2024 Speakers

Gerard M-F Hill

After careers in schoolteaching and driving artics, Gerard retrained in 1990 and joined the SfEP, becoming a mentor in 1999 and joining the Council in 2007. As standards director he devised the basic editorial test and as chartership adviser he led the campaign with Sabine Citron, then chair, to gain a Royal Charter for the CIEP in 2019. For the Institute he has written the Punctuation guide and The Art of Querying, and revised the references course. Gerard has edited, indexed or proofread over 500 publications, ranging from Reconstructing the Lansdowne Collection of Classical Marbles and Human Rights and Criminal Procedure to Japan: Courts and Culture, to three editions of Organ Transplantation and 5,000 entries in the Dictionary of National Biography. He likes helping people, resolving queries and getting things right. Despite the weather, he lives in breezy Cumberland, but then someone has to.

---

Kavita Bhanot

Kavita Bhanot is a writer, editor, researcher, translator, teacher and organiser. Her fiction and non-fiction has been published widely, including the influential essay 'Decolonise not Diversify'. She is editor of three short story collections, including Too Asian, not Asian Enough (Tindal Street Press) and Book of Birmingham (Comma Press), along with Violent Phenomena: 21 Essays on Translation (Tilted Axis). Ma Is Scared, her translation from Hindi of Anjali Kajal's stories, won a Pen Translates Award in 2021 and was published by Comma Press and Penguin India. Her first novel won third prize in the SI Leeds Literary Prize. She founded and co-organises Literature Must Fall and Jaag: Panjabi and Pahari-Pothwari Language and Literature Festival. Kavita was recently a Leverhume ECR Fellow at Leicester University and currently teaches creative writing at Birmingham University.

---

Liz Dalby

Liz Dalby worked as an editor between 2008 and 2022. She worked for four publishers over the course of a decade, before going freelance in 2008. As a freelance editor, she worked with a huge range of clients, including publishers, businesses and academics, and blogged on aspects of freelancing and editing. She has also worked for the SfEP/CIEP, including as a director, a proofreading and copyediting mentor, and a commissioning editor. In 2022 Liz decided to return to employment in a completely different industry, while using all the editorial and writing skills she’d picked up over the years. She now works as a bid writer for Sysco GB, across a group of foodservice companies, where she specialises in writing executive summaries designed to win large contracts for customers in the private sector and edits other customer-facing documents. She still takes on occasional freelance editing projects and still blogs at responsiveediting.com.

---

Anna Davidson

Anna Davidson has worked in trade book publishing editorial for almost three decades. Past in-house roles include head of editorial management at Faber & Faber and publishing manager at DK Books. She is now a freelance editor, traditionally published writer and self-published poet. Anna is a tutor on the CIEP’s Introduction to Fiction Editing and Editorial Project Management courses. To find out more, visit her website: www.therightword.co.uk.

---

Rob Drummond

Rob Drummond is professor of sociolinguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University, where he researches, teaches and writes about the relationship between spoken language and identity. He recently led the community-focused Manchester Voices project, exploring the accents, dialects and identities of people in Greater Manchester, and he co-leads the Accentism Project, which strives to challenge and raise awareness of language-based prejudice. Rob does a lot of public-facing academic work and is the author of You’re All Talk: Why we are what we speak (Scribe Publications, 2023), a book for a general audience that sheds light on the fascinating relationship between ourselves and our language.

Debbie Emmitt

Debbie is an editor and proofreader, specialising in books set in France, mysteries and thrillers, historical fiction, memoirs and web content.

She has twenty years’ experience in the world of web, thanks to previous roles at the University of Oxford, the International Baccalaureate and Cardiff University, and is passionate about passing on her web knowledge to fellow editors. She also offers mentoring sessions to provide editors with one-to-one feedback and advice on how to improve their site.

Debbie is the author of Improve Your Editor Website and Improve Your Author Website.

She has also written her own novel, a mystery set in the South of France, and is currently seeking representation.

When not editing or writing, Debbie can be found admiring beautiful stationery, watching French series on Netflix and forgetting dance moves in her gym class.

---

Joanie Eppinga

Joanie Eppinga, owner of Eagle Eye Editing & Writing, has been freelancing for 28 years. Working from a home base in Spokane, Washington, USA, she serves clients throughout the world, which include the US government, the Education Development Center, publishers, academic institutions and journals, healthcare organisations, magazines, businesses and museums. She has won two national press awards for an interview she conducted and edited. Joanie is the co-author of two books about educational leadership. She has been a devoted practitioner of the martial art of aikido for 24 years. She once studied for a year at the Centre for Medieval & Renaissance Studies in Oxford and is always glad to come back to England.

