Elizabeth Oliver – Editor

Language is my music, and I’m drawn to voice-driven, personal work that bends language without breaking it. My editorial practice is collaborative, and I bring a creative sensibility and technical expertise to every project. I look forward to learning about your work!

I've strengthened stories for my entire career, from editorial internships to earning an MFA to managing a literary magazine and now as a freelance editor. In the past 20 years, I've edited hundreds of projects, working with independent authors as well as NYT, USA Today, and Amazon bestselling authors.

My projects have included titles from self-publishing authors, independent presses, and publishers including St. Martin’s Press, Flatiron Books, Bloom Books, Atlantic Monthly Press, Spiegel & Grau, Crooked Lane Books, Alcove Press, Belknap Press, Rutgers University Press, and West Virginia University Press.

Testimonials: "I was in the wilderness for two years looking for an agent and a publisher for my first book, When Sunday Smiled, before I met Elizabeth. Two months after she edited my manuscript, I signed a book contract! Thank you, Elizabeth." —Andy M. Davidson

"Elizabeth took my book manuscript in hand at a time when I feared having permanently lost any ability to see what I had on the page, much less what was needed. As expected, she handily sorted out numerous redundancies and mechanical gaffes. Better still, she raised astute questions that breathed more life, not just into the prose, but the story, and furthered the work in ways I had not expected. Elizabeth did much more than simply clean up a still-ragged draft. Her marvelous ability to be simultaneously rigorous with the prose and generously empathetic toward what the writer is working to accomplish gave me not just a way to go forward in my work but also the heart to do it." —Charisse Coleman