About Me

My route into professional proofreading and copy-editing combines many years of writing and editorial experience with formal training as a proofreader and editor.

Before establishing Philcox Editorial, I spent 45 years working in the IT and computing industry, holding senior technical positions with large organisations in both the public and private sectors, as a permanent employee and as a self-employed consultant.

Although much of my work was highly technical, clear written communication was an essential part of it. Over the course of my career, I spent more than 500 hours reviewing and editing complex technical documents, some running to hundreds of pages.This involved improving clarity and readability, correcting grammar, punctuation and spelling, reviewing sentence structure and logical flow, checking consistency and formatting, and ensuring that technical information was appropriate for its intended audience.

Publishing experience

Alongside my IT career, I worked as a freelance author, contributing author and technical editor/reviewer for several US publishers.

My publishing experience includes:

  • authoring two technical books for New Riders and QUE Publishing, each approximately 350 pages;
  • contributing to two further QUE Publishing titles of approximately 800–900 pages; and
  • working as technical editor/reviewer on eight books for Macmillan Technical Publishing, New Riders, QUE Publishing and Prentice Hall, including titles of up to approximately 1000 pages.

You can find details of my publishing credits on the Author, Contributing Author and Technical Editor pages.

Working both as an author and an editor has given me valuable experience of the publishing process from both sides of the author–editor relationship.

    Professional editorial work

    I established Philcox Editorial to provide professional proofreading and copy-editing services to authors and other clients.

    My recent fiction work includes proof-editing and proofreading Lôn Cof, a middle-grade/YA fantasy-horror novel by independent author Harry Williams. I have since worked with Harry on his short story The Box of Worlds and on additional fiction for his website.

    Although my professional background gives me particular expertise in technical and computing-related material,I now work across both fiction and non-fiction. As a reader, I particularly enjoy thrillers, crime and suspense, and these are genres in which I would especially welcome the opportunity to work with authors.

    Professional development 

    I have undertaken extensive professional training in proofreading and copy-editing with the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and the Publishing Training Centre (PTC). I successfully completed CIEP's Proofreading 1: Introduction, Proofreading 2: Headway, Copy-editing 1: Introduction and Copy-editing 2: Headway courses. The Headway courses included assignments assessed and graded by CIEP tutors.

    I also completed the PTC's Essential Grammar, Essential Proofreading and Essential Copy-editing courses, together with its full suite of 15 e-learning modules. The Essential Proofreading and Essential Copy-editing courses included assessed assignments with Merit awarded for Essential Proofreading.

    I believe that a good editor never stops learning. I therefore maintain an active programme of Continuing Professional Development (CPD), both to keep my editorial knowledge and skills current and to continue developing my capabilities through further training.

    I am an Intermediate Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and a member of the Society of Authors (SoA).

    Details of my professional proofreading and copy-editing training can be found on my Training page.

    Last updated: August 2026