NOTE: If you’re evaluating me for an editor position, you’ll find some samples may not adhere to the Chicago Manual of Style, due to client house style differences (and personally, I prefer to use CMOS for everything except numbers).

NOTE 2: My website is in the process of being redesigned, so some links in the menu above may not yet work.

Content Strategy: Style & Branding Guides

Friendly Writing Guidelines

It’s a focus of my career to develop friendly and effective content for humans, and teach others to do it too. After working with a team to audit and condense an 1800-page legacy website for a utility company (hadn’t been updated since the late 90s), I authored a “friendly writing” guide to teach the company’s writers to update the site content to be friendlier (both to readers and to SEO).

Editorial Style Guide

As part of a website redesign for a college, I rewrote their extensive style guide.

Simple Branding Guide

This is a simple branding guide and editorial style guide for a small web development agency.

Content Strategy: Audit Findings

Content Audit Findings

My team and I did a content audit of an 1800-page utility company site that hadn’t been updated since the 1990s. Here’s a piece of the presentation I wrote that summarized the findings.

High-Level UX Audit Findings

From a UX audit of a wedding site.

Social Media Audit Findings

This is the social media audit report I did for a government website my company was doing a website redesign for.

Writing: Policies | Onboarding | Operations | Process

Copy Editor Onboarding

The title “copy editor” can mean completely different work tasks at different publishers and jobs. I worked at a fledgling publisher that hadn’t yet worked out all the kinks in their process, such as setting expectations for their copy editors. After asking a LOT of questions, I wrote up this onboarding document to explain their expectations to new copy editors (so THEY didn’t have to keep asking questions like I did).

Contractor Onboarding (Writing/Editing)

While at a client engagement, I noticed their contractor onboarding manual needed some work. When you’re a contractor, the most important things you want to know are How do I submit my time and How do I get paid. I made sure their manual put that information front and center (as well as clarifying some other information). This is a before and after document, the original is first (with my comments), with my edited version following.

E-commerce Policies

These are documents I authored for a pool table company. I wish their site design had more gravitas, as this is good content!

Contract Example

This is a very thorough contract I authored for my ghostwriting services. I added information to cover every situation I’d previously dealt with.

Writing: Technical Writing

Data Sheets | Sales Sheets

These data sheets were written to support a company selling digital billboards in NYC.

Software User Guides

These are guides that support software for digital billboards.

Writing: Content Writing

Company Site Content

Web Development Company Content

These blog posts were written on behalf of the CEO of a web development agency. Most posts were on technical and small business topics.

Aimclear Content

These articles were written for AIMCLEAR (a Minnesota SEO firm) during the great SEO/Social Media explosion. The info in some articles is obviously dated (i.e. early iPhone apps), but some of it still holds up rather well.

Case Studies

These narrative-style case studies were written on behalf of the CEO of a web development agency.

Product Copy & Informational Content

I was hired to do some light product copy updates for a billiards company. I standardized the product descriptions for their pool tables and furniture, then moved on to improve their supplemental content (how to buy a table, warranty information, pool table installation, etc.)

Travel Writing

These are from a series of travel tips for the now defunct parkrideflyusa.com blog (these links go to the waybackmachine.org). They removed bylines in a site redesign, but as soon as you start reading you can tell by the humor it’s me (and you can see me replying to comments).

The Most Complete Apartment Ad Ever

One of my credos as a writer is to “write content that answers questions before they’re asked.” As a person who rents, I find apartment ads woefully inadequate in providing complete information about the rental. So when I was trying to find a subletter for one of my apartments, I decided to write the best apartment ad in the history of apartment ads.
Read the Most Complete Apartment Ad Ever

Editing: Books

I offer editorial services for nonfiction books including developmental, line, and copy editing.

Copy Editing for Chronicle Books

I edit books in the “Pop Culture” category for Chronicle Books.

Manuscript Editing Examples

NOTE: These samples are in Microsoft Word to preserve comments

Copy Editing for Scribe Media

Scribe Media would assign me business and technical books to edit as that was my background.

Writing: Personal Writing

Personal Writing That's Turning Professional

I was recently diagnosed with severe sleep apnea and I experienced poor communication about the process of CPAP treatment. So I’m writing up everything I wish I’d been told, and I plan to pitch it to the sleep centers. I’ll probably make some videos too.

Personal Writing

How Ayahuasca Helped Me Puke My Way to Better Mental Health: This post was selected to be part of the “Trips Worth Telling” series, put out in conjunction with Michael Pollan’s book, How to Change Your Mind on his research into psychedelics.

Amateur Screenwriting

I was an OG Sex and the City watcher, and the new show, And Just Like That, is terrible. They’re butchering my show, so I thought I’d see if I could write some scenes that felt more authentic. It went over very well in the AJLT subreddit! I may do more, if the writing continues to be awful.

Reviews & Social Media

NOTE: There might be some swears

Website Design and Production

Ah, another life this was. I was building websites way back when they were just HTML.

Since I was building websites in the early 2000s, most of the sites I’ve built are long gone, but I have one legacy client I’m still supporting, and his sites are my favorites.