About

From black ink … to red ink

Before I became an editor, I was a writer. I studied Creative Writing to Masters level, had short stories and poems published in journals (including The London Magazine), was runner-up in the Mslexia International Poetry Competition, and was shortlisted for the Escalator Literary Prize. I understood, from the inside, what it meant to work on a piece of writing until it became something worth reading.

That understanding became the foundation of my editing career. While at university, I discovered I had a knack for (and a love of) giving feedback to my fellow writers. After graduating, I worked in-house at a publishing company before deciding to branch out on my own. (Commuting and working nine-to-five? Get in the bin!)

Going it alone

I built a freelance fiction editing business from scratch – learning through courses (some good, some not so good), reading voraciously on craft and business, attending and eventually presenting at conferences and events for writers and editors. I leaned into fiction as my specialism and developed a client list I was proud of – as well as a six-month waiting list.

Over the years, I had noticed a gap. The training available to fiction editors specifically wasn’t particularly robust. Too much of it was generic; too little of it went deep on the specific demands of editing novels. So, I built the courses I wanted to see.

What Liminal Pages is all about

In 2023, after my daughter was born, I stepped back from client work entirely to focus solely on training. Liminal Pages became a resource for editors, shaped by everything I’d learned over years of education and practice.

The courses on offer here are rigorous – because editing requires rigour – and they’re specific to fiction. They’re recognised by the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading; I’ve also contributed to industry thinking more broadly, including authoring a guide to developmental editing published by the CIEP.

I’ve been in and around the publishing industry for over fifteen years, and everything I’ve learned in that time goes into what I teach here.

If you want to see what’s on offer, the Courses page is the place to start.

If you’d like to hear more from me – including when new courses launch and my current thoughts on running a business in this industry – sign up to Liminal Letters below.

Credits

All photos by RXCROSE, except those on the blog. Web development by Paul Masek.