Editor

A freelance editor based in Dublin, I work with authors and publishers of fiction and non-fiction, providing substantive editing, copy-editing, proofreading, and manuscript appraisals.

novemberjones@protonmail.com

Thank you to Colm Farren, a very, very good editor – the best I’ve known.
— Rowan Somerville, Beat (Lilliput Press 2017)
Boundless appreciation: my editor Colm Farren for astuteness, clarity & banter in the track-changes.
— Alice Lyons, Oona (Lilliput Press 2020)
Sensitive and thorough ... I commend his work without hesitation.
— Antony Farrell, Publisher, Lilliput Press
There’s one person without whose contribution there simply wouldn’t be a book - a gift from Lilliput - editor Colm Farren. Thanks to him for every edit, every pretend argument, every bird photo, every story. He stitched the book together, took it apart and stitched it back better each time. I am proud and grateful to call him a friend.
— Estelle Birdy, Ravelling (Lilliput Press 2024)

I am a freelance editor, proofreader, publisher’s reader, and evaluator of manuscripts for authors. 

Since 2013 I have worked with The Lilliput Press as their principal out-of-house reader, in which time I have appraised hundreds of manuscripts, both fiction and non-fiction, providing analysis, criticism, feedback and endorsement for work from such authors as Donal Ryan, Rob Doyle, Sam Coll, Elske Rahill, Pat McCabe, J.P. Donleavy, Mike McCormack, Richard Kearney, Aidan Mathews, Sara Baume, Michael D. Higgins, and others.

From 2018-19 I worked as a copy-editor and proofreader for The Dalkey Archive Press in Illinois.

I have written over fifty short book reviews for The Irish Times, covering fiction and non-fiction and authors such as José Saramago, Orhan Pamuk, David Mamet, Will Self, and Julian Barnes.

I have also worked as a script- and editing-consultant on film and television projects with Ishka Films.