Mel Maxwell

It’s been a privilege to work with so many exquisitely talented authors, journalists, and artists, editing their stories and helping their work reach audiences. I have extensive experience in developmental editing, copyediting, proofreading, and fact checking across a range of genres, including literary fiction, commercial fiction, narrative nonfiction, photographic and illustrated nonfiction, academic texts, museum publications, gift and novelty formats, children’s books, magazines, and more.

On the business side, I’ve managed projects end-to-end, leveraging data to inform strategy, oversee budgets, write proposals, and negotiate deals with agents and international licensors to secure new business and talent. I’ve managed vendors and freelancers, led cross-functional collaboration with teams in highly matrixed organizations, and implemented workflow improvements to bring print and digital content to market efficiently.

While studying Linguistics in undergrad, I worked at a global leader in AI training data. I transcribed audio datasets (ranging from real voicemails to news broadcasts) and annotated features like breath placement, stress patterns, and emotional register to help develop voice recognition and text-to-speech software.