People come to freelance work from many directions, and the path I took is different from most. My launching pad in the mid-1980s was a position as corporate educational manager for the U.S. subsidiary of a major sewing machine manufacturer. My work included producing consumer-education and dealer-training materials and editing the English translations of collateral materials developed at the German-speaking company's headquarters in Switzerland. I also coordinated the company’s annual training conference that attracted 400 retail dealers.

I parlayed that experience into freelancing for national consumer and trade magazines, newsletters, and books on fashion-sewing and textile arts. Over the next 15 years, I contributed more than 350 articles to Sew News magazine, Consumers Digest, Crafts Plus, McCall's Patterns, and other publications. I also edited books for well-known crafts publishing houses.

In the early 1990s, I began to branch out in subject matter and clientele, and in 2001 I decided to specialize in substantive and copy editing. My clients now include large- and small-press publishers and a wide range of companies and nonprofits engaged in business-to-business or consumer communications. Please click on the links at left for more information.

I hold a B.S. degree in home economics from Oregon State University, with credits from the University of Minnesota for a European study tour. During the 1990s I was active in the International Association of Business Communicators and then served on the steering committee of the Northwest Independent Editors Guild from 2002 to 2006. I represented the guild as a speaker at the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association's fall 2003 conference and at a 2005 meeting of the Northwest Association of Book Publishers in Portland. In May 2006 I was a guest speaker in the University of Washington Extension's editing certificate program, and I now serve on that program's advisory board.

As an active volunteer in the greater Tacoma area, I have had major roles since 1999 in the YWCA RAGS Guild, which produces an annual wearable art fundraiser to benefit YWCA Pierce County's domestic violence programs. I also serve as newsletter editor for City Club of Tacoma.