Overview
I am a freelance editor and writer with sixteen years' experience, both in and out of house, in journal and book publishing. Working across fiction, poetry and non-fiction, with an emphasis on literary writing, I am adept in structural and line editing as well as sharp-eyed proofreading; my copy-editing skills are second to none.
I co-founded Offord Road Books, a small, boutique list publishing new and exciting work in poetry, in addition to which I was lead editor at Poetry London, founding editor of multilingual, multinational arts zine La Errante, and an editor for CHEERIO Publishing, a production company and publishing house in association with the Estate of Francis Bacon. Before going freelance in 2016 I worked as an editor at Faber & Faber, helping bring landmark titles to publication from both front- and backlist.
In my freelance life I work for a number of publishers and arts organisations, including the Arvon Foundation, Bloomsbury, Canongate, the T. S. Eliot Estate, Faber, Granta, Oneworld, Pan Macmillan, 4th Estate, Persephone Books, The Poetry Review and many more. I offer manuscript assessment services and mentorship to writers hoping to brush up their book pre-submission, via the Literary Consultancy, the Rebecca Swift Foundation, the Arvon Foundation and Faber Academy.
I work closely with authors, both in prose and in poetry, to make sure their manuscript is as pin-sharp as it possibly can be, its images bright and clear, its dialogue fluid and convincing, its narrative arc strong and compelling. I'm a writer myself, and I know the value of intensive, rigorous editorial feedback to a work-in-progress, and the je ne sais quoi (except often we DO know what) it takes to bring that last polish to a promising draft.
Whether you're just getting going and need to check the bare bones of a piece, you've reached a first draft and need to put it through its paces, or else you're ready to start sending out to agents and publishers, I will ensure that your work sings.
Services
Non-Fiction
Biographies & Memoirs
Nature
Sex & Relationships
Writing & Publishing
Fiction
Contemporary Fiction
Literary Fiction
Poetry
Short Story
Languages
English (UK)
English (US)
Work experience
CHEERIO Publishing
Nov, 2021 —
May, 2024
(over 2 years)
Responsible for a new poetry list whose first three titles were shortlisted for major awards and reviewed in the mainstream press.
Unbound
Mar, 2020 —
May, 2021
(about 1 year)
Maternity cover role working on a diverse list of books
Poetry London
Mar, 2019 —
Jan, 2021
(almost 2 years)
I was the executive editor of this long-running international magazine. Published three times a year in February, May and September, each issue contains new poetry, incisive reviews and features, with established names rubbing shoulders with new voices.
Offord Road Books
Mar, 2016 —
Dec, 2024
(almost 9 years)
Boutique publishing list, founded in 2014. Our books have won the Ledbury Forte Prize, been shortlisted for the Forward Prize, the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Laurel Prize and the Michael Marks Award, and been named Recommendations by the Poetry Book Society. Authors include A. K. Blakemore, Will Burns, Helen Charman, Ella Frears, Melissa Lee-Houghton and Seán Hewitt.
Faber & Faber
Jan, 2012 —
Jun, 2016
(over 4 years)
Worked across poetry and non-fiction titles at this prestigious literary publishing house. I edited and project managed two rounds of the Faber New Poets scheme, and worked with some of the most exciting writers currently producing poetry in this country.
