Overview
As the Editorial Director of the literary studio Plympton, I've edited Pulitzer Prize winners, National Book Award winners, New York Times bestsellers, and world-renowned scholars and scientists, but my favorite kind of work is with first-time and emerging writers just finding their unique voice. I'm a trained psychotherapist as well as a novelist myself so I know how daunting and exhilarating this stage can be. I will do my best to make sure you not only end up with the best version of the book you set out to write but that you also enjoy the process.Though I specialize in developmental edits, helping you discover the story you most want to tell and guiding your manuscript into its most perfect form, I find that every editorial relationship is different -- because, after all, it's a relationship. We will collaborate to find the partnership that works best for your needs. Have a finished draft that needs an extra set of eyes? Have an idea and want someone to help you hash it out? Have a draft you're pleased with overall but that needs some smoothing and polishing line by line? I love joining in at any stage of the process. There are few things quite so brave as welcoming someone else into your creative work -- and, when it goes well, few things quite so rewarding either. I'm always honored and delighted to embark on a new project with someone committed to getting their ideas into the world.
Services
Non-Fiction
Biographies & Memoirs
Humanities & Social Sciences
Philosophy
Fiction
Historical Fiction
LGBTQ Fiction
Literary Fiction
Short Story
Women's Fiction
Languages
English (AUS)
Awards
- Five stories I edited have received recognition by Best American Short Stories.
Certifications
- A.B. Harvard College
Work experience
Self-employed
Jan, 2000 —
Present
I edit manuscripts and coach writers through book-length and shorter projects. Clients have included award-winning fiction, memoir, and science writers. I specialize in seeing the clear narrative in any manuscript and in turning academic prose into fluid and accessible reading. As a trained psychotherapist, I also do coaching around writing anxiety, feelings of stuckness, and issues of motivation and scheduling.
Plympton
Jan, 2012 —
Present
Commissioned and edited original fiction from some of the country's premiere writers including Julia Glass, Jane Smiley, Adam Haslett, Molly Antopol, Namwali Serpell, Tova Mirvis, Alan Lightman, and Julian Gough.
The San Francisco Chronicle
Aug, 2008 —
Present
I review novels semi-regularly for a variety of publications including The San Francisco Chronicle and The Millions. I'm always on the lookout for exciting new voices to try to highlight.
Portfolio
Renee's problem, according to her best friend, is that she thinks "the male sexual organ is the brain." Dissatisfied with her marriage to a mathematical genius, Renee Feuer struggles to reconcile her intellectual and physical desires in a startlingly sexy and ... read more
Natasha Darsky, “the most famous violinist since Paganini,” lights an erotic fire under every piece of music she plays, telling each composer’s story in a singularly sensuous way. The daughter of a renowned art dealer in New York City, Tasha grew up in a world... read more
Is philosophy obsolete? Are the ancient questions still relevant in the age of cosmology and neuroscience, not to mention crowd-sourcing and cable news? The acclaimed philosopher and novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein provides a dazzlingly original plunge in... read more
"A gem…An unforgettable account of one of the great moments in the history of human thought." ―Steven PinkerProbing the life and work of Kurt Gödel, Incompleteness indelibly portrays the tortured genius whose vision rocked the stability of mathematical reasoni... read more
Robert Trivers is a living legend in biology and the social sciences, a man the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker calls ''one of the great thinkers in the history of Western thought" and Time magazine named one of the greatest scientists and thinkers of the 2... read more
READERS LOVE ALMOST TALL"A shrewdly funny and movingly insightful new story from a writer whose work I've admired for a long time." — Alexander Chee"I LOVED this story! What great characters & visceral descriptions--it was funny and intelligent and I couldn't ... read more
Very funny and very pointed, Adam Haslet's "Seibert", honored in the Best American Short Stories 2014, gets to the root of how technology - our personal obsession with it and its role in creating a society built on surveillance - disrupts our relationships wit... read more
ABOUT BANG!In his #1 Kindle Single CRASH! How I Lost a Hundred Billion and Found True Love, Irish satirist Julian Gough deftly laid bare the Eurozone crisis in all its humor and absurdity. Now in BANG! Gough has turned his inimitable wit and wisdom to third wo... read more
CRASH! THE #1 BESTSELLING KINDLE SINGLE CRITICS LOVE CRASH! "This novella is very funny – laugh-out-loud at times…Gough is one of our most talented satirists" — The Irish Independent"A novel to reduce you first to laughter then tears" — Writing Changes Lives b... read more
About I WAS HERE:In a working-class Irish Catholic town, the abuse of a young girl is hushed up by a community more interested in civility than justice. Now, almost two decades later, sweet, damaged Charlotte starts receiving obscene text messages from someone... read more
ABOUT REPRISALSIn the teeming market of a Cambodian village, Rina runs into the officer who murdered her father thirty-five years ago during the Khmer Rouge regime.What follows is the deeply moving portrait of how she seeks revenge, against the backdrop of a n... read more
ABOUT CHAIRS IN THE RAFTERSIn a seaside Jersey town, a risk-averse illustrator on the brink of leaving her husband for another man spends one “perfect night with perfect people.” Warm, witty, and bursting with life, the friends of the man for whom she may or m... read more
