Sally Moss

Professional Member
Location Sally Moss Editorial, DoES Liverpool, 1st Floor, The Tapestry, 68-76 Kempston St, LIVERPOOL L3 8HL
Telephone 0845 652 2080
Email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Web www.sallymoss-editorial.co.uk
LinkedIn Sally Moss
Twitter Twitter
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Skype ID sally_moss

Experience

I’ve been researching, writing and editing in roles across sectors for over two decades, and I’ve been a committed activist and creative writer for even longer. I became a freelance editorial specialist in 2008.

I frequently take part in training programmes and workshops so that I can offer maximum versatility to my clients in changing times - for example, in recent years I’ve developed my understanding of zero carbon planning, nonviolent communication and effective use of social media platforms.

Good working relationships, as well as good work, are important to me, and I’ve collaborated successfully with people from a broad mix of personal and professional backgrounds.

Read more about me

Subjects

There are a huge number of ways to make a positive social or environmental difference. Subjects I work on include the following:

  • environment, climate change, climate psychology, climate justice, resilience, ecological regeneration, ecocide, decarbonisation / transition to zero carbon, sustainability
  • nonviolence, social justice, activism, community-building
  • human rights, equalities, compliance, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, feminism
  • sexual violence, childhood sexual abuse (CSA), survivor activism
  • mental health, physical health, personal growth, trauma / trauma-informed practice
  • social sciences, humanities, education, economics, politics
  • arts, creative writing, theatre, improv / improvisation
  • biography, autobiography, reminiscence

Contact me to enquire about text on a subject not listed here

Training & mentoring

Environmental transition:

  • 5th International Conference on Ecolinguistics (International Ecolinguistics Association) 2021
  • Zero Carbon Britain: Making it happen! (Centre for Alternative Technology) 2017
  • Permaculture design (WEA North West) 2014
  • Weatherfronts 2014 & TippingPoint Newcastle 2012 (TippingPoint; communicating climate science through the arts)
  • Ecopsychology (WEA North West) 2013

Arts and media:

  • Sustainable stand-up (Sustainable Stand Up) 2022
  • Improv into sketch comedy (Liverpool Comedy Improv) 2019
  • Introduction to film-making (WEA North West) 2014
  • Radio journalism (Liverpool Community Radio) 2012
  • Introduction to playwriting (Liverpool Everyman) 2011

Data journalism / investigative journalism:

  • Story-based inquiry method (Centre for Investigative Journalism) 2022
  • Data-driven investigations (Centre for Investigative Journalism) 2022
  • Finding stories with data (Centre for Investigative Journalism) 2022
  • Digital tools for investigation (Centre for Investigative Journalism) 2022

Nonviolent communication (NVC):

  • Nonviolent communication foundation training (Sarah Ludford) 2019

Editorial:

  • Plain English for editors (CIEP) 2021
  • Web editing (CIEP) 2020
  • Editing for fiction (SfEP, now CIEP) 2016
  • Using macros in editing (Archive Publications) 2015
  • Proofreading problems (SfEP, now CIEP) 2009
  • Mentoring scheme (SfEP, now CIEP) 2009
  • Basic proofreading by distance learning (Publishing Training Centre) 2008

Digital / social media:

  • Facebook and Instagram (Women's Organisation) 2018
  • Blogging for business (Women's Organisation) 2017
  • Hootsuite (Women's Organisation) 2016
  • Facebook (Women's Organisation) 2016
  • Understanding SEO (Women's Organisation) 2015
  • LinkedIn (Women's Organisation) 2015
  • Twitter (Women's Organisation) 2015

Marketing and business:

  • Business coaching (Edit Boost) 2018-2021
  • Sales development (School of Management, University of Bradford) 2008

Read more about my services

Clients

  • businesses
  • charities and non-profit / voluntary sector / third sector organisations
  • UK public sector bodies
  • creative professionals
  • independent authors (fiction and non-fiction)
  • academics and students (undergraduate and postgraduate)
  • anyone else whose work has a positive social or environmental impact

