1:1 Coaching for writers, and other creative people, to finish projects with more ease and confidence
Has your project been on the back burner so long it’s starting to stick to the pan?
NOTE: As of August 2026, I am not taking new clients. However, I have limited spots for previous clients. So, if we've worked together in the past, please feel free to contact me!
Thank you once again for your thoughtful and inspiring coaching session. You always lead me to a place of hope and new ideas.”
I prepare my coaching clients to…
- Make substantial progress in their writing projects
- Publish their work in literary magazines or other venues
- Complete other creative community projects
- Find agents and publishers excited about their work
- Successfully apply to contests, fellowships and prestigious MFA programs
- Overcome their inner critics to write with more confidence and ease
- Let go of unhelpful mindsets and find themselves talking action instead of "just thinking about it"
- Break down the overwhelm into manageable, do-able steps
My work with clients is informed by
- 14+ years of working as a coach (I am a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach)
- Neuroscience-backed approaches to productivity and habit formation
- My training and experience with mindfulness and meditation
- Three decades of teaching poetry and creative writing and editing
- My experience as a working artist, and one who has written and received multiple artistic project grants
Want to hear me talk about why I love working with writers, and what working with me as a coach might be like? I was recently interviewed for Brock Swinson's podcast, Creative Principles. Listen now!
Praise
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- “If you’re going to work with Melanie, be ready to stop judging yourself and to start inviting curiosity into what is happening with your creative life. Whatever creative homework you come up with, do it. The results will be real and transformative.”
- “Melanie's style is encouraging and motivating, as well as no-nonsense and straightforward, which I greatly appreciated. She helped me see that many hang-ups or trepidations I had were more like pebbles than mountains. These benefits rippled out beyond just my work on poetry, as I started to gain confidence and address blocks. It was great to have someone to walk alongside me to help me along the path. I would highly recommend working with Melanie to anyone who is on the fence." - “I will absolutely be letting you know when publishing is in the works. I'm still incredibly grateful for working with you through the first couple drafts - it was absolutely essential to getting to where I am now, so thank you for all your support." |
- "I signed up for coaching sessions with Melanie to achieve a couple of specific goals, but what I gained from our work together turned out to be a broader and deeper shift in my thinking about what is meaningful to me and how to best spend my time. Melanie not only helped me to identify some thought patterns that were holding me back from directing my energy and time to what matters to me, but she also offered me concrete and effective exercises to counter these patterns. This was unexpected and a delight, which also describes my sessions with Melanie. She challenges me, she is direct, and she has a fun sense of humor - all wonderful qualities for a coach."
"I learned a lot about managing my writing practice, what works and what doesn't, as well as what happens to me in the course of a project, what sorts of things derail me and how I handle the derailment. All this is extremely useful and enlightening." |
