Hello, I’m Laura Russo.
I’ve been freelance editing and writing for five years, with a further twelve years working in government and the for-purpose sector doing research, writing, editing and education.
I bring a wealth of experience to every project I undertake, having worked across a diverse range of subjects including the arts, criminology, international development, community justice, housing, mental health, violence against women and history.
There has been a strong social justice angle to much of my work, but I also work outside that area.
My clients include academic staff, postgraduate students, community organisations, small business owners, government departments and schools. I have edited, written and co-written for online and hard copy publication, including PhD and master’s theses, government reports, strategic plans, annual reports, evaluation reports, information sheets, websites and blogs.
I can spot an an aberrant apostrophe, a superfluous semi colon and an extraneous en dash at twenty yards (18.3 metres). I genuinely relish the nit-picky and fastidious work of poring over text, rectifying inconsistencies and finessing sentences to make great paragraphs that come together into writing that really sings and delivers the message my clients want it to.
But don’t just take my word for it; click here to see what my clients say about me and here to see some samples of my work.
I’m an Editors Victoria member and an Associate Member of the Institute of Professional Editors (IPEd). I adhere to IPEd’s Australian standards for editing practice.
‘But when did all this begin?’ you ask.
Well, besides being born grasping a miniature book in my tiny hands, I trace it back to a single day when, aged nine, I was off school with a cold and made a tower of encyclopedias next to my bed. My goal: to read through the lot, top to bottom. Such was my love of reading and my thirst for knowledge.
Admittedly I didn’t make it very far through that tower (I may or may not have been enticed away by the Famous Five. Ahem), but my love for words and the power of knowledge and communication has never abated. Now that I come to think of it, I still have an unrealistically tall pile of books beside my bed … some things never change!
Now based on the bushy outskirts of Melbourne, Australia, in an old artists’ colony, I live and work surrounded by trees, kangaroos and wombats. This place and its fascinating history were the subject of my master’s thesis, which I am currently rewriting as a work of literary nonfiction.