the “why” behind the project

When I first started Fresh Ink, I focused primarily on teaching writing workshops.

After a few years of teaching workshops, though, I began to notice a pattern. 

I'd run into a former student at a coffee shop or a BookPeople reading, and I'd ask them, "Hey, did you ever end up submitting your short story?" or "How's your book manuscript going?" Pretty consistently, I would get the same answer: "Oh, I haven't done anything with my writing since our last workshop!"

Often these writers, after recalling how much they missed their work-in-progress, would sign up for another workshop and begin to make progress again. But after the workshop ended, they returned to hardly writing at all.

It was then that I started to realize that workshops were missing something that writers––especially writers with big goals (and big feelings around writing)––really needed.

In addition to feedback on their craft, these writers needed:

  • insight into how to create and sustain a consistent writing practice

  • help working past creative blocks that were often too specific or vulnerable to discuss in a workshop environment

  • sustained support that could carry them through drafting a longer piece and buoy them up during the often-arduous process of revision and seeking publication

That was when I decided to shift my focus at Fresh Ink from workshops to coaching—and the results over the past few years have been really inspiring.

The writers I work with have made tremendous strides in their writing lives. Many of them have gone from writing sporadically or hardly at all to completing their manuscripts and reaching the stage where they’re finally ready to query agents.

The Writer’s Transformation Project has given me a way to make a life-changing impact on writer's lives, and to see them step into their identities as writers with newfound confidence and joy.

That’s why this coaching program is such a passion project for me, and why I’m excited to continue offering it to writers who know this extra support can help them finally reach their lifelong writing dreams.