Tanya Whiton

Tanya Whiton is a Portland, Maine-based writer and developmental editor. She has twenty-five years of experience working with creative artists, including fiction and nonfiction writers, screenwriters, and documentary filmmakers on projects ranging from book-length manuscripts to feature films.

Tanya has done developmental edits on over thirty books, including the memoirs An Old Man’s Darling (Deborah K. Shepherd, Heliotrope Books, May, 2026) A Dream Life (Wendy Swift, Vine Leaves Press, May, 2026); and Sailing at the Edge of Disaster (Elizabeth Garber, Toad Hall Editions, 2022); the novel The Last Whaler (Cynthia Reeves, Regal House Publishing, 2024); and the nonfiction titles Gin (Shonna Milliken Humphrey, Bloomsbury Academic, 2020) and Are You Really My Friend? (Tanja Hollander, MASS MoCA, 2017).

For ten years, Tanya was Associate Director of the Solstice MFA in Creative Writing Program, and she has taught creative writing and professional development courses for the University of Southern Maine, Lesley University, Stonecoast Writers Conference, Ocean Park Writers Conference, and Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance.

A graduate of Vermont College of Fine Arts, Tanya’s fiction and nonfiction have recently been published in Hypertext Magazine, Beer & Weed Magazine, The Cincinnati Review, Al Pie de la Letra, Fanzine, CutBank, and Collateral, and her essay, “For the Winter,” appeared in the anthology, Breaking Bread: Essays from New England on Food, Hunger, & Family. In 2018–2019, she was a writer and associate producer on the documentary feature, The Zen Speaker: Breaking the Silence, and she is currently developing Maine author Elizabeth Garber’s memoir—Sailing at the Edge of Disaster: A Young Woman’s Daring Year—for a limited television series.

Working with creative people across multiple disciplines, Tanya’s goal is to help her clients achieve greater authenticity, narrative cohesion, and structural integrity in their work.