about me

I’m a writer and editor with a special interest in healthcare and a special talent for making everything from complex research to the stories of providers and patients clear and compelling. Whether I write it, or your team of experts does and I edit it, the end result will be powerful writing tailored to your audience.

I developed my craft during my 15 years as a journalist, 10 of them at the Globe and Mail, where I was best known as the health policy reporter. Daily news reporting’s imperatives—find out what matters, get the facts, ask the questions, put it all in context and write, focused on making it work for the reader—still shape everything I do.

I took those skills with me to pioneer knowledge transfer programs at what was then the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation, before I launched Coutts Communicates in 2002. In the 20 years since, I’ve worked with more than 70 organizations across Canada (you can see the full list here), not quite all of them health related. Many of my clients are academic, research and policy organizations, where through a hybrid of writing and editing, I shape their writing, hone their messages and present them in the best way for the audience they want to reach.

I also teach workshops on plain language writing, to help clients develop their own skills in reader-friendly writing. I’ve presented them to groups at universities, non-profit organizations and research centres across Canada and on one great trip, in Australia.