Bio
1996 I started my apprenticeship in the literary world at Anne McDermid & Associates (now CookeMcDermid), a literary agency in Toronto. I learned a great deal about the publishing industry, and – perhaps more importantly – how writers work, and what general and specific concerns arise at the place where art meets the market. I learned how to read in consideration and contemplation of literary quality, as well as the domestic and international commercial potential for a book.
2000 I founded The Literary Consultancy Canada, a franchise of The Literary Consultancy in the UK, to offer comprehensive assessments of manuscripts in terms of literary quality and marketability. This endeavour expanded my view of the diversity of writing being produced in Canada, and convinced me of the need writers at all levels of accomplishment have for frank and thorough discussion about the strengths and the possibilities of their work.
2006 I joined Goose Lane Editions, Canada’s oldest independent publisher, as fiction editor. This post has put me in a privileged position, where I am able to choose and encourage fiction I think is interesting, original, and boundary pushing. I am able also to follow a book from acquisition to publication — an involved, challenging, and exciting trip. Visit Goose Lane to see what I’ve been working on.
2016 I teamed up with Valerie Compton to found Narrative Agency, a service providing thorough and intuitive feedback to fiction and nonfiction writers. Our aim is to bring to editorial relationships our individual and combined experience — to focus, in a way that is supportive and productive for the writer, on the text, and the revision process — and to share what we have learned (and continue to learn) about craft. In addition to editing and mentoring services, we offer fiction writing classes, workshops, and seminars. Visit Narrative Agency for information.
2020 I launched The Scales Project, a series of conversations in art about where we're at in the Anthropocene.
2000 I founded The Literary Consultancy Canada, a franchise of The Literary Consultancy in the UK, to offer comprehensive assessments of manuscripts in terms of literary quality and marketability. This endeavour expanded my view of the diversity of writing being produced in Canada, and convinced me of the need writers at all levels of accomplishment have for frank and thorough discussion about the strengths and the possibilities of their work.
2006 I joined Goose Lane Editions, Canada’s oldest independent publisher, as fiction editor. This post has put me in a privileged position, where I am able to choose and encourage fiction I think is interesting, original, and boundary pushing. I am able also to follow a book from acquisition to publication — an involved, challenging, and exciting trip. Visit Goose Lane to see what I’ve been working on.
2016 I teamed up with Valerie Compton to found Narrative Agency, a service providing thorough and intuitive feedback to fiction and nonfiction writers. Our aim is to bring to editorial relationships our individual and combined experience — to focus, in a way that is supportive and productive for the writer, on the text, and the revision process — and to share what we have learned (and continue to learn) about craft. In addition to editing and mentoring services, we offer fiction writing classes, workshops, and seminars. Visit Narrative Agency for information.
2020 I launched The Scales Project, a series of conversations in art about where we're at in the Anthropocene.