Our Team
Our editorial team is made up of talented book editors who specialize in everything from big-picture developmental edits to fine-tuning line edits and polishing copy. We've worked with everyone from major publishing houses to indie authors, and several of us are published writers ourselves.
We've got the expertise to handle any genre you can imagine: from thrilling mysteries and heart-pounding romances to thought-provoking memoirs and mind-bending sci-fi. No matter what kind of story you're telling, we have an editor who can help you bring it to life.
Click on an editor’s name to read their bio
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Lisa Wong is a freelance editor specializing in developmental and manuscript evaluations. When she is not assisting Artful Editor with business and editorial tasks, she works as an assistant editor for Art + Deco Agency, LCS Literary, and as an in-house editor and ghostwriter for ArtHouse Literary. She also freelances for Monterey Bay Parent and the Davis Enterprise and has her own editing business, where she offers manuscript development services as well as query letter critiques. Lisa holds a BA in Communication from UC Davis and resides in Woodland, California with her partner. In any spare time, you can find her following one of several pursuits: reading, writing a novel about resentment, learning languages, or playing soccer.
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Nicole Maggi is the author of the National Park Mystery Series, the first book of which is A Murder in Zion. She also penned The Forgetting, an International Thriller Writers Thriller Award Finalist, a Junior Library Guild selection and a #1 Kindle Bestseller, as well as What They Don’t Know. Her YA fantasy series The Twin Willows Trilogy (Medallion Press 2014), was called “reminiscent of Twilight and Harry Potter” by VOYA. Nicole holds a BFA from Emerson College and was the 2020 SCBWI-LA Mentor, which resulted in her mentee signing with an agent and selling his book all within the mentorship period. When she isn’t writing, she’s plotting her next escape to a National Park (bucket list item: visit them all) or volunteering with her daughter’s Girl Scout troop. As an editor, she loves digging in to draw out the best story from her authors, and particularly enjoys the fantasy, historical, romance and mystery genres in both adult and YA.
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Jenny Bartoy is the editor of No Contact: 28 Writers on Family Estrangement (Catapult, April 2026). Her literary work appears in Under the Gum Tree, Room, and the anthologies Sharp Notions: Essays from the Stitching Life and Labor of Love: A Literary Mama Anthology, among other publications. She frequently interviews authors and reviews books for The Boston Globe, The Seattle Times, Chicago Review of Books, CrimeReads, The Rumpus, and other outlets. Jenny is the former managing editor of Literary Mama and Quiltfolk magazine and the former editorial manager for Artful Editor. Based in Tacoma, Washington, she freelances as a developmental editor and writing instructor.
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Ernesto Mestre is an award-winning novelist, editor, writing coach, and translator. He has taught at several prestigious MFA writing programs over the last two decades, and his work has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts. His novels, The Lazarus Rumba, The Second Death of Única Aveyano, and Sacrificio, have received critical acclaim from the New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post Book World, The Baltimore Sun, and Kirkus. A fourth novel, Liliana Bell and the American Fable, will be out from Soho Press in 2026. He has edited many novels for various New York publishing houses.
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Jackson Palmer is the author of The Meek, The Monster, and The Man (a dystopian trilogy), and is currently penning the first installment to a fantasy series. He studied drama, acting, and playwriting at the University of Montana before touring the nation in a repertory theatre company. After spending a decade in Los Angeles pursuing acting and writing, Jackson moved back to Montana to raise his children in the great outdoors. When not writing or editing, you can find him hiking, rafting, or trying to keep up with his daughter on the ski slopes.
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Christi Martin specializes in copyediting and proofreading for speculative fiction and creative nonfiction. She is passionate about equipping writers with the skills they need to publish excellent books. Her bachelor’s degree in communication nourished her love for the book editing world, which she has lived and breathed ever since. The Editorial Freelancers Association gained her membership in 2017, and there, she furthers her professional education and strives to enrich her local editing and writing communities. If you want to dive into the depths of her mind (and understand why she loves fantasy and science fiction), ask her about conifers or hyracotherium. On a beautiful day off, you will often find her on a forest trail or at a park enjoying time with her family and friends.