Portfolio
One of the Evening Standard's Best Non-fiction 2021.'We knew that black and brown bodies, working class voices, women's voices, did not have a space where they could be heard - and so this writing collective was a necessary and political act'In the early years... read more
In this blistering anthology, poet, editor and DJ Kayo Chingonyi brings together a selection of exceptional Black British poets. This is his dream mixtape featuring a cross-generational span of current poets extending and inhabiting the spirits of the ancestor... read more
A powerful collection of new and recently completed poems by Ben Okri covering topics of the day, such as the refugee crisis, racism, Obama, the Grenfell Tower fire, and the Corona outbreak. In our times of crisis The mind has its powersThis book brings togeth... read more
'Will Burns is a soulful English poet of the kind we don't make enough of' MAX PORTER'Hugely affecting and timely' LUKE TURNER'A boldly struck chord, one that contains many of the dissonances, but also the harmonies, found in England today' CHRIS POWERIn THE P... read more
Granta 149: New Europe includes essays by Elif Shafak, UKON, Andrew Miller, Will Atkins, Lara Feigel, Katherine Angel, Michael Hofmann, Joseph Koerner, Tom McCarthy and many more. It harks back to the 1989 issue of the same name, themed around the response to ... read more
One morning in March 2021 with the second wave of infections ripping through Ireland where he was newly resident, Mark Lanegan woke up breathless, fatigued beyond belief, his body burdened with a gigantic dose of Covid-19. Admitted to Kerry Hospital and initia... read more
In 1968, Vashti Bunyan gave up everything and everybody she knew in London to take to the road with a horse, wagon, dog, guitar and her then partner. They made the long journey up to the Outer Hebrides in an odyssey of discovery and heartbreak, full of the joy... read more
'This book is such a sneaky head f*ck - an epic poem in an ancient style about the brutalities of modern love, a masculine interrogation of feminine heartbreak, a really beautiful way to spend an evening' Lena Dunham'Hourglass will stay with me for a long time... read more
'A great writer' Paul Weller'A music journalist of integrity' Billy Childish'There's only one Ted Kessler!' Liam GallagherPAPER CUTS is the inside story of the slow death of the British music press. But it's also a love letter to it, the tale of how music maga... read more
Unexhausted Time inhabits a world of dream and dawn, in which thoughts touch us 'like soft rain', and all the elements are brought closer in.Feelings, messages, symbols, visions . . . Emily Berry's latest collection takes shape in the half-light between the re... read more
With Sonnets for Albert, Anthony Joseph returns to the autobiographical material explored in his earlier collection Bird Head Son. In this follow-up, he weighs the impact of being the son of an absent, or mostly absent, father, Though these poems threaten to b... read more
WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL GRIFFIN PRIZEA NEW YORK TIMES BEST POETRY BOOK OF 2020Music for the Dead and Resurrected captures the complexity of living in the shadows of imperial force, of the vulnerability of bodies, of seeing with more than one's eyes. Valzhy... read more
Andrew Motion's expansive new collection is built around two long poems that form its opening and close. The title poem, in a kaleidoscope of compelling scenes, engages with subjects that include migration, placement, loss, space exploration and current Britis... read more
The Late Sun asserts a balance between memorialisation of the recently dead and celebration of the vitality of the living. Early in the collection is a set of poems about the poet's mother, who died in great age after a life of exotic travel, and the poet's ow... read more
'The world is not neatly divided into two camps of women, those who wanted to reproduce and did, and those who didn't want to, and didn't. So many of us are caught here, in between, neither one thing nor the other, drifting towards a receding horizon, in our o... read more
Edited by iconic musician Kim Gordon and esteemed writer Sinéad Gleeson, a powerful collection by award-winning female creators, writing about the female artists that matter to them and their own personal experiences.This book is for and about the women who ki... read more
We join San in 1970s rural South Korea, a young girl ostracised from her community. She meets a girl called Namae, and they become friends until one afternoon changes everything. Following a moment of physical intimacy in a minari field, Namae violently reject... read more
Described as 'a rich, reverberative dance with memories of a haunted city' (LA Times), the poems of the prize-winning debut Dancing in Odessa by Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic, draw on archetype, myth and Russian literary figures. Tightly realised dome... read more
POETRY BOOK SOCIETY RECOMMENDATION'Jack Underwood has developed an utterly clear lyric that rebukes moral obviousness, drives against false certainty. It's as refreshing as it is instructive . . . Underwood has become one of my favorite poets.' Kaveh AkbarJack... read more
POETRY BOOK SOCIETY RECOMMENDATION'In Auguries of a Minor God, her outstandingdebut collection, Eipe sings of joys and wounds felt deeply under the skin' David Wheatley, GuardianNidhi Zak/Aria Eipe's spellbinding debut poetry collection explores love and the w... read more