---

Lynn Fortin

Lynn Fortin (she/her) worked in Canada and the UK as a school librarian and then as a director-level PA for private companies and in the public sector. Throughout this time, she developed her natural aptitude for copyediting and proofreading, which became increasingly important as she progressed through a variety of roles and organisations. She achieved Professional membership of the CIEP last year.

Lynn is now the part-time copyeditor and proofreader for Cambridge Mathematics, a division of Cambridge University Press & Assessment. She finds the variety of work very enjoyable – from a blog about, for instance, the fascinating history of Barbie and mathematics, to an academic research piece to be published in a peer-reviewed journal or a book of professional development resources for mathematics teachers. Her freelance work recently included copyediting a realist novel set in the immediate future, and she is currently copyediting a biographical family history.

---

Christina M. Frey

Christina M. Frey is an editor, literary coach and editing instructor (pagetwoeditorial.com) and served as co-executive of the Editorial Freelancers Association for six years. She specialises in helping both novice and experienced writers to develop and refine their authorial voice.

---

Daniel Heuman

Daniel Heuman is the creator of PerfectIt and the CEO and founder of Intelligent Editing. His software is used by thousands of editors around the world. In addition to CIEP, he has given workshops at editing societies that include ACES, CIEP, Editors Canada and SENSE.

---

Dr Andrew Hodges

Dr Andrew Hodges (he/they) is a fiction editor who specialises in speculative fiction and literary fiction. They run an editorial business called The Narrative Craft and have expertise in worldbuilding and cultural considerations when crafting setting in stories.

Andrew lived and worked in Croatia from 2008–2018 as a cultural anthropologist. In 2019 they moved to Scotland and set up a fiction editing business. They copyedit young adult fiction for Penguin Random House USA and offer developmental and line editing to authors seeking a publisher or preparing to self-publish. Besides editing, they have published several academic non-fiction books, including on football fan politics and activism in Croatia, and are currently revising a YA fantasy novel. Andrew is an Advanced Professional Member of the CIEP, a member of the Editorial Freelancers Association, and a member of the Society of Authors.

---

Andrea Kay

Andrea Kay – Yours Truleigh Editing – is an editor based in the South Downs, near Brighton, who works on public health, medical and scientific documents for clients including the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies and the World Health Organization. She has been a member of the CIEP for many years now and is an enthusiastic participant of the Sussex CIEP group, who are all bored to the back teeth of her enthusiasm for using Word tools to make her life easier.

---

Katherine Kirk

Katherine Kirk is a fiction editor who works with authors and publishers all over the world, primarily on science fiction and fantasy. She is a Professional Member of the CIEP and was also a panelist at the 2023 CIEP conference in Glasgow. Katherine enjoys working with game developers and fanzine publishers, especially on content for the Mutant Crawl Classics system. The biggest game she’s ever proofread had over 1,500 cards … in each of its five expansions.

When she’s not editing, she enjoys planning make-believe heists, roaming the post-apocalyptic wasteland with a sentient plant and a morally fuzzy wizard, and dipping her toes in dragon diplomacy. Don’t ask how many dice she owns.

---

Sue Lewes-Daley

Sue and Dom run leadership communication programmes for the Institute of Internal Communication (IoIC). They both have wide experience of coaching and supporting leaders individually and in groups across a range of organisations.

Dom has worked in senior ‘in-house’ roles and as a coach and consultant in the UK, Europe, Asia and the US, supporting leadership teams across sectors. Recent clients include United Biscuits, H&M, Hampshire Fire and Rescue, Telia and Kier Group. He has also featured in print, podcast, TV and radio promoting effective leadership communication. He is a Fellow and president-elect of the IoIC.

Sue is an experienced executive and business coach. She specialises in culture change, business-aligned people strategies and employer branding. She also facilitates employee engagement, leadership and management behavioural development programmes. As well as having worked in senior HR in-house roles, her consulting clients include Computershare, Welsh Water, Westinghouse Rail and Crux Product Design.

