My interest in reading about and exploring foreign languages and cultures was born out of a childhood love of travel, IKEA meatball dinners and a longing to simply find out *more* about the world. When the time came to go to university, I knew languages was where I wanted to focus my attention, and jumped at the chance to add Swedish (from scratch) to my pre-existing French/German combo. One BA (Modern Languages, University of Sheffield) and one MA (Translation Studies, University of Birmingham) later – plus a year split between France and Germany and an immerse sojourn at a Swedish folkhögskola in between – I made the leap from academia to professional life, stumbled upon a junior in-house translator position at a boutique language services agency and never looked back (or at least not for another 13 years, when I took another leap into freelance life).

My work as a commercial translator, proofreader and editor has been rich and varied – I specialise in everything from medical/healthcare content to business reports, from tourism texts to international development projects, and from marketing slogans and sporting event promotions to museum exhibitions. I have a particularly strong interest in design, arts, culture and history and am a keen crafter and sports enthusiast in my spare time, so projects within these creative landscapes particularly appeal to me – especially when they take me into the realms of published non-fiction.

Although I am a strong advocate of promoting culture and connection through translated literature, literary translation is a new venture for me. However, I have dabbled on the edges of it – recently, for instance, I have translated a bilingual German/English book about an art collective that produces satirical installations in public spaces (this took the form of a series of short stories or imaginative fictitious speeches or news reports, with a lot of creative scope in the translation). I have also translated several French essays for art publications and brochures to accompany exhibitions at a prestigious contemporary art museum, and a similar essay from Swedish for a modern art project. Other new additions to my non-fiction repertoire are translations of “how-to” craft guides and a guide to painting with colour from French, and a book about textile patterns from Swedish.

I am keen to branch out into more literary (or literary-adjacent) translation or editing opportunities, especially from Swedish. I am interested in both fiction and non-fiction and I particularly enjoy children’s books that open up different cultures to young readers and literature that explores historical contexts.

I am an accredited member of several prominent translators’ associations, including SELTA (Swedish to English Literary Translators Association), the the Chartered Institute of Linguists (MCIL) as a Chartered Linguist (CL) in the UK and Sweden’s SFÖ-SAT. I am also an associate member (AITI) of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting and a member of Nordic Editors and Translators (NEaT) and Mediterranean Editors and Proofreaders (MET).