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Michelle Hardy Editor— Developmental Editing, Book Reviews

@mhardy_editor

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I am a developmental editor of:

• Fiction
• Short fiction (individual stories or collections of short stories)
• Creative nonfiction (individual essays, collections of essays, or book-length texts)
• Poetry (individual poems or collections of poetry)

I perform structural edits on entire manuscripts:

• assessing and shaping the overall organization and content of material
• optimizing material for the intended audience, medium, and purpose

I also excel at small-detail stylistic editing at the level of the sentence and individual word:

• clarifying meaning
• ensuring coherence and flow
• refining language

I provide in-depth feedback that includes my sensibility and opinion backed up by professional editorial standards and publishing-trend support.

If I don’t feel I have the expertise to edit your project or that your writing is not yet at the stage where developmental editing can help, I will not take you on as a client. However, I will direct you to other helpful resources.

Could my developmental editing style fit your writing needs?

Contact me for a free 30-minute consultation
DM or email michelle@mhardyeditor.com

#freeconsultation #structuralediting #stylisticediting #developmentalediting #manuscripteditor #freelanceeditor #professionaleditor #amediting #editorscanada #doineedaneditor #whatisediting #freedomtowrite #improveyourwriting #yyjbusinesswoman #workingfromhomelife taken in Victoria, British Columbia by @mhardy_editor

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2 years ago

A significant part of making a land acknowledgement is demonstrating a willingness to learn.

Land acknowledgements create opportunities to research Indigenous Communities: language; vocabulary; spelling; pronunciation; capitalization; history; culture; tradition; identity; government; social, spiritual, and religious institutions; and collective rights.

Learning new things often includes a fear of making mistakes.

However, if speakers and writers prepare land acknowledgements to the best of their ability and remain open to receiving feedback, they can experience growth and change.

Another valuable component of making a land acknowledgement is creating a call to action.

For example, I enjoy learning Indigenous history of places I like to go for walks.
__________

Sometimes I walk up a hill called MEE-qan which means "warmed by the sun."

This seaward slope was a popular place for rest and play. A game like field hockey, called Coqwialls, was once played here.

At the bottom of the hill was a small, palisaded village occupied intermittently until approximately 300 years ago. The settlement served as a defense during war times, and it was also important for reef net fishing.

The starchy bulbs of the wildflower, Kwetlal, were an important food source gathered in this area.

MEE-qan is also known as Beacon Hill in downtown Victoria BC.

CALL TO ACTION: I invite you to join me in learning more about Indigenous place names wherever you live, work, and travel.

Resources:

“Crafting a Meaningful Land Acknowledgement: The Why and the How,” Editors BC Webinar

“Khelsilim’s Tips for Acknowledging Territory 1.0” https://liberatedyet-blog.tumblr.com/post/106089801816/khelsilems-tips-for-acknowledging-territory-10

Younging, Gregory. ELEMENTS OF INDIGENOUS STYLE: A GUIDE FOR WRITING BY AND ABOUT INDIGENOUS PEOPLES, Brush Education Inc., 2018.

“Landmarks, Public Art: Signs of Lekwungen Beacon Hill ‘Lookout’ Site” https://www.crd.bc.ca/landmarks/artworks/Signs-of-Lekwungen-Beacon-Hill-Lookout--Site taken in Beacon Hill Park by @mhardy_editor

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2 years ago

Time to reintroduce myself—

I’m Michelle Hardy, a developmental editor and book reviewer.

Originally from Southeast Saskatchewan, I now live in Victoria, British Columbia.

I began my first career in my late teens as a professional figure-skating and power-skating instructor.

I taught skating for twenty-five years. During this time, I completed a BA (Hons) in English from the University of Saskatchewan and began raising three children.

When my youngest started grade one, I enrolled in graduate studies at the University of Regina, eventually completing an MA in English.

My graduate degree led the kids and I to Fernie, BC, a community in which we’d been skiing and snowboarding for several years.

