Born and raised in West Virginia, I graduated magna cum laude from Brown University with a degree in Semiotics and Theater Arts. I studied acting for two years at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, then moved to New York. After a few years of balancing auditions, day jobs, and acting work, I got an open-ended temp gig as an editorial assistant at Doubleday. I didn’t realize it at first (fortunately my boss did), but it was like the mother ship calling me home.

At Doubleday I edited literary fiction (Stewart O’Nan’s first three novels), memoir (Pulitzer finalist In the Wilderness by Kim Barnes), humorous fiction (Youth in Revolt by C.D. Payne, The Bear Went Over the Mountain by William Kotzwinkle), and popular culture (Come As You Are by Michael Azerrad, Bill Graham Presents by Bill Graham and Robert Greenfield, Skeleton Key by David Shenk and Steve Silberman).

At Random House and its Villard imprint, I edited literary fiction (debut works by Aaron Hamburger, David Hollander, and Matthew Sharpe), and memoir (Hungry for the World by Kim Barnes, Girlbomb by Janice Erlbaum, Girl [Maladjusted] by Molly Jong-Fast)), as well as popular culture (Shakey by Jimmy McDonough, Twenty Thousand Roads by David N. Meyer), animals (Dog Days and six other books by Jon Katz), and a handful of bestselling celebrity books (Trace Adkins, David Blaine, Melissa Etheredge, Aretha Franklin, and Patricia Heaton).

I also edited a lot of humorous essay collections and novels, four of which were finalists for the Thurber Prize in American Humor (Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas, Walking in Circles Before Lying Down by Merrill Markoe, The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death by Laurie Notaro, The Day I Turned Uncool by Dan Zevin) and one of which won the prize itself (The Other Shulman by Alan Zweibel).

At the nadir of the Great Recession I found myself without a job and discovered the joy and freedom of being an independent editor. Then I answered the siren call of salary and benefits and accepted a position at Workman, where titles I edited included the international bestseller Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon (as well his next three books), and A Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming by Dylan Tuccillo, Jared Zeizel, and Thomas Peisel.

Since 2013 I have been a lecturer and workshop mentor at the Columbia Publishing Course at the Columbia Journalism School, where the students’ energy and ideas fill me with hope for the future of the book business.

In late 2019 my husband and I decided we wanted more control over our time and location than our office jobs allowed. For me that meant a happy return to freelance editorial work.