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PROMISE

Reach your
Publishing Pinnacle

I polish writing to strengthen your words and preserve your voice.

COPY EDITING

LINE EDITING

SUBSTANTIVE EDITING

White handwritten style text on black background that says "What I actually do".
White handwritten script saying "Love You" on a black background.
A bookshelf with various books, decorative items including a gold deer statue, a teal planter with white designs, a gold bowl, and framed artwork.

Publishers I’ve Worked With

  • Abrams

  • Bloomsbury

  • Feminist Press

  • Hachette

  • Macmillan

  • Melville House

  • New Directions Publishing

  • OR Books

  • Penguin Random House

  • Penn State University Press

  • Routledge

  • Seven Stories Press

  • Simon & Schuster

  • University of Nebraska Press

  • Verso

  • W. W. Norton

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Select Portfolio

  • Little F, Michelle Tea
  • Big Kiss, Bye-Bye, Claire-Louise Bennett
  • Eye of the Monkey, Krisztina Tóth
  • The Definitions, Matt Greene.
  • Under Water, Tara Menon
  • Book cover of "A Man Without a Country" by Kurt Vonnegut, featuring a minimalist line drawing of a person's profile against a brown background.
  • Collage of black and white photos depicting a family, with overlay text that reads 'The Man Who Gave Me a Biscuit,' 'Love and Death in Argentina,' and 'Penny Woolcock' on a blue background.
  • Book cover of 'The Purposeful Warrior' by Jocelyn Benson featuring a portrait of Jocelyn Benson with blonde hair, wearing a dark blazer, and looking to the right.
  • Gray cover of a novel titled "The Place of Shells" by Mai Ishizawa, featuring a white spiral shell design.
  • Book cover titled "I'll Follow You" by Charlene Wang. Features a stylized portrait of a woman with half her face in red and the other half in black, with a textured blue-green background.
  • Cover of the book titled "Common Ground" by Eileen Flanagan, featuring an illustration of intertwined tree roots on a green background.
  • Book cover titled 'Autobiography of a Skyscraper and the story of those who built it' by Francis Greenburger & Rebecca Paley, featuring a black and white sketch of a tall skyscraper with surrounding buildings and lines indicating perspective.
  • Book cover titled 'Anthropause: The Beauty of Degrowth' featuring a starry night sky and a silhouette of trees.
  • Book cover titled 'Against Platforms: Surviving Digital Utopia' by Mike Pepi, featuring a starry background and bold typography.
  • Book cover with a vibrant, psychedelic floral background featuring pink, purple, and green hues. Title 'A Line You Have Traced' by Roisin Dunnett is prominently displayed in large, beige letters.
  • Book cover of "Daddy Was a Number Runner" by Louise Meriwether, featuring a stylized illustration of numerous Black individuals, including women, men, and children, depicted in a warm brown color palette, with a quote from Jacqueline Woodson.
  • Book cover titled 'Axis of Empire: A History of Iran-US Relations' by Ashfin Matin-Asgari. The cover features a navy ship, a person holding a rifle, and American flags against a blue sky.
  • Book cover for 'The Ex-Wives Club' by Sally Hepworth, featuring a modern interior with a large green plant and red chairs.
  • A woman sitting on the sandy beach near the ocean, with her head bowed and hair wet, as waves approach the shore. The cover of a book titled 'Return to Fukushima' by Thomas A. Bass, with a quote from Noam Chomsky, is overlaid at the top of the image.
  • Cover of a book titled 'American Imperatives: The Cold War and Other Matters' by Anders Stephanson.
  • Book cover titled "Béisbol's Shadows: America's Pastime on the Brink of War" featuring a baseball textured background, a circular emblem with a black and white vintage photograph of baseball players and airplanes flying overhead, and text with the authors' names Martin W. Sandler and Craig Sandler.
  • Book cover titled 'The End of Violence' by Gary Slutkin, with a white background and the title in gradient red to black text.
  • Book cover for 'Small Things' by Wanda M. Morris, featuring a dark background with jewelry and blacksmithing tools.
  • Book cover titled "Everything But Typical" by Margeaux Weston, featuring illustrations of diverse neurodivergent young people participating in various activities, including a voice speaker, a person holding a microphone, a football player, a girl with braids, and a girl with red hair, with a vibrant green background and blue banner with white text.
  • Book cover titled "The Ravonous Sky" by K. D. Kirchmeier showing a person with a fishing pole at the bottom, surrounded by tall dark buildings and gravestones, with a large monstrous eye with purple eyelid at the top, and a vivid, swirling sky filled with lightning and clouds.
  • Cover of a graphic history book titled 'RUPAY', focusing on political violence in Peru from 1980 to 1990, featuring illustrated portraits of several individuals and a landscape with mountains in the background.
  • American Trickster: The Hidden Lives of Carlos Castaneda, Ru Marshall.

Testimonials

  • Ru Marshall | Writer & Visual Artist

    Helen Armalas did an extraordinary job copyediting my book American Trickster. She’s a gentle perfectionist with a subtle ear, a keen eye, and a refreshing respect for authorial intention. I’ve read over my manuscript dozens of times; she nevertheless caught quite a few things I missed. My book is better because of her. She’s efficient and a pleasure to work with. I hope to do so again.

  • Mark Peters | Author of Bullshit: A Lexicon

    I highly recommend Helen Armalas as an editor or proofreader. Helen has an eye for detail and an ear for nonsense. She's a careful, considerate editor who can make a tough deadline with a smile. Her work ethic alone is inspiring, and her roster of clients is impressive. Working with Helen will only make your writing clearer, stronger, and better.

  • Ana Ratner | Editor of The Other Almanac & Desk Editor at OR Books

    It’s always a pleasure to work with Helen. She is not only thorough but she also deeply cares about the authors and manuscripts she’s working on. It’s wonderful to find a competent editor you can trust; it is special and rare to find someone willing to go the extra mile to get a manuscript or proof polished beyond the normal scope of editing. My only regret in working with her is that we don’t publish more books, to give me the chance to work with her more often.