In Fernie, I began work as a high school English teacher at an independent academy, eventually earning a teaching certificate from the BC Ministry of Education.

Throughout my time as a high-school teacher, I continued to take online university writing classes for my own interest and pleasure. A suggestion from one of my creative-writing professors led me to pursue an editing certificate through Simon Fraser University.

When my youngest graduated from Grade 12, her departure from home and the onset of the pandemic inspired me to seek change again.

I moved to Victoria, BC in 2020 and created a freelance editing business.

In fall 2023, I began reviewing books as well. My reviews have been published in ATTICUS REVIEW, FREEFALL MAGAZINE, THE MALAHAT REVIEW, PRISM Online, ON THE SEAWALL, EVENT MAGAZINE, and ARC POETRY MAGAZINE.

I chose downtown Victoria as my new home because it’s rich in food, culture, art, writing, and music. Vancouver Island also has forests for hiking and exploring.

As well, there is the water. The Salish Sea. The Pacific Ocean.

I’ve spent most of my adult life creating reasons to travel to the sea. And now I live near many beaches. I love the smell of saltwater and the sound surf makes when it scrapes back from the shore.

I also love a clean flat horizon, a visual shared by the ocean and the prairies.

I’m from Saskatchewan. I live on Vancouver Island.

I’m grateful to call both places home.

Photography: @lindamackiecreative taken in Victoria, British Columbia by @mhardy_editor

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2 years ago

Thinking of you 🍓

@jennyjoans

October is Small Business Month

#shoplocal #supportsmallbusiness #womensupportingwomen taken in Downtown Victoria B.C by @mhardy_editor

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10 days ago

The Hearts and Hands Pin

🧡 Created and shared in 2021 by the Kwagiulth and Coast Salish artist and University of Victoria professor Carey Newman (Ha-yalth-kingeme)

🧡 The hearts in the design express love for all those buried in unmarked graves and compassion for the families and community members who carry the legacy of that loss

🧡 The small, colourful hands reflect the uniqueness and beauty of every child and symbolize the ongoing work of reconciliation— a “hearts-on, hands-on” approach to change

Source of Text: Camosun College, camosun.ca

@blueravenart
@victoriaorangeshirtday

#ndtr #everychildmatters taken in Lekwungen Territory by @mhardy_editor

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13 days ago

Introducing our new #FollowFriday series, which features writers from our Writer-in-Residence applicant pool.

Today we meet Michelle Hardy (@mhardy_editor), a developmental editor and book reviewer based in Victoria, BC.

Michelle began freelance editing after retiring as a high school English teacher. She has a master's in English from the University of Regina, and an editing certificate from Simon Fraser University. She is a member of Editors Canada (@editorscanada) and the Editorial Freelancers Association (@efafreelancers).

She's currently taking on new clients for fiction, short fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. She also accepts book review requests from publicists and literary magazines.

Follow Michelle @mhardy_editor by @mhardy_editor

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17 days ago

You all know I can’t let a September go by without taking a class or teaching one.

I look forward to starting “The Poem’s Intention” next week, a creative writing class I’m taking through SFU Continuing Studies.

Red coat (that doesn’t fit me anymore since I started weight training🤷‍♀️) photo by @lindamackiecreative Styling by @jenclarkmua

Keep growing❤️

#lifelonglearning taken in Downtown Victoria B.C by @mhardy_editor

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18 days ago

I had the honour of being a juror for the 2026 BC and Yukon Book Prizes in the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction category.

On December 12, 2025, two boxes filled with fifty books arrived at my door.

I spent the next two and a half months reading, making notes, and scoring each book using a system I devised from the criteria supplied by the book prize committee and my own ideas, as an editor and book reviewer, of what I look for in non-fiction.

One of the hardest things about being a juror was keeping quiet!

I couldn’t talk to people about the books I was reading or the authors and publishers I admired.

