Joanna Luke, PhD
Location: HERTFORD
Membership Grade: Professional Member
Contact Info
General Experience
I feel incredibly lucky to have found the perfect job for me, working on texts in all manner of interesting subjects. I work mainly with editors and publishers directly, but I particularly enjoy helping authors complete their vision – it’s a great pleasure to be part of the final process before their work is finally published. It’s lovely too when those authors return with their next book!
I specialise in the Humanities – mainly history and biography, but a lot of books on education, environmental matters and film studies too. I have also worked on many texts relating to east Asia.
I don’t take on work that I’m not comfortable with producing – I want repeat business, which means producing quality indexes on time. I’m available all year round, and have never missed a deadline. Due to the forensic nature of the reading required to compile an index, it’s rare for a list of (non-minor) typos to not be submitted to clients.
Subjects
I’ve indexed many history books, from ancient history to the twentieth century. Mainly Western, but also east and west Asian.
I have a degree and PhD in Classics, and try to follow recent developments in study of the Classical world.
I’m a member of the local oral history group, and greatly enjoy indexing local history texts from other parts of the country.
I have enjoyed indexing texts in film studies. Although some of these have been focussed on the Western tradition, others have looked at east Asian and African cinema.
My PhD was in Classical Archaeology, so I am very comfortable indexing archaeological texts.
I trained as a tax accountant (ACA), and have enjoyed indexing a number of books in the areas of business, accounting and economics.
Quite by chance, I indexed a few books on early years learning at the beginning of my indexing career, and have continued to do so ever since. I am familiar with the concepts and terminology.
I have worked on plenty of environmental texts, mainly focused on the developing world.
A strong amateur interest in psychology has been enhanced by a number of texts in this area, particularly in psychotherapy.
I’ve indexed texts relating both the the UK and the US systems of higher education.
Related qualifications
Recent indexes include
Gufu Oba, African Environmental Crisis, Routledge, 2020
Shibao Guo and Srabani Maitra, Decolonising Lifelong Learning, Routledge, 2020
Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, Ring of Spies, The History Press, 2020
Gary Brennan, Snapshots of British Politics in satire and cartoon, 1780-1945, Grosvenor House Publishing Ltd, 2019
Clients Include
Taylor and Francis/Routledge
University of Hertfordshire Press
Amsterdam University Press
The History Press
Grosvenor House Publishing
Thames & Hudson
Tools
PC
SKY INDEX