Tenement Kid is Bobby Gillespie's story up to the recording and release of the album that has been credited with 'starting the 90's', Screamadelica.Born into a working class Glaswegian family in the summer of 1961, Bobby's memoirs begin in the district of Spri... read more
Far District, the transporting debut from the author of House of Lords and Commons, is structured as the spiritual journey of a poet-speaker caught between two cultures. As childhood memory is grafted to the world of imagination - shaped by books, art, music a... read more
WINNER OF THE 2021 PULITZER PRIZE IN POETRY Postcolonial Love Poem is a thunderous river of a book. It demands that every body carried in its pages - bodies of language, land, suffering brothers, enemies and lovers - be touched and held. Where the bodies of in... read more
Kris was living a totally normal life as a twenty-three-year-old: travelling the world, falling in love, making plans.However, when she found a lump in her boob and was told that it was not only cancer, but also incurable, life took on a completely new meaning... read more
Sure, sex is great, but have you ever cracked open a new notebook and written something on the first page with a really nice pen?The story behind Notebook starts with a minor crime: the theft of Tom Cox's rucksack from a Bristol pub in 2018. In that rucksack w... read more
Winner of the Christopher Isherwood PrizeLonglisted for the Portico PrizeA Guardian, Spectator, Sunday Times, Financial Times and Evening Standard Book of the Year'What a stunning novel.' Graham Norton'Funny, passionate, heartbreaking.' Tracey Thorn'Life-enhan... read more
Scenes of Moderate Violence is the debut collection from award-winning poet John Moynes. If you think that modern literature doesn’t include enough time-travelling cowboys, then this is the book for you. If you need poems about history, love, death, madness an... read more
Despised and Rejected by Rose Allatini (1890–1980) is everything we would like a Persephone book to be: by a forgotten writer who deserves to be revived and with strong themes: opposition to war, acceptance of homosexuality, tolerance of others, awareness that... read more
In the language of fan fiction, a 'Mary Sue' is an idealised and implausibly flawless character: a female archetype that can infuriate audiences for its perceived narcissism.Such is the setting for this brilliant and important debut by Sophie Collins. In a ser... read more
Poems for Christmas is an exquisitely produced gift anthology which is guaranteed to get anyone in the festive spirit. Part of the Macmillan Collectors Library series, featuring expert introductions for your favourite classics. This edition features an introdu... read more
Poetry Book Society Wild Card Choice. Amy Key’s Isn’t Forever is a grimoire for feminine selfhood in a world where a sense of self is flimsy, elusive and unrequited. The poems in this book are obsessive in their desire to construct and breach the terms of thei... read more
Salt is a distinctive new assembly of poems by the multi-award winning David Harsent. Resting somewhere between fragment and exposition, these intense and primal pieces stretch out across the measure of the page in brief utterances. One extends sonnet-length, ... read more
'But tonight I am super-charged, alive, looking into the eyes of / men . . .'In this intimate and vital debut, Richard Scott looks into the places not everyone sees or chooses to see. Against the backdrop of London's Soho, he creates an uncompromising portrait... read more
A Greek Verse for Ophelia and Other Poems contains one hundred poems taken from renowned Colombian poet Giovanni Quessep's entire oeuvre, including his last published book of poetry, Abyss Unveiled. The poems contained have been selected by his translators Fel... read more
Award-winning short story writer Cristina Jurado's first collection in English is filled with the idea of the other: different lives that take place at the corners of our eyes, just out of sight. The boundaries between the real and the unreal have never before... read more
The mischievous and often dark world of Wayne Holloway-Smith’s first collection Alarum exists in the space between the peculiar thought and its dismissal. It is a place in which commonsense is unfixed, where the imagination disrupts notions of stability. ‘A si... read more
Us is the eloquent and affecting debut from the talented Zaffar Kunial. In a series of approachable, lyric narratives, the poems in Kunial's hypnotic collection look with a tender toughness at his upbringing by his English mother and Lahore-based, Kashmiri fat... read more
In a period when nations are retracting within their borders, the vivid and intricate poems of Jamie McKendrick's new collection Anomaly are especially timely, and speak of a fragile legacy of openness and interconnectedness. The poems playfully twin Bologna a... read more
The long-awaited debut from the poet, novelist and journalist Joe Dunthorne. He was one of the most popular of our Faber New Poets (2010), and this collection has all the appeal of his acclaimed fiction: arch, playful and self-aware; truly funny and enviably cool.
From the award-winning poet and playwright behind Barber Shop Chronicles, The Half-God of Rainfall is an epic story and a lyrical exploration of pride, power and female revenge.There is something about Demi. When this boy is angry, rain clouds gather. When he ... read more
Martha has 57 reviews
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Mar, 2025
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Dec, 2024
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