About Me
Words change the world. Let me help you be part of that change with my editing, ghostwriting and author coaching services.
If you need a story-partner who’s friendly, communicative, collaborative, experienced and trained, look no further.
I specialize in the following, but variety is the spice of life, and I like my life spicy! So please get in touch if you need help with something not on my list.
- Memoirs and autobiographies
- Self-help
- Literary fiction
- Romantic and Women’s fiction (from sweet to 5-peppers heat)
- Historical fiction
- Mysteries and thrillers
- Paranormal
- Mixed-genre mashups
Your story is in safe hands
Do you feel nervous about putting your words, or even your ideas out there?
I get it. I’m a writer too. Handing your deepest thoughts to a stranger is one of the most vulnerable acts you can do. Are they the right thoughts? Have I expressed them the way they sound in my head?
Sharing your words takes guts.
I can’t help you take the first step of contacting me, but once you’ve cleared that bar, I’ll be right by your side for the whole journey.
“Working with Judith was pure joy. She was professional, easy-going and collaborative. Best of all, I knew I could always rely on her.”
Viki King | www.vikiking.com | International Bestselling author of How to Be the Hero of Your Own Life: A Unique Autobiography and How to Write a Movie in 21 Days: The Inner Movie Method
At-a-Glance
- 10 years’ editing experience across fiction and memoir
- Copyediting training and certification
- Line editing training
- Developmental editing training
- Member of the Editorial Freelancers Association
- Member of Editors Canada
- 20 years teaching English language at a university
- MA Applied Linguistics and English Language Teaching
- BA English Literature and Theatre Skills
Fun Facts
- I’ve written 6 novels, 3 novellas, and a whole lot of poetry and short stories.
- I self-published several, and then un-self-published them because I didn’t consider them worthy to face the cold light of day. I’m rectifying that and will soon self-publish again. Proudly this time.
- Rode on horseback 5000 miles across Canada from east to west, unintentially plunging into the Atlantic at the start (the ice broke under the horse’s weight ), and galumphing into the Pacific, with full intention, at the end.
- Co-wrote, directed, and played Dudley in an equine extravaganza version of Dudley Do-Right.
- Didn’t get my driving license until I was 40. Why? Because I was born with less than 5% normal vision. Thankfully, a brilliant surgeon fixed that, so I rushed right out and learned to drive.
- Whee!
You may wonder where the name WordServings came from.
Great question.
It’s the same one I had when I came up with it. Like most other things in my neurodivergent life, it popped into my head seemingly out of thin air. Leaving me to reverse-engineer its genesis.
What I discovered was not only the origin of the name I chose for my business, but the entirety of my ability with words.
A universe on the head of a pin, so to speak.
- First, the sound. The repeated “er” (assonance for the technically minded) across the two words is pleasing to the ear and thus memorable. A business name should be memorable. Check.
- Second, my entire livelihood is based on helping, or serving, others and their words. A business name should indicate the type of business. Check.
- Third, compression, or saying more with less, aka subtext. Serving also means giving food, and a serving is a portion of something, hopefully tasty. A portion of writing, whether it be a one-word business name, a 60,000-word memoir or a 100,000-word novel, should give the reader something tasty, something to make them feel. CHECK!
This is the stuff that makes my writerly brain go whee! and do the cancan.
Right, back to business
MY business is to serve YOUR words to the best of my ability whether I’m helping you get your words on the page, editing what you’ve written, or doing the writing. That’s what an author coach, editor, and memoir ghostwriter does.
This is my jam because I know what it’s like to become a withered husk of myself when faced with a specific writing task – usually when forced to write about myself, like on an About page.
*Glares at About page.*
But it can happen at any time with any writing task.
I also know what it’s like to write something I’m proud of, in a voice that’s very much my own, and then have some well-meaning individual “correct” it until it’s also nothing but a withered husk, edges curled and crispy.
Knowing these things, I bend over backwards (probably not while also doing the cancan) to ensure that YOUR authorial voice is respected from start to finish. And, if you haven’t found it yet, I can help with that too.
“Judith’s comments and suggestions helped me tighten my writing, remove repetition, sharpen key messages, and make certain passages hit harder emotionally. Again and again, I found myself thinking, ‘Yes, that’s exactly what I was trying to say.’”
Guy Boyd | www.widowmakertowarrior.com | Author of the Self-help Memoir Widowmaker to Warrior: How I Survived a Massive Heart Attack and Rebuilt My Health on My Terms
Let’s chat about your writing, and how I can help you. Please click the button below (you’ll make it very happy) or email me at hello@wordservings.com.
I’d love to hear from you.
My Experience and Training
I began editing professionally in 2015 after five years of helping fellow authors workshop and polish their manuscripts.
My lifelong love of reading across genres and studying writing craft gifted me a deeply intuitive sense of how English language and storytelling work. Degrees in English Literature and Theatre Skills, and Applied Linguistics and English Language Teaching widened my knowledge and improved my ability to impart information and emotion in English.
Four years teaching English in a private language school followed by 16 years at a university instructing international students in English developed my communication and instructional skills. Forty years as a horse riding coach and horse trainer instilled in me the powerful benefits of a collaborative approach when helping anyone, human or animal, realize and achieve their potential.