J.B. MacKinnon. I’ve also edited posthumous collections by Jane Jacobs and Carol Shields.
- Books I’ve edited have become #1 national and international bestsellers.
- Books I’ve edited have won major awards including the RBC Taylor Prize, Scotiabank Giller Prize, Governor General’s Literary Award, BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, Hilary Weston/Rogers Writers’ Trust Prize for Literary Non-Fiction, Edna Staebler Award for Non-Fiction, Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, Ontario Legislative Assembly Speaker’s Book Award, Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature, and the Banff Mountain Book Award for Adventure Travel
- Books I’ve edited have been nominated for the National Business Book Award, Danuta Gleed Literary Award, Trillium Book Award, and Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize.
Awards and honours:
- Recipient of a Canada Council for the Arts First-Time Creators’ Grant for my first book, Tracking Giants (on sale in spring ’23).
- Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.
- Winner of the 2020 Tom Fairley Award for Editorial Excellence for my work on Indigenous Relations by Bob Joseph with Cynthia F. Joseph.
- Winner of the Garner Book Publishing Award for my studies in publishing at Simon Fraser University.
- Winner of the Rosemary Shipton Award for Excellence in Copy Editing for my studies in publishing at Ryerson University.
- Recipient of a SSHRC Canadian Graduate Scholarship, Graduate Entrance Scholarship, and the Butler Award, for my graduate work at the University of British Columbia.
Career highlight:
- I had the honour of editing books by consecutive hereditary chiefs: Chief Robert Joseph and his son Bob Joseph, both chiefs of the Gwawaenuk First Nation.
Good to know!
- I use she/her pronouns.
- I’m a place-based person, endlessly inspired by the landscape of the Pacific Northwest, where I grew up. But I left my heart in NYC.
- I live in a log house on a small island between Vancouver and Vancouver Island. I’m grateful to live, work, and play on the unceded territory of the Snuneymuxw.
- I’m a big-tree tracker who searches remote forests for the largest trees in British Columbia (the subject of my first book, a travel memoir).
- Beastie Boys are my fave band.
- I’m passionate about film, and Seth Rogen is my professional crush.
- My fave creative fixer in film is The Wolf in Pulp Fiction.
- I love coffee and pizza, though rarely at the same time.
- I’m excellent at long-distance walking, and hiked the Kumano Kodo, a UNESCO World Heritage pilgrimage route in Japan, in 2019.
- I biked from Whitehorse, Yukon, to Atlin, BC with bestselling author Kate Harris to celebrate our work on her beautiful book, Lands of Lost Borders. We saw four bears along the road, and set off the bear horn in a pizza restaurant twice.
- I was born in Dublin, and hold dual Canadian and EU (Irish) citizenship.
- I believe art will save us.