I’m not a fan of writing these kind of career overviews, so I’ll keep this short.
Back in 2011 I founded the small press Mother’s Milk Books. The aim of the press was to “publish books that celebrate femininity and empathy, with a view to normalizing breastfeeding”. I published 22 books in total before closing the press in 2020 (due, in large part, to the pandemic). Many of these titles were either shortlisted for, or won, awards, and I am incredibly proud of what my authors and I accomplished considering I pretty much ran the press single-handedly (and had a tiny budget). Along the way, I even won the Women in Publishing’s 2015 New Venture Award. If you can somehow sneak past the paywall, you will find this mentioned in The Bookseller.
Since I closed the press I’ve been concentrating on my own writing, but I’ve continued editing books (and magazines) for publishers and individuals on a freelance basis, my most recent being The Utopia of Us (Luna Press Publishing), which was shortlisted for the International Rubery Book Award and longlisted for the BSFA Best Collection award. Indeed, several of the stories within were longlisted for the BSFA Best Short Fiction award, with Aliya Whiteley’s ‘Intrinsic – Extrinsic – Terrific’ going on to be shortlisted. I am also an Editor-at-Large at Valley Press, a much-loved independent publishing house based in Scarborough, in the North of England. So far I’ve had the pleasure of commissioning and editing four titles: Angela Readman’s The Girls Are Pretty Crocodiles, Amanda Huggins’s An Unfamiliar Landscape, Angela Topping’s Earwig Country and Dan Coxon’s Salvage.
I very rarely have the time to work editorially with individual writers on a freelance basis, but I am open to taking on mentees. I especially love helping writers at the start of their careers by listening and offering information and support when it comes to navigating the sometimes-opaque publishing world. If you’re interested in working with me in this manner, feel free to contact me by email to discuss availability and prices.