services
Attract readers, clients and supporters with crisp, accessible copy
Your organisation’s written content should shine as brightly as your star performing people, products and services. It should sing your successes and make a compelling case for your vision and mission.
My services include: interviewing project stakeholders to create sparkling case studies; writing thought-provoking blogs; and compiling unique award entries that win.
Copywriting
I can take extremely complex and dense materials from a range of sources and industries and bring the most important information to the fore. I focus on what the reader needs to know and keep their attention with jargon-free storytelling.
Editing
An eye for detail and accuracy, and a flair for good organisation is essential to editing copy well. My aim is to ensure content flows logically, with excellent grammar and punctuation, and is consistent in style and tone.
Specialist topics
My passion for people and the planet aligns perfectly with my desire to create beautiful, accessible prose for clients in the sustainability, travel, healthcare and food industries.
Information gathering
Empathy is key. You don’t have to be an expert in every subject to gain true understanding of a person’s or organisation’s story. When interviewing for an article, I listen carefully, consider the objectives and am never afraid to ask ‘silly’ questions.
TESTIMONIALS
Great writing celebrates and drives success
Telling your story through compelling, accessible writing can drive sales and increase support for your cause.
Here’s what people are saying about my work:
This project was larger and more complex than initially expected, but Karen approached it with remarkable flexibility and dedication, spending additional hours to ensure the guidebook was edited to the highest standard. Her attention to detail and ability to seamlessly grasp the subject matter made a significant difference in the quality of the final product. Next to that, she’s also just a very kind and collaborative person to work with. I highly recommend Karen to anyone seeking a skilled and reliable copy editor.
Roos van der Deijl, Programme Development, Commonland
Karen is a fantastic writer and has a brilliant way of finding the story, getting the quotes needed and delivering on time. I loved working with Karen as she was so reliable, so good at her job and so organised. She helped take our success stories programme to new heights and was a not-so-secret weapon at getting the stories we needed.
Jo Geneen, former Director Marketing Communications, UK, Ireland & Benelux, CWT
When seeking regular editorial assistance, Karen was the obvious choice. Meticulous and efficient, she consistently delivers copy ahead of schedule, no matter the request. Her professionalism shines when working directly with contributors or clients, ensuring seamless collaboration. Always happy to help, she has been a tremendous asset to the magazine and a valued addition to many press trips. Following publication, her engaging hotel reviews have been warmly received not just by me but also by the PR teams and hotel groups involved. In short, I couldn’t recommend her highly enough!”
Emma Kennedy, Editor, SPACE, Hospitality & Design Portfolio, Purple Media Solutions
It’s not enough to be a decent writer – we need a reliable person with the ability to take onboard complex information, spot gaps in the data and ask the right questions. Karen does all that and she’s also able to put our clients at ease so that we capture the whole story and great quotes too.
Tim Hartley, Head of Regional Marketing, UK & I, Omnicell
RECENT WORK
Purposeful words
Got a story to tell, but don’t know where to begin? An expert storyteller will draw out the key information that you need to share to achieve your goals.
Copy editing: Commonland 2024
Holistic landscape restoration
Commonland brings people together to restore landscapes and regenerate the Earth. Having worked together to create new copy for their website in 2023, the Commonland team appointed me again in 2024 as Copy Editor for ‘The 4 Returns framework in Practice – a guidebook for holistic landscape restoration’.
This mammoth task included harmonising the structure and tone of voice of the guidebook, which is composed of chapters written by different authors. The greatest challenge was ensuring the rich, science-based information was understandable to most people, including those with English as a second language.
Web content: Invest International 2024
Filling a financing gap
Invest International creates opportunities for Dutch businesses to grow abroad. The state-owned financial institution asked me to create new content for its website to explain how it supports projects that make a positive impact on global challenges, such as climate change, biodiversity loss and food insecurity.
This huge commission required deep diving into Invest International’s complex financing solutions, interviewing partners and researching transitions that are key to certain sectors’ impact on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. The final step was writing accessible, informative copy to engage businesses, financial partners and foreign governments.
Case study: Omnicell 2024
Hospital’s digital transformation
Omnicell provides community and hospital pharmacies with innovative solutions that streamline medication and medical supply management through automation and centralised digital platforms. This commission was for a long-form success story about digital transformation at Harrogate Hospital. It required sifting through data and reports and talking to the hospital’s Digital Lead Pharmacist to produce an accurate, informative article.