---

Sangeeta Mehta

Sangeeta Mehta worked for two literary agents and was an acquiring editor at Little, Brown and Simon & Schuster before founding her own editorial services company, Mehta Book Editing, in 2011. As a freelance developmental editor, she focuses on middle grade, young adult and adult fiction, and her clients include individual authors as well as corporate and independent book publishers. A former board member of the Editorial Freelancers Association, she oversaw the organisation’s 2020 rates survey and co-founded and ran its Diversity Initiative. She has also served as a board member of The Word and has been writing for Jane Friedman’s blog for nearly ten years. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of UC San Diego, Sangeeta holds a master’s degree in comparative literature from UCLA.

---

Hayley Milliman

As director of community at ProWritingAid, Hayley focuses on building engaging, helpful learning content for the millions of users who rely on ProWritingAid to make their writing clear and effective. Hayley has a robust writing portfolio and has written for dozens of publications on topics related to education, marketing strategy, history, entrepreneurship and more.

---

Professor Lynne Murphy

Lynne Murphy is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Sussex. Born and raised in New York State, she was educated at the Universities of Massachusetts and Illinois and has held academic positions in South Africa, the US and the UK. Her academic training and publications have concentrated on word meaning and word relations, words and context, and lexicography, but her experience as a migrant in English-speaking nations has led her to explore issues of language and culture in the anglosphere. Her alter ego Lynneguist writes the award-winning blog Separated by a Common Language. Her most recent book, The Prodigal Tongue: The Love–Hate Rrelationship between British and American English (Oneworld/Penguin 2018) is 'a funny and rollicking read' (Economist Books of the Year). 'Her love of our living, changing language is infectious' (The New Yorker).

Kate Nascimento

Kate Nascimento is an Advanced Professional Member of the CIEP who edits fantasy and horror fiction for both traditional publishers and indie clients, as well as comics, graphic novels and all kinds of games. Recent projects include editing a huge Dungeons & Dragons expansion steeped in Celtic mythology and proofreading the English translation of a Japanese horror game for iOS and Android.

When she’s not editing, you can find her reading, writing, starting her hundredth playthrough of Skyrim on her PS5, or scheming on behalf of her D&D characters.

---

Christina Petrides

Christina gave up the office job and hectic London life to work as a digital nomad in September 2017. With a 15-year career in environmental consultancy, she began to retrain as a copyeditor and proofreader and joined the then SfEP. She eventually built up the courage and a skeleton client base to quit her day job, so swapped her high heels for her favourite trainers, strapped on her backpack and hit the road.

She has been called brave, intrepid, crazy and young-at-heart. All she knows is that she had had enough of commuting and being tied to the same desk with the same view. Since she began working on the road, the only place she hasn’t worked on is a boat.

---

Laura Poole

Laura Poole is the founder of Archer Editorial Services, providing copyediting in scholarly nonfiction to university presses since 1997. She is the 2020 winner of the Robinson Prize. She is an Advanced Professional Member of the CIEP, and is an avid quilter and baker.

---

Aki Schilz

Aki Schilz is the director of the Literary Consultancy, the UK's longest-running consultancy for writers. She is a judge for various literary prizes including the Bridport First Novel Award and the Creative Future Writing Awards. Aki has twice featured in the Bookseller 150, a list of the most influential figures in UK publishing: in 2020 and 2021. She is the founder of the #BookJobTransparency campaign and has been recognised by the Kim Scott Walwyn and h100 awards for her work to improve representation and accessibility in the literature sector. In 2018, Aki set up the Rebecca Swift Foundation, a charity that advances the craft, creativity and wellbeing of women poets. Through TLC Aki works with corporate publishers to run training sessions focused on how to establish more ethical editorial frameworks. She is the current vice chair of the human rights charity English PEN.

---

Adam Sharp

Adam is originally from Manchester but has moved around often (he’s not very good at staying still). He has lived in the following places:

• London
• Melbourne
• Sydney
• Queensland
• The Channel Islands
• The Canary Islands
• Nashville
• Newcastle upon Tyne

Adam has had over thirty jobs (he’s not a very loyal employee, either). He has been paid to do the following:

• Teach sport in kindergartens
•  Serve sandwiches in casinos
• Catch footballs
• Juggle bottles
• Wash dishes
• Review music
• Change nappies
• Walk on stilts

Rosie Tate

Rosie co-founded Tate & Clayburn in 2012 and her work focuses on overseeing projects for a broad range of government, B2B, third sector and academic clients, as well as managing the business more broadly. A first-class Oxford University languages graduate with an MA in Documentary Filmmaking, she’s an experienced editor, writer and producer, having worked for Oxford University Press, the BBC and Save the Children.

