I grew up in Texas with English grammar and the English language being taught, corrected, dissected, and analyzed at home as well as at school. My father was a Professor of English, Journalism, and Speech, and Mom was a nurse with a passion equal to Dad's for languages and books.

We had no TV, so we spent a lot of time reading and writing and talking. My parents would have dinner parties where one of the favorite topics for discussion among the professors and teachers present would be English grammar and the origins of words from other languages.

I often sat next to Dad on the sofa while he graded his students' papers. I could be there only as long as I was quiet. But one day when I was 10 years old, I noticed that Dad's red pencil had missed an error, and I spoke up. Instead of chastising me, he gave me the already-corrected papers to read behind him. Soon I got the first of many paid freelance jobs: proofreading the university's yearbooks, student directories, and other publications.

My degrees are in English and Elementary Education. After 10 years as a stay-at-home mom doing editing on the side, and a year as a substitute teacher, I went to work for a business forms company, drawing forms and doing the layout. I quickly discovered misspellings in the copy, brought them to the attention of the company's owner, and was immediately given the job of Final Proofreader. I was in heaven!

A year later, I found a larger version of heaven as an Editor at The Dallas Morning News, and spent 13 years at the helm of Line One, their consumer complaint column. After that, I ran my own business for 11 years (I owned three tattoo studios in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. Believe it!) and wrote the copy for our ads, website, hugely popular radio commercials, pamphlets, and business forms.

I sold the studios in 2001 and moved to Austin. I began editing podcasts and websites for a friend and mentor, Tom Parish. He insisted that I give my business a name and set up a website, that it would bring me lots of clients. I set up this site, and Tom was right -- my clients now come from all around the world. For more than six decades, authors have hired me to copy edit and/or proofread their writings. Contact me to find out why.

In Summer 2011, Tom created videos of entrepreneurs at a networking event. Here's the one of me talking about my proofreading and copy editing service.

In 2015, I moved to Nelson, New Zealand, where I continue editing while taking an occasional break to see what's happening out on Tasman Bay. Having lived in the UK, South Africa, and now New Zealand, I've become bi-lingual in English! So if you write in British English but want your book "translated" into US English, or vice versa, let me know.