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

I am a Halifax-based editor and writer working in children's and adult fiction and non-fiction books, as well as copywriting and ghostwriting, occasionally with credit. With over sixteen 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

I work 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 work as managing editor of the small yet mighty Propriometrics Press.  I also edit a wide range of material on a freelance basis. I work with authors preparing to submit their work or to self-publish, as well as publishers including 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 articles and websites.

In 2019 I cowrote with Melinda McCracken a children’s novel called Papergirl, about the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919, in a unique process described here, and I am currently cowriting a book with Stephanie Domet for Nimbus. (It’s going to be spectacular.)

I was a judge for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour from 2015–2018, which was an immense honour, and not just because it finally confirmed what I have always suspected: my sense of humour is exquisite.

I am a musician and the parent of two feral children, with whom I hike, swim in the ocean, and, of course, read book upon book.