“As a book coach, Lori helped me develop a nascent manuscript idea, articulate it clearly, and stick to a writing schedule. Her feedback was invaluable at the level of both details and the big picture. Lori also meticulously suggested strategic edits on writing that I had already considered to be quite polished. Lori will improve your writing even if you think you don’t need an editor, and you’ll learn a lot in the process. She does all with this such sensitivity, thoughtfulness, and respect for your ideas and writing. I wish I had hired her much sooner!”
Prof. Lara Harb, Princeton University
“I still feel slightly guilty for the immense task we threw at Lori, to distil a major project into its constituent elements, loaded down with conflicting objectives and demands for complex messaging to a range of (literally) warring audiences. But she took it in stride and produced a paper that spoke to each of our constituencies in a manner that resonated with their own interests and yet still made a coherent, powerful whole. She sorted out the competing mandates of our work, showing how they could be balanced to intervene in the vicious cycle of conflict in Yemen and grow conditions for ‘a stable Yemen at peace, while improving the lives of Yemenis.’ And yes, you guessed it, her words!”
A Heather Coyne, Member of UN OSESGY-Special Envoy for Yemen
“Lori Allen edited my creative nonfiction manuscript. I was skeptical of how an academic might approach such a text, but I had read some of her work and decided to take a risk. I was so taken by the brilliance of her editing and I cannot recommend her enough. Her reading of my text and her feedback were profoundly deep. She provided comments on the flow of the narrative, on my voice, on the organization of chapters, but also at the level of sentence structure and word choice. She has an unbelievably keen eye for understanding creative nonfiction, providing me with advice on how to rewrite, directing me to examples of how other authors have written, and seriously understanding the genre. With the help of her editing, my work was transformed into something I can be proud of. Others have commented on her academic editing, but I want to say that Lori is equally capable of editing a novel or works of creative nonfiction. She will give you her time, is patient, and truly caring—with your best interest in mind.”
Prof. Sami Hermez, Northwestern University in Qatar
“Lori’s help has been invaluable as I work on turning my dissertation into a book manuscript. Working with her has been a pleasure and a tremendous support. Lori is thorough, thoughtful, punctual, communicative, and extremely professional. Her developmental editing massively improved the draft. Her careful, considerate, and brilliant insights also helped me clarify my ideas and concepts in a way that improved not just this work but my future work. Her help is making me not only a better writer but a better thinker. I highly recommend her services, and I look forward to working with her, and learning from her, again.”
Prof. Sarah Brothers, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Public Policy
“Lori Allen has a keen sense of how to enliven prose to make it less clunky, more readable, and much sharper. While she would be able to expertly edit any text, she is an ideal editor for academic manuscripts. As someone who believes in making scholarship relevant to social and political concerns, she has a knack for cutting through the thickets of academic jargon to convey arguments to a non-specialist audience without losing their analytical import.”
Prof. Ajantha Subramanian, Harvard University
“There are very few editors who have authored award winning books with top academic presses, published articles in the highest-ranking journals, and who have been awarded prestigious research grants — Lori has. She knows exactly how each step of the academic publishing process works. She helps you write in a way that gets your writing noticed, appreciated, and read.”
Prof. Esra Ozyurek, University of Cambridge
“Lori Allen is a careful reader, a big picture thinker, and a great communicator. She has on innumerable occasions helped me to refine my writing on the level of both the sentence and the argument. She also can provide excellent guidance about how to shape a text for a particular audience — or even how to have a clearer sense of who the audience is. I cannot recommend her more highly as an editor, especially for creative nonfiction and academic texts.”
Prof. Amahl Bishara, Tufts University
“Lori Allen’s sharp eye for clarity, her astute judgement, and commitment to making scholarly work accessible and relevant to broader audiences will make any nonfiction manuscript a better one. She will help you convey complex ideas without academic jargon and without losing rigor or meaning. And she will do so with empathy and tact, taking the pain out of the editing process.”
Prof. Lara Deeb, Scripps College
