I work on books at all stages: conceptualizing, proposals, development, and hands-on editing. I also have experience ghostwriting, and I edit shorter works for publication in popular and specialized media.

For academic writers, I’ve edited book manuscripts, proposals, and chapters; dissertations; scholarly articles; and pieces for wider readership.

I work with clients in many fields and professions on applications for jobs, funding, fellowships, and so on. Institutional clients include nonprofits, research organizations, and think tanks.

I do short text, such as PR for musicians and artists, and book jacket/catalog copy.

I have extensive experience working with non-native English speakers writing in English.

Please reach out at any time if I can help with your project: swaxman [at] gmail dot com.

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A selection of books I’ve edited (not including those in progress):

Rethinking Clinical Research: Methodology and Ethics
Karen B. Schmaling and Robert M. Kaplan, Cambridge University Press, 2025

A Taytsh Manifesto: Yiddish, Translation, and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture
Saul Noam Zaritt, Fordham University Press, 2024

The Joy of Consent: A Philosophy of Good Sex
Manon Garcia, Harvard University Press, 2023

Suzuki: The Man and His Dream to Teach the Children of the World
Eri Hotta, Harvard University Press, 2022

The Elephant in the Universe: Our Hundred-Year Search for Dark Matter
Govert Schilling, Harvard University Press, 2022

Ceive
BK Fischer, BOA Editions, 2021

Nazis of Copley Square: The Forgotten Story of the Christian Front
Charles R. Gallagher, Harvard University Press, 2021

The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World
Marie Favereau, Harvard University Press, 2021

Neither Settler nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities
Mahmood Mamdani, Harvard University Press, 2020

Freedom: An Unruly History
Annelien de Dijn, Harvard University Press, 2020

Talk Radio’s America: How an Industry Took Over a Political Party That Took Over the United States
Brian Rosenwald, Harvard University press, 2019

The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey’s Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894–1924
Benny Morris and Dror Ze’evi, Harvard University Press, 2019

Good Enough: The Tolerance for Mediocrity in Nature and Society
Daniel S. Milo, Harvard University Press, 2019

The Antitrust Paradigm: Restoring a Competitive Economy
Jonathan B. Baker, Harvard University Press, 2019

Then They Came for Me: Martin Niemöller, the Pastor Who Defied the Nazis
Matthew Hockenos, Basic Books, 2018

A Duty to Resist: When Disobedience Should Be Uncivil
Candice Delmas, Oxford University Press, 2018

How To Do Things with International Law
Ian Hurd, Princeton University Press, 2017

Crime and Punishment in the Russian Revolution
Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Harvard University Press, 2017

Radioapocrypha
BK Fischer, Mad River Books/Ohio State University Press, 2017

The Idea of the Muslim World
Cemil Aydin, Harvard University Press, 2017

The Conceit of Humanitarian Intervention
Rajan Menon, Oxford University Press, 2016

Political Biology: Science and Social Values in Human Heredity
from Eugenics to Epigenetics
Maurizio Meloni, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016

The Law Is a White Dog
Colin Dayan, Princeton University Press, 2011

Banner image: detail from The Old Ford, Grace Wilson.