Feature: SPACE 2024
World’s leading sustainable resort
SPACE is a beautiful magazine that provides anyone involved in hotel design, development and architecture with a window into the world of international hotel design. I regularly review new hotels and redesigned resorts for the publication. This assignment took me to Sani Resort in Halkidiki, Greece, to check out a recent renovation and the resort’s outstanding eco-credentials.
about me
Once upon a time …
A little girl discovered the power of words. This is my story.
According to my father, my future in the Press was mapped out from age five when I wrote to our local newspaper to complain about my school’s leaking roof.
“It was inevitable that 20-odd years later, Karen should be running the local Press,” Dad quipped on my wedding day when, as Editor of Crawley News I tied the knot with the Editor of Horley Life.
My first tentative step towards a rewarding career in journalism, was a week of work experience at our local paper. It was the 1980s and as an unworldly 14-year-old, I was welcomed kindly into the newsroom where I made a hash of rewriting press releases on a heavy manual typewriter with random missing keys.
A couple of years later, with gaps in my sixth form timetable and a stubborn determination not to go to university, I begged the editor of the same local paper to let me pop into the newsroom between lessons and continuing gaining experience. When a vacancy for a trainee reporter arose, I nabbed it, despite still awaiting my (disappointing) A level results and being only 17.
Different times! But such fun. I shadowed senior reporters at magistrates’ court and council meetings and continued bashing out snappy stories on all matters of local life from golden weddings to murders.
I qualified with the National Council for the Training of Journalists, learned to sub-edit and layout pages on paper, adapted to computers and eventually became an Editor.
Tabloid journalism teaches you to grab attention, get to the point quickly, be bold and converse with people no matter who they are or what they’re experiencing. It’s a thrilling job, feeling you’re at the centre of what’s going on, but it’s also demanding.
For decades now, I’ve preferred life as a freelancer. I love the variety and the flexibility. I’m rarely a lone wolf – I enjoy becoming part of an organisation’s team, supporting with a short-term project or undertaking regular commissions for a client whose enterprise I can get to know more deeply.
I fit work around family commitments, walking my dog and enjoying life on the Sussex coast.
“I enjoy becoming part of an organisation’s team, supporting with a short-term project or undertaking regular commissions”
collaborations
Simply the best
I collaborate with wonderfully generous, inspirational women (and a few men) without whom I’d probably have packed it all in when the pandemic dried up my usual sources of work. Chief among these is Jo Geneen, a senior sustainability and communications director, who raised me up, sang my praises and introduced me to other magnificent women doing purposeful work. An outstanding collaborator, Jo’s communications expertise and experience are matched by her passion for accelerating impact.
Jo introduced me to sustainability supremo Lily Maxwell-Lwin, Head of External Communications/Content at not-for-profit organisation Commonland. I was delighted to learn all about Commonland’s holistic approach to landscape restoration while writing and editing content for their website and guidebook.
There, I worked alongside Gabrielle Boer and Roos van der Deijl, both passionate about people and the planet – like me! When Gabrielle went on to Invest International as a Senior Marketing & Communications Specialist, she commissioned me to create new web content.
People seem to keep me in their contacts! Kelly Alexander and I first collaborated when she worked at business travel management company CWT, for whom I wrote case studies, articles and much more for many years. Subsequently, Kelly called on me for content creation when she was at SCS Railways and we’re partnering again now that she’s Group Communications Lead at Vp.
Many years ago, I shared office space with creative Emma Kennedy when she was Editor of Knitting Magazine and I was Assistant Editor of The Dolls’ House Magazine – I kid you not! Emma is now Editor of SPACE, a magazine about hotel design. For the past four years I’ve been lending her a hand, drawing on my extensive experience writing about business travel management for CWT, and as a Copy Editor for Christie’s International Real Estate Magazine.
Jo Geneen also connected me with global nomad Retna Wooller, director of DeeBlanche, a micro advertising services agency that creates brands and brand stories. I supported Retna as Copy Editor on a project for her client, Fashion For Good.
I met my husband Vince Bamford through work, albeit while at rival newspapers, and he remains by closest partner in all ways. He’s a freelance journalist specialising in the retail food industry. We share office space and proofread each other’s copy. I make the coffee while he does our tax returns.
“Individually, we’re kind of cool, working together, we’re dynamite”
karen bamford 