Book Editors with Decades of Experience

We are a brother/sister editing team living in Montpelier, Vermont. We were raised about 10 miles away in East Calais, Vermont, on a mostly dormant farm that was christened "Sunnybrook Farm" before we arrived in 1973. For a few years we had chickens and a horse, but for the most part the barns served as museums for midcentury farm life. We lived with our dad, Dan Noel, our mom, Joanna Meyer, and our sisters, Jennie and Becky (Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm!).

We decided to start a business together when we realized our strengths were complementary, with Chris developing and shaping manuscripts and Susannah cleaning them up for publication.

We're both introverts who enjoy being social, especially with fellow fans of language and story. We also love movies, TV, animals, freaky medical tales, and our respective (and sometimes respectful) kids. 

With our combined experience spanning nearly half a century working with authors at all stages of the book creation process, our editing and proofreading services are appropriate for any writer who's ready for an expert eye. Get in touch at info@noeleditorial.com.

  • “ Chris is responsive, conscientious, timely and so helpful in delivering the messages of what needs to happen, to get done, to lift the book. ”
    — Lloyd Devereux Richards, Montpelier, VT
  • “ Once again, thank you thank you thank you! You are an editing goddess. I love all your suggestions. ”
    — Pamela Sampson, Author, No Reply: A Jewish Child Aboard the MS St. Louis and the Ordeal That Followed
  • “ I wanted to thank you [Susannah] for the awesome job that you did. Despite horror stories from other writers about their copy editors, I put you right up there among the very best. How you hold all that ‘stuff’ in your head, making the story so much more consistent and readable, is just remarkable. ”
    — Steven F. Havill, author, Convenient Disposal (St. Martin’s Press, 2005)
  • “ Dear Susannah: Your observations are brilliant! SO grateful for your astuteness and thoughtfulness and and and! Thank you for catching continuity errors and stepping out of your proofreader’s shoes every so often to offer a right-on editorial suggestion. ”
    — Alisa Clements, author, All At Once (Harvard Square Editions, 2012)
  • “ What [the author] needed to do was rewrite the introduction, and Susannah’s queries showed him how to do it. The author has never forgotten that edit either; he freely credits Susannah with teaching him how to write and has included her in the acknowledgments section of every book since. ”
    — Laura Schlivek, Project Editor, Inner Traditions International
  • “ I feel lucky to have you two. You have a knack for letting me be me, while making it seem like I'm better than I really am. I do think the three of us made a great team and the results show it. ”
    — David Scidmore, Author, Dellia (The Ever-Branching Tree Book 1)
    • “Thank you so much to you and Chris for the diligence and care with which you’ve treated the manuscript. You’ve paid such close attention, and this is absolutely what I’ve needed to move it further. ”
    — Clare Dean, Author, A Resemblance

    Susannah Noel

    ©2017-Noel-Editorial-Proofreading-Copyediting-Structural-Development-Manuscript-Critiques-Montpelier-Vermont-USA-Susannah-Noel-Portrait-1.jpg

    Susannah Noel earned her master's degree in religious studies from Syracuse University. She has worked in-house in publishing at Blackwell Science (now Wiley-Blackwell) and Editorial Services of New England. Since 1995, she has freelanced as a copyeditor and proofreader for trade fiction and nonfiction books. Susannah cofounded Editorial Arts Academy, an online training organization for aspiring freelance book editors. She divides her time between editing and teaching others how to edit. She lives with her husband, two sons, and #StetPets (a dog and two cats) in Barre, Vermont. 

    For more about Susannah, visit susannahnoel.com.

    Christopher Noël

    MIKE NOEL

    Christopher Noël holds a master’s degree in philosophy from Yale University and an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts, where he then taught writing for twenty years, guiding hundreds of students in the drafting and improving of fiction and nonfiction manuscripts. Chris is the author of seven books, including the novel Hazard and the Five Delights, published by Knopf, and the acclaimed memoir In the Unlikely Event of a Water Landing: A Geography of Grief, published by Times Books/Random House. Chris lives in Central Vermont.

    For more about Chris, visit christophernoel.info.