MY SPECIALIST AREAS: I specialize in PHD theses, academic books and popular nonfiction. And I have considerable experience in helping people turn a thesis into a publishable book.
I prefer to work with people who are nearing the end of a PhD, who have completed a PhD, or who have published journalism, articles, fiction or nonfiction. I will read your manuscript first before we agree to work together.
DISCIPLINES: I have published books in history, politics, anthropology, gender and sexuality, trade non-fiction and popular science. I truly know what I am doing there. I have also edited books in social work and musicology, and I feel confident in related fields like geography and sociology. And if it’s economics or psychology, let’s talk.
I have also written novels for both adults and young people but am not editing them.
IF ENGLISH IS NOT YOUR MOTHER TONGUE: I have edited work for people whose mother tongue is Cantonese, Farsi, German and Portuguese. Generally, what people know they need is an edit that corrects all the grammatical mistakes. I do more than that. My aim is a text that flows naturally in English. Some of this editing is about word choice, but a surprising amount is about sentence structure, moving words and clauses around, and breaking up long sentences into shorter ones.
AMERICAN AND ENGLISH: I grew up in the United States and now live in Britian. I am comfortable editing in either dialect.
MY EXPERIENCE
EDITING: From 2003 to 2008 I worked as a casual freelance sub-editor (copy editor) for a range of magazines in London.
From 2003 to 2014 I was half-time Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University in England. I was the department’s specialist in creative nonfiction. I did some undergraduate teaching, but I also supervised more than 20 MA theses and four PhD theses. The core of the supervising work was the kind of detailed editing I can do for you.
Of course, I edit my own work endlessly. And I have done a great deal of editing articles, chapters, theses and books for friends over the years.
WRITING: The quick way to get a sense of my writing is to read my article “Social Collapse and Climate Breakdown” on The Ecologist website (https://theecologist.org/2019/may/08/social-collapse-and-climate-breakdown).
My books include:
Novels for adults: The Laughter of Heroes and Mutineers
Novels for young people: Lost at Sea and Himalaya
History: The Cutlass and the Lash, A People’s History of the Vietnam War and Tigers of the Snow
Politics: You are G8 – We are 6 Billion and What’s Wrong with America
Climate: Stop Global Warming and Fight the Fire: Green New Deals and Global Climate Jobs
Jonathan Neale - Book Editor 