---

Kia Thomas

Kia Thomas became a freelance fiction editor in 2016. She spent most of the next 8 years editing romance novels, teaching people how to hyphenate their compound swear words, and telling everyone how she could never edit non-fiction. No one was more surprised than she was when, in 2024, she joined the NHS as a health literacy editor, which involves much less swearing.

Kia is an Advanced Professional Member of the CIEP and local coordinator for the North East England group. She used to be known as 'that one who's always on Twitter'.

---

Jahleen Turnbull-Sousa

Jahleen Turnbull-Sousa is a writer-editor with over 12 years’ experience in crafting and polishing medical and healthcare materials, business communications and web publications. She works on a diverse range of writing and editing projects and genres, including medicolegal assessment reports, educational healthcare materials and online publications. Her clients include medical assessment firms, healthcare practitioners, medical educators and international online brands. She lives in Toronto, Canada.

---

Dr Imke van Heerden

Dr Imke van Heerden is a Research Associate at RAi UK, based in the Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London. Previously, she was an Assistant Professor at Koc University, Istanbul, as recipient of the Turkish Research Council’s International Fellowship for Outstanding Researchers and Principal Investigator of AI as Author (2020–2023). Imke received her PhD in English Literature from the University of York as a Commonwealth Scholar. Her research lies at the intersection of literary studies, natural language generation and computational creativity.

---

Aimee Walker

Aimee Walker is a romance and women’s fiction editor from Northern Ireland. Her background in education and therapeutic counselling resulted in a natural affinity to coaching authors, and she uses a very collaborative and coaching-based approach with the majority of her clients.

Aimee is passionate about helping women self-publish and having romance respected as much as other genre fiction. She is the author of Top Tropes: A Romance Writer’s Guide and has also published a romance anthology, a romance planner and a DIY series bible. Her next book, The Romance Author’s Companion, will be published next year.

When she isn’t working, Aimee can be found pottering in her garden with her menagerie of animals.

You can find her at www.awepress.com or on Instagram @aimeewalkereditorial.

---

Dominic Walters

Sue and Dom run leadership communication programmes for the Institute of Internal Communication (IoIC). They both have wide experience of coaching and supporting leaders individually and in groups across a range of organisations.

Dom has worked in senior ‘in-house’ roles and as a coach and consultant in the UK, Europe, Asia and the US, supporting leadership teams across sectors. Recent clients include United Biscuits, H&M, Hampshire Fire and Rescue, Telia and Kier Group. He has also featured in print, podcast, TV and radio promoting effective leadership communication. He is a Fellow and president-elect of the IoIC.

Sue is an experienced executive and business coach. She specialises in culture change, business-aligned people strategies and employer branding. She also facilitates employee engagement, leadership and management behavioural development programmes. As well as having worked in senior HR in-house roles, her consulting clients include Computershare, Welsh Water, Westinghouse Rail and Crux Product Design.

---

Lydia Wanstall

Lydia Wanstall has been a freelance copyeditor and proofreader for 15 years, predominantly working on English texts from multilingual authors. She specialises in publications on public health, environmental health and health economics for organisations including the World Health Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Recent work has included WHO’s clinical descriptions and diagnostic requirements for ICD-11 mental, behavioural and neurodevelopmental disorders; a technical manual on alcohol tax policy and administration; field guides and practical tools on water, sanitation and hygiene in healthcare facilities and rural communities; a web user guide for an early-warning, alert and response system to improve disease outbreak detection in emergency settings; and various series for the OECD – including the biennial Health at a Glance, Country Health Profiles and Country Cancer Profiles. She is an Advanced Professional Member of the CIEP.

---

Magda Wojcik

Magda Wojcik is an editor and indexer at MW Editing, working primarily on nonfiction, including academic humanities and social sciences. She has a PhD in Chinese literary history. Magda is an Intermediate Member of the CIEP, a student member of the Society of Indexers and a vetted partner member of the Alliance of Independent Authors. Outside work, you will usually see her with a book in her hand or walking her two dogs.

---

Dick Wynne

Dick Wynne is a Professional Member of the CIEP. He has been an independent publisher of nautical books for fifteen years, with about sixty titles edited and produced, and sold worldwide via the book trade and online (at lodestarbooks.com). He has been a part-time freelance editor for about ten years (at lodestareditorial.com). But these have been nocturnal occupations; he has been (by day) a software professional, in development, sales and support, for some forty years. ePlayer combines his passion for effective communication with that for software design and development.

---