Samuel Fern is an author and editor based in Edinburgh.
Whether he shall turn out to be the hero of his own bio or whether that station will be held by anyone else, this page must show.
Sam grew up in the perilous English countryside, then journeyed off to London and scribbled his way to a First Class Honours degree in English Literature from Queen Mary, University of London. His dissertation specialised in the moral anatomy of gothic character and why novels judge us by our covers too.
This spate of high-falutin book-learning helped him find a door into the editorial side of the publishing industry, where he worked for the next few years as an intern, assistant, in-house writer and editor for publishers including Urtext (Eris Press & Marginalia) and Bonnier Books UK Ltd (primarily Templar Books & Big Picture Press, also Hot Key Books & Piccadilly Press). These years provided wide experience across adult and children’s publishing, from European politics to picture books, YA fiction to puppet novelty, cartoon adaptations to art theory.
This panoply of publishing soon had him curious about the melding medial tapestry of modern culture, and so in 2021 he voyaged north to undertake an MSc in Intermediality at the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated with a Distinction. His dissertation analysed the interreferential narrative frameworks behind the construction of modern transmedia mythologies, and all the fun ramifications of adapting stories across prose, comics, cinema, and videogames.
Nowadays, Sam is a freelance editor and author working on projects big and small for all sorts of clients across fiction and non-fiction, from unpublished writers to acclaimed authors, to tabletop games companies, to some of the largest and oldest publishing houses in the country, including his aforementioned prior employers and Oxford University Press.
Sam’s work is driven by the ethos that no matter the client’s publishing record or size, every story is a world of its own, deserving of equal respect, attention, and investment. He’d love to hear about yours.
For a more in-depth look at his authorial work, check out the Writing Desk, and for details on his editorial services, you’ll be wanting the Editing Study.
When not writing or editing, he is usually found painting, sculpting, cooking, creating text-based videogames, or attending enough bookshop events that the staff start thinking he’s casing the joint. But hey, that’s how he got into all this (and how he met his partner), so he’d recommend giving it a shot.
Photography by Clíodhna Conboye, 2023.