Expert Profile

Contact Details

Zepelin Editorial

Ribbons

Badges

Matthew Zepelin

Editor,
Zepelin Editorial

Bio

I’m a nonfiction editor with a wide range of experience, including more than a decade in book publishing.

From 2017 to 2024, I worked as an acquisitions and developmental editor at Shambhala Publications, focusing on books in traditional & contemporary Buddhism, secular mindfulness, psychology & personal growth, and deep ecology. I had the honor to develop book ideas with and edit the writings of a wide range of remarkable authors including Cynthia Bourgeault, Norman Fischer, Mary Gordon, David Hinton, Thupten Jinpa, Joanna Macy, Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, Ralph De La Rosa, Oren Jay Sofer, Kaz Tanahashi, Ayo Yetunde, and many more.

Since 2024 I’ve worked as a freelancer with authors who seek to self-publish, as well as others who’ve landed traditional publishing contracts at Shambhala, Macmillan, Oxford University Press, and elsewhere.

I offer publishing consultations, developmental editing, line editing, and collaborative writing or ghostwriting.

My editing path began in high school, when I became co-editor in chief of the school newspaper. During and after college, I worked for a historian to help research, write, and edit several self-published books on the U.S. air war in the South Pacific during WWII. I received a PhD in History from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 2018, with a dissertation on the history of somatics (Western practices of mind-body integration). I also completed a four-year, 800-hour training in the Feldenkrais Method of Somatic Education and ran a private practice, specializing in people with Parkinson’s Disease, for five years. I spent much of my twenties training in traditional Zen Buddhism, principally at the Crestone Mountain Zen Center.

I live with my wife and daughter in Durango, Colorado.

Demographics

  • Acquisitions
  • Consulting
  • Developmental and Substantive Editing
  • Ghostwriting
  • Line editing
  • Manuscript evaluation
  • Self-publishing
  • Writing

Currently Booking

  • Adult

  • Google Docs
  • Word

Expert (50+ projects)

Yes

3

10

Yes

Assessments, Autobiography, Book proposals, Books, Creative nonfiction, Memoirs, Monographs

  • Academic
  • Biography
  • History
  • Humanities
  • Memoir
  • Narrative Nonfiction
  • Self-help
  • Social Sciences
  • Trade Nonfiction

  • Ecology/Environment
  • History
  • Humanities
  • Nonprofit organizations
  • Philosophy
  • Religion/Spirituality
  • Self-help

  • Humanities
  • Philosophy
  • Psychology
  • Religion & Theology
  • Social Sciences

  • Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS)

  • English

Doctoral degree

Friendly URL