Elevating your draft to craft. Allow me to refine so you can shine

My worldview organizes around language.

My first conscious language experience was as a child discovering the proto-Indo-European language glossary at the back a very large and heavy Merriam-Webster dictionary. Soon after that I ate up everything about Tolkien's conlangs! In high school my French teacher and Haitian classmates thought I spoke French at home ( I didn't; my widowed, Irish mother only knew English and a smattering of Irish ). I also began writing (poems, essays, short stories) in high school.

In College I picked up Spanish in my junior year and thanks to my all my Latin American friends at Hunter College, I became borderline fluent. My Spanish Writing and literature professor was so impressed by my mastery of the Spanish that the referred to me as "Don Tomás" and read my short stories at the the beginning and end of the semester in creative writing. I had also taken a pedagogic class that required me to observe and write about a high school class on a weekly basis. The professor grading my reports met me only once near the end of that class. She said she always enjoyed reading my reports. I also wrote for Baruch evening newspaper, *The Reporter*.

I graduated with a double concentration in French & Spanish language and literature and a double minor in journalism (my original major) and education.

In my sophomore year in college I spent a year in France. In my last year in college I spent a summer in Spain. and in between I spent a summer in Jonquière, Québec. Subsequently, I got a master's degree in translation form Spanish and French to English.

I worked professionally as a translator for a while before I took 20 year detour into software development, which for me was just another language or set of languages. More recently, since January 2023 i have been tutoring French, Spanish and English.

during this whole time and up to now, grammar ,syntax, punctuation, spelling and word choice have always ideas and phenomena that I would ponder and discuss. It only seems a natural fit for me to engage in proofreading and copyeditng.

Work Terms

I offer a free 1000-word proof or edit to give you a sense of how a work and to establish a level of comfort that could help you decide to continue working with me.

Once you have decided to work with me I will provide you with a paln-word agreement that outlines the scope of the project, deadlines and expectations.

To book a slot I take 30%, another 50% before I begin the pjoject and a final 20% once completed. Custom payment plans are possible for larger projects.