Editing, proofreading, ghostwriting, and manuscript reviewing. Pep talks are heartfelt and free of charge.  

I am a Halifax-based editor specializing in children's and adult fiction and non-fiction books, as well as website and document editing and ghostwriting. With over a dozen years of experience in the publishing industry, I am passionate about making text of all kinds excellent.

Penelope is a consummate editor.
—George Elliott Clarke

In my decade at a mid-sized Canadian publisher, I have worked with emerging authors just finding their voices, as well as seasoned masters honing theirs to perfection. I welcome the opportunity to help you shape and polish your ideas. 

Penelope comes along and sweeps away all the unnecessary flotsam and jetsam.
—Lesley Crewe

I mainly work with small presses Propriometrics Press and Primal Blueprint Publishing, in a senior editorial capacity, and I do freelance editorial work on adult fiction, non-fiction, and children's books with self-publishing authors and Acorn Press, Fernwood Publishing, and Nimbus Publishing and Vagrant Press, where I spent a happy decade as an in-house editor specializing in children's books. My ghostwriting projects range from children's picture books to blogs to non-fiction books, and my copywriting is mainly for ridiculously impressive entrepreneurs and specialists who are too busy being ridiculously impressive to write their own web copy. I am a musician and the parent of two small children, with whom I hike, swim in the ocean, and, of course, read book upon book.