Hayley was consistent, thorough, and honest in all her comments, telling me the things I needed to consider and address before the book went out into the world. I found her easy to work with, and I quickly came to trust her opinions. She made my novel SUNFLOWER DOG immensely better; as an editor, her input was invaluable!

Hayley Swinson-White took my novel that I had just drastically rewritten, and she turned it into a stunner. Her attention to detail and the congruity of the story were invaluable in pulling multiple story threads together into a cohesive whole. She caught things that I and my experienced beta readers hadn’t noticed, she had excellent suggestions for enhancing character development, and she made my book shine. She was also amazingly kind in her criticisms and helped me develop my own ideas for improvements. I can’t wait to have another book ready for an edit so that I can hire Hayley again.

Working with Hayley over the last two years has been a joy—she really intrinsically seems to understand both what a piece needs to be stronger, as well as what works best for the reader. I never felt like she was trying to exert her own influence or writerly-self into my work; every piece we collaborated on was, in the end, my work. Hayley just polished it until it shone.

Working with an editor is kind of like that group trust-building exercise where you are asked to let yourself fall backward off of a stool and expect someone to catch you before you crack your skull on the floor. Hayley Swinson is an editor who does catch you . . . every time. For several years when she was Editor-in-Chief of the zine, The New Southern Fugitives, she edited a series of book reviews I contributed, and I could always trust her to catch what I could not see—from conceptual problems to grammatical or logical errors, to stylistic infelicities. She is a brilliant reader with an eagle eye. Any writer lucky enough to work with her is blessed indeed.

Hayley was the perfect editor to help encourage and nurture my writing. Her nuanced critiques helped improve the sharpness of my storytelling, and she was adept at providing me with literary references that better informed and supported my ideas.