Cheryl Freedman

Have manuscript, will edit.

Cheryl has been an editor for almost 15 years and has worked on manuscripts in areas ranging from occupational health and safety to practical Kabbalah to memoirs to educational theory to crime fiction manuscript evaluations and edits. Cheryl is one of the original Bloody Gangsters whose involvement with Bloody Words (as either publications chair or conference chair) goes back to the first BW in 1999. Fondly – or perhaps not so fondly – known as Mothership and She Who Must Be Obeyed, she was also executive director of Crime Writers of Canada for almost 10 years and knows where all the bodies are buried. In addition to editing, Cheryl does desktop publishing, including program books for Bloody Words, SF Contario, and the 2003 World Science Fiction Convention, as well as all CWC publications while she was executive director. Between paying gigs, she’s working on two crime novels simultaneously because sometimes she feels like writing humour and sometimes she feels like writing literary.

What some of Cheryl’s criminous author clients think of her:

Cheryl Freedman, along with her Crime Writers duties and passion, is also an editor and professional reader of new texts. She gave me invaluable advice on my historical Victorian novel, Trumpets Sound No More. Her astute understanding of the relationships between character building, narrative drive and setting description helped me focus the story in more effective ways. Cheryl is generous and frank in her appraisals as a professional manuscript reader; she reads closely and respects what you have written, not what her expectations may or may not have been. Thus, she has the gift a true critical eye. I enjoy working with her for her humour and honesty above all...and the simple fact that she is truly dedicated to crime writing as a work of literary art. – JON REDFERN, winner of the 2008 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel for Trumpets Sound No More

I have used Cheryl Freedman's services as a 'pre-editor' for my three most recent novels. Her help has become an extremely useful part of my creative process, a final 'clearing house' as it were before I send my novels off to the publisher. Her instincts as an editor are excellent. She's thorough, cognitive and knows her craft well. My novels are all the better for Cheryl having gone through them and I enjoy working with her very much. – RICK BLECHTA

The experience of working with Cheryl Freedman on my novel was totally positive. Cheryl performed a substantive edit and I found that her insight into human nature, keen eye for detail, and thorough knowledge of the structure of a novel helped to take my book to another level. – VICKI DELANY

I can recommend Cheryl Freedman without reservation as a reader and an editor. She has read and commented on several manuscripts for me and is always both perspicacious as well as tactful and supportive. I really enjoyed working with her and found her suggestions improved the work immensely. – MAUREEN JENNINGS

I cannot recommend Cheryl Freedman highly enough, as both a substantive and a copy editor. She has saved me often from embarrassing slips, and made many thoughtful and helpful suggestions along the way. We writers find it hard to see the forest for the trees. We all need an editor like Cheryl. – CARO SOLES

As a former newspaper publisher, I know that Cheryl Freedman is a gem to which many aspire but few achieve: bright, challenging, incisive and wonderfully competent. But she’s much more than that. Even though she worked me over for several months as I struggled to convert my journalistic sensibilities to fiction, I have come recognize that she’s more of a mentor than a comma counter, though she is very good at that. And she’s very funny, very funny. – JAKE DOHERTY

In seven years of reviewing, I've never read an award winning book where the author had not partnered with a skilled editor. Writing without an editor is a bit like gardening without a gardener or singing without a coach. The task is finding an editor who can help a writer position their voice without imposing their own. Among the very best that I know is Cheryl Freedman. She helps without imposing and sets a writer's talent ablaze like no one else I know. In today's publishing market, good editing is important. The best editing is essential. – DON GRAVES, crime book reviewer for The Hamilton Spectator