Read client testimonials

Media

I've worked extensively on these materials:

  • fiction and non-fiction manuscripts, creative non-fiction, flash fiction, short stories, scripts for performance, memoirs, life writing, other creative writing
  • website copy, blogs, social media content, marketing materials
  • academic papers, essays, theses and dissertations
  • educational materials
  • articles, reports, manuals, newsletters
  • funding applications

Contact me to enquire about other materials you work on 

Skills & services

  • research
  • writing / rewriting
  • developmental editing
  • substantive editing, including editing for plain English
  • line editing
  • copy-editing
  • proofreading
  • editing non-native English / English as a second language (ESL) / English as an additional language (EAL) / English as a foreign language (EFL)
  • anglicising

Contact me

Blog

Sample post: Communicating climate change: from words to solutions

'With the climate crisis, language has a lot of heavy lifting to do...'

All blog posts

Qualifications & awards

  • Permaculture Design Certificate
  • Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (Trinity Board) 
  • BA Hons Interdisciplinary Human Studies

Software

Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)

WordPress: editing text, liaising with developers, developing site structure and generating SEO plugin content across a range of themes

Additional roles

I became a member of the CIEP Environmental Policy Working Group (EPWG) in March 2021.

I coordinated the Liverpool CIEP group from May 2016 to August 2020.

I was a member of the CIEP social media team from 2011 to 2012.

Testimonials

Sally, thanks again for the time and effort you put into our report on the local energy agenda. It has been well-received by other local enterprise partnerships and the government department which commissioned it.

Quite apart from the errors you picked up, the polish you gave to the grammar means that the final document scans much better.

Your knowledge of the subject matter from an editor’s perspective was valuable in helping us to weed out industry jargon and make a complex subject accessible to the layperson.

James Johnson, Head of Regional Programme, Local Energy North West

I hired Sally for a full edit on an 8,000-word short fantasy story which I was due to submit to a competition.

Sally went through the story with a fine-tooth comb and found all sorts of little places where a better word or restructuring a sentence could make all the difference. She was also the first of several readers who saw the story prior to submission to point up a key revelatory paragraph near the end that needed a lot of work to clarify.

Overall, I feel the edit really strengthened the story. Having had a professional look at it also enabled me to more effectively sort through the feedback I got from friends who beta-read it for me and helped my confidence when the time came to finally submit.

R.J. Davnall, independent fiction author

T.wai is a small independent research institute. For the past couple of years, Sally has been involved in the production of the T.notes, two-page policy briefs that address the major issues of international debate at the global and regional level. Each covers a different topic and is written by a different author (often a non-English native speaker).

As the coordinator of the T.notes project, I see Sally as an enabler of my work. She has always been able to work effectively on different topics (at times very specific), ensuring coherence among the different pieces.

T.wai’s editorial process has to be flexible and quick and Sally is constantly available to accommodate our needs. I know that irrespective of tight deadlines or other challenges, her work is always rigorous.

Lorraine Charbonnier, Junior Research Fellow at T.wai – Torino World Affairs Institute

I had been writing one particularly important piece, a personal essay, for a long time. I knew that I needed another person to edit it, someone who wasn’t as close to the content.

As I had never worked with an editor before, I was unsure if my expectations were realistic, but you actually surpassed them.

Your communication and clarity were fantastic – you gave me a clear breakdown of the process at the beginning, and at no point did I feel that my voice was being removed from my work. I knew at the end of the process that my work was as good as I’d hoped it could be. This was confirmed when Medium selected my essay to promote across its site.

I would happily recommend you to anyone else, particularly if the piece was sensitive or ‘difficult’ in some way. Your unique combination of being a highly skilled editor and an empathetic human being make you a joy to work with.

Sabita Khatri, independent non-fiction author