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Kim Stoker has over fifteen years of professional editing experience. She specializes in academic writing and works of literature. She has an MFA in poetry from Antioch University and an MA in Asian Studies from the University of Hawaii. She was an editor for the Literature Translation Institute of Korea's trade magazine Korean Literature Now from its inception in 2008 to 2017 and has worked extensively with LTI Korea editing literary works of all genres, including subtitles for film and animation. After living outside the continental US for most of her adulthood, she's now based in the Mountain West.
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Michael Jauchen has been a freelance editor for over twenty years, working with authors at all skill levels and across many different genres. He has a PhD in English, with a specialty in fiction writing, and his work has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Santa Monica Review, and the Rumpus. As an editor, Mike’s clients have published books with Princeton University Press, Oxford University Press, Bloomsbury, and numerous other outlets. As a senior editor at Belt Publishing, books he edited were longlisted for the PEN America Award for Nonfiction and shortlisted for the NBCC Award for Autobiography. He currently lives in Texas.
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Ashley Henshaw has been a writer and editor for over fifteen years, working with both business clients and individual authors. She has a BA in English from Loyola University Chicago and previously worked for a publishing house. Her specialties include manuscript critiques, line edits, developmental edits, and book proposals. Her work has spanned a wide range of genres, from literary fiction and YA to self-help and memoir. Based in Chicago, Ashley loves exploring her city, traveling to new places, and completing the daily New York Times crossword puzzle.
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Denise Logsdon is an editor and ghostwriter. She has an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University and began her career more than twenty-five years ago as an in-house technical editor for environmental scientists. Since then, she has worked with countless scholars, journalists, and authors of literary fiction and memoir. She has edited a broad spectrum of genre fiction from middle grade to erotica but feels most at home in science fiction, fantasy, and historical fiction.
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Cheryl Murphy-Lowrance has been editing and coaching authors for over thirty years. She started proofreading for the Department of Defense Contracting Office on an army post at fifteen years old as part of a work-experience program, then later earned a certificate in editing from UC Berkeley, and has worked with words ever since. An unwavering descriptivist, Cheryl believes life’s too short to get mad if someone doesn’t use an Oxford comma. She loves helping authors reach those aha moments with their writing, when things suddenly click into place and the heavens open up. Her specialties are science fiction and fantasy, comic books, and screenplays.
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Lyric Dodson is a ghostwriter and developmental editor specializing in self-help, personal development, spirituality, and Black/Indigenous wisdom books. She earned a BA in English and a certificate in creative nonfiction writing from Northern Illinois University, and she's currently training with Wambtac Communications's Ghostwriting Professional Designation Program. With over three years of in-house experience and eight years in the industry, Lyric has edited over 50 titles for publishers, like Sounds True, BenBella, Hardie Grant, and more. In her free time, she enjoys taking long walks, snuggling with her cat, and planning her next traveling adventure.
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Amanda Kruse has a BA in creative writing from the University of Colorado at Boulder as well as graduate-level publishing certification from the University of Denver. For over a decade now, she has worked as a full-time writer and editor with small presses and indie authors. While she enjoys a wide variety of fiction and nonfiction, Amanda particularly appreciates stories with characters who pleasantly surprise her. And with a background in folklore and fairy tales, she loves books that interweave their classic themes with more modern settings. Amanda currently lives in Colorado with her husband, where they enjoy the mountains and great outdoors. When she’s not reading, writing, or editing, she spends time with her horse and adventuring around the world with her husband, friends, and family.
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Robin Samuels began writing stories almost as soon as she could read them. About a dozen years ago, she realized her true passion is for helping other writers to shape and polish their words, express themselves in the most clear and vivid way possible, and feel confident about the work they are sending out into the world. She enjoys editing multiple genres, from thrillers to romance to cozy fantasy and beyond. A member of the Editorial Freelancer’s Association, Robin is dedicated to expanding and developing her professional skills through ongoing editing education. Always and forever a New Yorker, she now lives in North Carolina where she is a devoted cat-mom, occasional webcomic author, and expert-level binge-watching TV nerd.
