EDITING

I work with authors at all stages of their writing process to develop an idea, edit a full length manuscript, refine a work-in-progress, rebuild and reshape a narrative, or help prepare a pitch. I will help you figure out your intentions with your work, and make sure those goals are coming across clearly in the writing. I love sentences just as much as I love story, and I will help you do super-close reading of your work so that the tone, style, themes, and story are coming across at the line level as well as in the bigger picture. Whether you are working in fiction or memoir, the goal is the same: to make your story clear and compelling to your readers.

Contact me directly or through Flying Books Mentorship Program to inquire about working together.

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I took Harriet’s class at the University of Toronto to get back into creative writing after the monotony of the pandemic wiped my imagination. Her course on creative writing through reading was the first time I deliberately considered writing as a craft, despite being a lover of words since childhood. A year later, she reached out and encouraged me to participate in her cohort at Humber’s Intensive Workshop. Through that workshopping and mentorship process, I learned to get out of my own way, get unstuck, and build a sustainable writing routine, which led, ten months later, to the first draft of my novel and a grant from the Canada Council to revise it.

From there, I was happy and grateful that Harriet agreed to help me see the draft to its next incarnation with our one-on-one sessions. Harriet’s close reading of and surgical interventions on my manuscript allowed me to revise the first draft of my novel into a story that had an actual shape. Working with her over the course of eight weeks, I learned that how a story unfurls is as important as what the story is and how to get the story that’s in my mind onto the actual page. Her feedback was always constructive and left me with more ideas, not less, and primed to revise and rewrite.

Barâa Arar

When I worked with Harriet on the manuscript for my memoir Motherlike, she identified a major element that was missing in the narrative and worked with me to figure out how I could incorporate it. Once I did, the story became complete—it was the piece I didn’t know I was missing. In general, her reading of the work was thoughtful, intelligent and thorough, and she not only provided me with clear and invaluable written feedback, but also spoke with me at length on the phone after to answer my questions and talk through any sticking points. Harriet is a powerful storyteller who is generous with her knowledge and time, and I’ll forever be a better writer for working with her.”

Katherine Leyton

“Harriet not only understood what I was trying to do with my manuscript [What We Both Know] but was able to show me different perspectives, fine-tuning the work and bringing forward its strongest ideas. I left our meetings feeling excited about reshaping and rethinking, after having hit a wall on my own. Harriet has a strong intuition and a creative, personalized approach to editing.”

Fawn Parker