Fiona V. Smith

The Crafty Writer Editing & Critiquing Service is run by Fiona V. Smith who has nearly two decades experience in teaching, coaching, editing and critiquing creative writing. She has done structural editing work for mainstream publishers as well as self-publishers. She holds a MA in Creative Writing, is a member of the Chartered Institute of Editing & Proofreading, the Society of Authors, the Crime Writers’ Association, and the Association of Christian Writers. She has taught creative writing at Northumbria University at undergraduate and masters’ level as well as running community creative writing courses and workshops in North East England. She has run a free ‘self-taught’ online creative writing course for over a decade which attracts visitors from all over the world.

She also has experience working as a newspaper and magazine sub-editor, holds a Bachelor of Journalism and was a visiting lecturer in writing for the media at Newcastle University for over a decade. She is currently the Deputy Editor of Red Herrings, the membership magazine of the Crime Writers’ Association. Writing as Fiona Veitch Smith, she is an award-winning author of adult murder mysteries and also writes picture books and graphic novels for children. Her novel The Jazz Files was shortlisted for the prestigious CWA Historical Dagger.

Fiona’s area of expertise is critiquing and editing fiction (for adults and children). However, if you would like help with non-fiction (including autobiography and memoir) we have a number of very experienced editors with whom we work, all of whom have worked as editors in mainstream publishing. We also call on these editors for copy editing and proofreading services when needed.