The Story Temple · An editorial imprint
For publications and organizations
I edit and fact-check nonfiction, memoir and narrative work for publications, agencies and content studios.
That covers developmental assessment on structure and argument, line and copyediting at the sentence level, and source-and-quote verification for reported pieces.
What editors hire me for, across all of it, is accuracy they can defend.
How I check
Every factual claim goes back to a primary source, never a secondary one repeating it. If I’m unable to find a primary source, I document it.
Quotes get confirmed with the person who said them or with their office. Nothing gets lifted from a press release.
Numbers and data trace to the original study or dataset, and I secure any use permissions before the piece runs.
All of it lands in a review file with the source, the status and the date. When someone goes back through the work three months later, they can see what was verified and how it was done. That file is the deliverable behind the deliverable, and it’s the reason I get called again.
What I hold
Style. Chicago and AP. I adapt to in-house sheets without needing to be walked through them.
Consistency across contributors. Most of what a full-issue copyedit for a magazine asks for is holding one voice standard across multiple writers who may or may not have never met. I do that without flattening any of them.
Register. A recipe, a reported feature, an interview transcript and a service piece each want a different hand. They get one.
Judgment about what to query. Medical claims get queried for review rather than silently corrected. Production artifacts, OCR errors, duplicate copy and numbering problems, get documented separately from editorial suggestions, so the production team and the editorial team each receive a clean list instead of one mixed pile.
The standard behind it
This is the same imprint that edits short-form content and book-length work for authors. Same standard, without exception.
The one that matters most to a publication: I don’t neutralize a contributor’s voice toward a general-audience default. Holding house style and preserving the writer who wrote it are both possible on the same pass. That’s the job.
Selected work
Consumer health magazine, full issue. Line and copyedit across diagnosis, staging, genetics, treatment, spirituality, exercise and nutrition, plus a recipe section. Multiple contributors, each article treated as its own editorial problem, every article given a secondary production review. Client and publication withheld per contract terms.
One edit from that issue, to show the level: an article reported that researchers had “questioned whether” personal faith plays a role in the cancer journey. Grammatically fine. I queried it and suggested “explored,” because “questioned whether” carries institutional doubt the research itself didn’t carry, and the audience reading it had documented reasons to hear that doubt loudly.
Consumer lifestyle magazine, full issue. Reported features, interviews, psychology and science journalism, cultural commentary, travel, food editorial, service journalism, contributor bios and front-of-issue copy. Content spanned AI ethics, youth mental health, food history, speculative design, visual arts criticism and career transitions in sports and entertainment. Client and publication withheld per contract terms.
Book-length memoir and narrative nonfiction. Developmental assessment and structural work with independent authors and practitioner-authors. Structure, argument, chronology, point of view and the distance between what a writer knows and what the page is showing.
Current work
I fact-check for Custom Content from WSJ through The Writing Company, on custom editorial articles across business, finance and technology. I also maintain a content library, manage projects and copyedit a broader range of client content for The Writing Company, holding accuracy, consistency and house style across formats.
This is ongoing work on live deadlines. If you want a reference on accuracy under competing deadlines, ask.
Working together
Availability. Currently booking new projects. I typically start within a week for hourly work and two weeks for full manuscripts.
Rush. Same-week and weekend turnarounds available at a 25% premium. Tell me your deadline in the first email and I’ll tell you honestly whether I can meet it.
Terms. Smaller projects are paid in full before the project begins. Larger engagements run 50% on booking and 50% on delivery. ACH for roster and retainer work, debit or credit for one-off projects.
Start here
Send me the scope, the word count and the deadline. I’ll come back with a rate and a start date.
📬 info@thestorytemple.com
Portfolio and references on request.
The Story Temple · An editorial imprint