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Lauren Humphries-Brooks has worked as a freelance editor since 2015, with a resume that includes literary fiction, sci-fi/fantasy, romance, LGBTQ+, mystery/thrillers, academic publications, and film and television. She’s worked with St. Martin’s Press, Tor, Prestel, Prometheus, Intellect Books, Amazon Publishing, and Erewhon Books. Her clients range from experienced, award-winning authors, to new writers looking for guidance through the editing process, and include Pulitzer Prize nominees, first-time fantasy authors, family historians, academics, and film critics. A writer herself, with a master’s in creative writing from the University of Edinburgh, Lauren is passionate about editing and helping authors create something splendid, something of which they can be proud.
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Matthew Scarsbrook is a developmental editor with over a decade of experience, specializing in literary, crime, mystery, historical fiction, and memoir. He holds an MA in Creative Writing and enjoys collaborating with both first-time and established authors to help them bring their stories to life. As a judge for the prestigious Debut Dagger crime writing competition, he regularly discovers new talent. His recent clients have been rewarded with deals at major publishers like Hachette and Penguin Random House. Matthew is also the author of four novels, including Poison in the Blood, which has been translated into five languages. Originally from the shores of Britain, Matthew now calls coastal Southern California home.
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Michael J. Totten is an award-winning journalist and the author of ten books, including his most recent, Write, Edit, Publish. His first book, The Road to Fatima Gate, won the Washington Institute Book Prize. His fifth, Resurrection, has been optioned for film. He edits books for major publishers, provides the full spectrum of independent publishing services (from editing to paperback and e-book design), coaches beginning and semiprofessional writers, and knows how to write the kinds of book proposals that traditional publishers want. While he used to sneak into police states without authorization and dodge incoming rocket fire as a war correspondent, he now lives quietly in Oregon with his wife and two cats.
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Susan McGrath has been a freelance copyeditor and proofreader for over fifteen years, working with independent authors, small publishing houses, and traditional publishers, including Perseus Books, St. Martin’s Press, Simon and Schuster, and Harlequin. She works mostly in contemporary and literary fiction, women’s fiction, romance, mystery and crime, and serious nonfiction. She holds a certificate in copyediting from UC Berkeley and a BS in psychology. When she’s not editing, she’s usually trying out a new recipe, binge-watching a series, or hanging out with her cats. An avid reader from a young age, she is thrilled to be working with books as a career.
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Kara Aisenbrey specializes in fantasy and science fiction. She loves collaborating with authors so their prose sings and their characters capture hearts. Epic, steampunk, space travel, fairy tale, dystopian, paranormal romance—Kara loves all things weird and wondrous. She has a degree in English, a certificate in editing from UC Berkeley, and years of experience guiding authors on their book journeys. She grew up traveling between the US, Europe, and West Africa, and though she never had much suitcase room for books, she likes to think she carried stories along inside. She currently lives in Seattle, spending her free time exploring pine forests and new corners of the city.
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Todd Summar writes essays and fiction and serves as an editor for publishers and individuals. His work has appeared in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, PANK, Literary Hub, and Joyland, among others. He is the founding editor of Goreyesque, an online literary journal that featured fabulist fiction, poetry, and artwork, and he also edits short stories for The Masters Review. He has taught at StoryStudio Chicago and Columbia College Chicago, where he earned an MFA in creative writing, and is a frequent contributor to Artists Book House, an organization that promotes the literary arts and the craft of book making.
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For more than twenty years, Christina Palaia has assisted both authors and publishers in preparing fiction and nonfiction manuscripts for publication. She specializes in developmental editing, copyediting, and proofreading fiction, narrative nonfiction, creative nonfiction, and scholarly trade nonfiction in the natural sciences and social sciences on the topics of anthropology, natural history, culture, agriculture, ecology, environment, and health and medical. She also provides book coaching to help writers write. Publishers she has edited for include Perseus Book Group/Hachette, Cambridge University Press, McGraw-Hill, Wiley, and Microsoft Press. She lives in Colorado and shares her humble homestead with an ancient horse and pony and two wild mountain kitties who keep the chipmunks at bay.