About Martina Tyrrell

I’m a writer and editor, anthropologist and geographer, mum to two humans and a dog who wishes I’d spend less time at my desk and more time going on walks. 

I have a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Aberdeen and was a lecturer in Human Geography at, in turn, Cambridge, Reading and Exeter Universities. I’m passionate about understanding the ways in which humans and the environment mutually shape each other and my work on this theme has been widely published. 

In 2014, a long-dreamed of lifestyle change necessitated a new work direction. Experimentation with freelance writing and editing was the start of an exciting career that has grown and evolved over the past decade. 

I write both in my own name and for other people.

My writing on the environment, parenting and alternative lifestyles has been published on the BBC website and in Green Parent, The Irish Examiner, The Sunday Times, The Huffington Post and elsewhere. My research and writing have led to interviews on RTE television’s The Today Show, on the BBC World Service, CBC North, RTE radio’s The Big Adventure and Today FM’s The Anton Savage Show. From 2012 to 2019, I wrote a regular blog, Carina of Devon, about my family’s experiences living aboard a small sailing yacht. I currently have an occasionally updated blog and website, Me in place, where I muse on place, home and memory.

I have ghostwritten a number of lifestyle, travel, parenting and children’s books, some of which have been published by a Big Five publisher, and I enjoy an ongoing writing collaboration with a major social media lifestyle influencer. Ghostwriting offers longer-term engagement and interaction with clients, as I listen to what they wish to convey, learn their voices, and transform their ideas into saleable long-form content. I also write short-form web content. 

I am available to ghostwrite short-, medium- and long-form content on genres including, but not limited to, travel and lifestyle, nature and the environment, memoir and life history, and health and wellbeing. 

I am a fiction and non-fiction editor and book doctor. 

Seeking to put my skills as an anthropologist and geographer to use, I started my editing career freelancing for a US-based academic editing company, shaping and revising environmental-themed draft journal manuscripts by clients for whom English was a second language. I now also freelance for another US-based company, with a broader client base and projects that cover health, the arts and social sciences, and reports and grant applications. I enjoy a great working relationship with both these companies, and repeat clients often specifically request my editing services. 

By 2019, I had expanded out from academic editing to provide freelance editing and book doctor services. This has allowed me to work more closely with clients on long-form non-fiction manuscripts including nature and the environment, travel, memoir, lifestyle and business genres, and on fiction manuscripts including fantasy, sci-fi, family and romance genres. A number of clients have sought my assistance on multiple book projects. 

When I’m not at my desk, I can be found going on long walks with my dog over the hills around my home in southwest Spain, watching movies with my daughters, and experimenting with recipes in my kitchen.