The awards gala took place in Vancouver this past weekend, so now I’m free to share my notes on the top five non-fiction books we chose.

Our unanimous choice for the BC and Yukon Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Book Prize is Julian Brave Noisecat’s WE SURVIVED THE NIGHT, published by Alfred A. Knopf, 2025.

The other finalists are presented here in random order.

@bcyukonbookprizes

#nonfictionbooks

😳🤓🙌

CRACKDOWN: SURVIVING AND RESISTING THE WAR ON DRUGS, A MEMOIR, Garth Mullins, Doubleday Canada, 2025

Great book! Captivating. A view from the inside.

No bibliography, research is done in the field, on the streets. Information and back-alley tour includes Vancouver’s opium history.

Narrative jumps around a bit, but I don’t mind. I prefer this writing style to “and this happened, and then this…”

I stayed up late reading because I couldn’t put this book down.

Impact of methadone/methadose switch is fascinating. Drug-activist author has experience as a heroin user so writes with bias toward drug users. But as a non-drug-using reader, this book helps me better understand the mental and physical plights of the drug-using community I see on the streets.

MELTDOWN: THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF A FIELD SCIENTIST, Sarah Boon, University of Alberta Press, 2025

I loved this book and slowed down the pace of my reading so I could enjoy it.

Niche POV: female glacier field scientist battling mental illness who also has the desire to be a literary writer

This author kept meticulous notes throughout her field scientist years and drew from those. Also, she incorporates taken in Downtown Victoria B.C by @mhardy_editor

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19 days ago

What is the best nonfiction book you’ve read lately?

Drop your title in the comments ⬇️

Nonfiction publication questions from THE AUTHOR’S PUBLISHING PLAYBOOK developed by @carlywatters

#narrativenonfiction #writingtips #publishing taken in Beautiful British Columbia by @mhardy_editor

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23 days ago

I learned more about AI in the Editors Canada Webinar THE CRITICAL EDITOR’S GUIDE TO AI: JUDGEMENT BEYOND THE HYPE

Here are some of my notes:

◾Anthropomorphizing generative AI technology is a marketing ploy; computers don’t have brains or thoughts like human beings

◾AI is a statistical engine for remixing text

◾AI offers statistical echoes of what already exists

◾Stolen data is optimized for engagement and profit

◾Human language is referential: it points to the world

◾Human language is relational: it encourages understanding

◾Human language is intentional

◾AI is not referential, relational, or intentional. Rather, AI produces strings of tokens (word fragments) with no meaning

◾AI architecture is oriented towards probability instead of truth

◾AI is not a tool

◾AI has not been given to us as a tool

◾AI is built from us: our voices, our writing, our labour

◾We are the raw material that has created AI
______

Editors Canada webinar presenter Emily Faubert (she/they | elle/iel) is a freelance editor, critical AI researcher, and founder of M.L.E. Style Editing.

“With a background in journalism and community justice movements, they are a PhD student at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information.

Her research explores how ‘access’ is weaponized in big tech to exploit disabled users as data while simultaneously eroding meaningful labour and inclusion.

Emily’s work sits at the intersection of information politics, media ethics, and collective resistance” (Editors Canada).

Photography: @lindamackiecreative

@editorscanada taken in Downtown Victoria B.C by @mhardy_editor

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a month ago

As your developmental editor

I’m one of the first members of your reading audience

I want to love your book
I want everyone to love your book

That’s my job

DM if you’d like to talk about your manuscript

#freelanceeditor taken in Downtown Victoria B.C by @mhardy_editor

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a month ago

So, you want to write a book review.

The point of a review is to get readers to buy or borrow the book, read the book, and talk about the book.

Swipe through this carousel for some questions to get you started if you are reviewing a work of fiction.

And to all the book reviewers out there—
What are some more questions to add my list?

Love to hear from you in the comments below.

#bookreviews taken in Downtown Victoria B.C by @mhardy_editor

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a month ago