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I have been working as a professional wordsmith since 1993.
During those years I've created and contributed to a wide variety of
texts, from promotional leaflets and newsletters to scientific
coursebooks at university level.
I specialise in linguistics and TEFL, and I'm one of the very few
people who transliterate into the International Phonetic
Alphabet.
My qualifications relevant to this profession include:
- Membership of the Society for Editors and
Proofreaders - a testimony to high quality (and ongoing)
training, valuable experience and proven reliability
- Trinity Cert. TESOL, teacher of English as a
Foreign Language
- Dip ELS (Open) - Diploma of English Language Studies
- Open University degree in linguistics, Ancient
Greek & Latin, and astronomy/cosmology
My business background covers the
UK and Hong Kong,
including PR work for J Walter Thompson, and 10 years running a special
interest travel company.
And
just so's there's no risk of you thinking I'm all work and no play, I'm
also involved in ...
-
Car Driving - I'm a
member of the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM)
and I sometimes have fun in a skid pan, too.
-
Sub-Aqua Diving - I'm a PADI Open
Water Diver and have dived the
English Channel and the Med.
-
Winter sports - I've spent winters abroad skiiing in Switzerland and France, I've had a go at snowboarding, and I spent time in the Canadian Rockies using a snowmobile and helping train a dogsled team.
-
Aviation - I hold a Private
Pilot's Licence, with IMC and Night Ratings. I have also
piloted a microlight, a glider, a hang glider and a helicopter, and have gone hot-air ballooning.
-
Cookery
and Gastronomy - I'm a Cordon
Bleu cook.
-
Martial Arts
- judo many years ago, tai-chi between times, and now ki-aikido - yessss!
-
Sailing, including
- restoring and sailing a two-mast,
gaff-rig traditional wooden boat
- windsurfing - the, er, wobble'n'splash
variety
- yachting – Solent Points, Cowes Week and
Kiel week racing and cruising, DoT Yachtmaster, Short-range Radio
Operator cert
- Tall Ship - crewing the STA's Prince William,
in the Azores.
-
Opera - for 10 years
I went to Covent Garden twice a week. I've also been to umpteen
performances
at Bayreuth, Salzburg and Glyndebourne.
-
Organic farm management
- I live on 70 acres of land, with an organically-managed breeding
flock of Jacob sheep, plus goats, chickens, and horses.
-
Family - I'm the
mother of four teenagers / young adults.
-
Weird and wonderful - I'm
a healer and water diviner.
-
Overseas travel - I
have travelled widely overland in Europe, Asia
(including Trans-Siberian Express), Africa and South
America.
- For 10 years I ran a travel
company specialising in art & architecture, wildlife,
gastronomy, and music festivals.
- I have spent more than a month in each of these
countries:
Iceland, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Portugal
(including Madeira),
Pakistan, India, Nepal, USSR, Hong Kong, Japan, Peru.
- I have travelled overland in:
Finland, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Andorra,
Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Thailand, Malaysia,
Singapore, Indonesia, Macao, China, Taiwan, Zimbabwe, Venezuela,
Canada (by train from the east coast to the west), Colombia, Bolivia.
-
Languages - some years back, I
had good
conversational and written French,
Italian and German.
I still have smatterings of them, and some knowledge of many
other languages.
There's a reason why I've mentioned all these things - if
your text has anything to do with any of them, you can expect
an extra polished result!
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