About Me

I was that little kid who loved animals. I brought each homeless dog and cat I met on my way to school back to my house for a meal and tried to keep them all. I had pet turtles, hamsters, and gerbils, and held a funeral for each of them when they died. The great horned owl who lived in our huge old oak tree fascinated me. When deciding on a career, I chose veterinary medicine because I thought that was the best way to help animals.

My veterinary career led to much more writing and editing than I would have imagined at its outset. I have authored a chapter in a veterinary forensics textbook, written a regular column in a wildlife rehabilitation journal, summarized research studies for an animal advocacy organization’s website, composed several journal articles, and authored a personal tribute in a book dedicated to Jane Goodall.

 It was through my writing that I came to realize the importance of an editor.   Readers appreciate writing that is engaging, clear, and easy to follow—and that’s where an editor comes in.

 Some of my favorite editing gigs have included helping a veterinarian whose first language was not English get her important research manuscript successfully through peer review, and helping a veterinary professional polish her chapter for a new wildlife rehabilitation textbook.

 I now realize that another way to respect and help animals is to write the truth about them—to capture them in words that accurately and respectfully portray them as the amazing individuals they are, each with their own story to tell and life to live. Words affect how we treat animals.  

One of the best things I learned in my UC Berkeley editing sequence was to approach each project in terms of a story. Each project tells a story, and it doesn’t matter if I’m working on a research study, case study, general interest piece, report, textbook chapter, or journal article. My job as an editor is to help that story get told as clearly as possible to the widest possible audience.

For fun, I enjoy hiking, kayaking, traveling, and living on a wooded acreage with my husband, cat, and bunny. Best trip ever was hiking the coastal path of Wales!