I’ve worked with some awesome editors as an ELT materials writer. I don’t praise them enough or acknowledge the support they’ve given me. So, here are 11 people who have been AWESOME to work with and that I’d easily recommend for further projects.

Ann Dickson

Ann is ‘my’ editor for work with Ellii. She’s really welcomed new activity ideas for the Discussion Starter lessons, and is always on hand to make suggestions and tighten up my grammar sections. Writing for Ellii has involved using InDesign – Ann knew I had no experience of this and (along with Tara at Ellii) has supported me in developing my skills with this tool.

Superpower: Grammar guru

Alex MacKenzie

Alex was ‘my’ development editor on a recent IGCSE ESL project. She was *so* easy to work with, always gave constructive feedback and certainly felt on the same wavelength approach-wise. She gave excellent support and guidance during a module on Equality – I felt this massively enhanced the resource. She helped me navigate quite a challenging resource given various constraints. I’d highly recommend Alex.

Superpower(s): EAL! Understanding the learners.

Nicole Elliot

I worked with Nicole on resources for Hatriqa. From the very start I felt her guidance was clear, feedback really useful, approaches to the ‘you’ve done this wrong!’ were tactful (ha!) and she welcomed a creative take on activities and texts. I felt I could largely write how I wanted to on the project, and that freedom made for much more investment in the resource. Fun to work with too.

Superpower: Gets excited about creative activities and makes them work

Katie Sullivan and Tracey Gibbins

Katie was the Dev Ed on my first ever coursebook for Pearson. To be honest, I was well out of my depth at the time – it was no doubt obvious! Katie and Tracey (who was freelancing as an Ed and working closely with us) were so supportive and guided me through the process with such patience. I felt proud of what I’d achieved but they made it happen.

Superpower: Supporting novice authors!

Tom O’Reilly

Tom runs Prosperity Education. When Paul Murphy and I proposed an idea for an IELTS book to Prosperity, Tom was super keen to have the resource be ‘ours’, and not to conform to some kind of in-house format etc. We had so much freedom, and he trusted us with whatever we felt worked. Sure, indie publishers can do that more easily that the big ones, but they still have to want to!

Superpower: Giving teacher-authors a voice!

Liz McGrath

Liz gave me my break working for the ‘big four’ (or are they three? Or do they even exist? Etc). She guided me through digital authoring with some super demos and onboarding. The project was the first one in which I’d worked on a blerky Word manuscript and she was really forgiving – giving me the space and support to learn and develop. Getting offered repeat work from Liz was like ‘Yes! I can do it!’ and gave me that confidence to throw my hat in the ring for other opportunities.

Superpower: meh, ‘onboarding’ sounds like a naff superpower but then it’s pretty important!

Rachel Slatter and Elizabeth Reid

Working with Liz (see previous) led to working with Onestopenglish. My first two editors there, Rachel and Liz 2 were SUPER easy to work with. Liz’s feedback and ‘keeping you in the loop’-ness was always thorough and timely, and suggestions for amendments always felt like enhancements. And they did that thing where they would add mini-changes but apologized as if they were treading on toes, yet they were saving time. I like it when things are like that and not an excessive to-and-fro for minor edits.

Superpower(s): Efficiency and clear communication

Nik Peachey

An indie publisher with a solid classroom focus. When Rich McCully and I approached Nik with a loose idea for a ELT role-plays book, he was keen to help us shape it. His ideas for adding clearer procedural info and other teacher support gave the book such a stronger connection to the classroom, and he framed them in a very manageable way for us as authors. I can’t believe that our little idea still brings in a fair amount of royalties, and that’s largely due to Nik’s vision for the resource. Ledge.

Superpower: Meeting teacher needs

Alan Pulverness

Alan and I recently worked together on an assessment-related project for Cambridge and MOE Vietnam. I never thought I’d be co-consulting with someone as skilled and experienced as Alan. He is so generous with his time and expertise, and guided me through some challenging new tasks. He encouraged me to stretch myself, hence recent ventures into conference presenting, webinars, and mentoring programmes. Knowing that someone like Alan (Mr TKT) believed I have something to share is a huge compliment.

Superpower: What a mentor to have!

So, who would you big up in the world of ELT editing?

Categories: General, materials writing

Tags: editor, elt, hire, materials writing, publishing, reflections, tefl, writing