Richard Lever is the proprietor and administrator of Manuscripts Online. Richard has a first class honours degree in English (with university medal). He has been a freelance writer, editor, copyeditor, and proofreader for fifteen years and has extensive experience in many genres and areas of writing, including literature, popular fiction, philosophy, self-help books, academic books and articles, corporate material, and student writing. He has been a highly regarded assessor at Lynk Manuscripts (formerly the National Book Council Manuscript Assessment Service) since 1997 and at Driftwood Manuscripts since 2000. He is the copyeditor for Australia's premier literary magazine, HEAT, edited by Ivor Indyk, and for the Giramondo Publishing Company, where he has copyedited award-winning books, including Alexis Wright's Carpentaria (winner 2007 Miles Franklin Literary Award http://www.giramondopublishing.com/), Brian Castro's Shanghai Dancing (Winner 2003 Victorian Premier's Award for Fiction and the 2004 NSW Premier's Award for Fiction) and Judith Beveridge's Wolf Notes (Winner 2004 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Poetry and the 2004 Judith Wright Calanthe Award for Poetry). Richard taught writing & editing skills at The University of Newcastle for seven years before commencing Manuscripts Online. His writing credits include the reference work Post-colonial Literatures in English: Australia 1970-1992 (G.K. Hall: New York, 1996).

Richard conceived of Manuscripts Online and interactive assessment out of the belief that writers are not served as well as they might be through a conventional assessment report; something more could happen for the written work to achieve its goal. From years of engaging very closely with writers and their work, he firmly believes that a writer's work develops best when writer and editor or assessor get together, talk it through and challenge each other. This relationship is the moment where the private vision of an author confronts the public expectation of the audience; it is here that the work is refined, even transformed, made to reach its destined form and hence made ready to go out into the world.

Manuscripts Online assessors are writing professionals. They are writers themselves, published authors, editors, critical readers, and academics. They have proved themselves in their fields; they have a knowledge and love of the craft of writing and bring exacting standards and a lot of experience to the work before them. They are the ideal readers for any piece of writing, matching sharp criticism with empathy and respect for the work and its creator. An assessment service survives on the quality of its assessors, and so Manuscripts Online strives for excellence in all its aspects.

If you are interested in becoming an assessor for Manuscripts Online click here.