Meet Our Newest Resident Writing Coaches

It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year since we started the Resident Writing Coach program, but here we are! This program, designed to bring you high-level writing education from a variety of experts, has been wildly successful. We’ve had such a huge response to it that continuing the program was a no-brainer!

Being able to showcase the voices and viewpoints of different masters of craft for an entire year has been wonderful. Due to time issues, a few coaches are leaving us, and Becca and I would like to offer sincere thanks to Roz Morris, April Bradley, C.S. Lakin, and Michael Hauge for lending us their knowledge. It was an honor to have you part of our program!

We have a few new faces joining us, bringing considerable craft knowledge to the storytelling table. Check out this lineup:

Lisa Cron is the author of Wired for Story and Story Genius. Her video tutorial Writing Fundamentals: The Craft of Story can be found at Lynda.com, and her TEDx talk, Wired for Story, opened Furman University’s 2014 TEDx conference, Stories: The Common Thread of Our Humanity.

Lisa has worked in publishing at W.W. Norton, as an agent at the Angela Rinaldi Literary Agency, as a producer on shows for Showtime and Court TV, and as a story consultant for Warner Brothers and the William Morris Agency. Since 2006, she’s been an instructor in the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, and she is on the faculty of the School of Visual Arts MFA program in Visual Narrative in New York City.

In her work as a private story coach, Lisa helps writers of all ilk wrangle the story they’re telling onto the page. For a library of her free myth-busting writing tips, and information on how to work with her one-on-one, you can find her at: wiredforstory.com 

Sacha Black is the author of the #1 bestseller for writers, 13 Steps To Evil – How To Craft A Superbad Villain. Her blog for writers, www.sachablack.co.uk, is home to regular writing, marketing and publishing advice sprinkled with dark humour and the occasional bad word. In addition to craft books, she writes YA fantasy, and her first series, Keepers, is due out in November 2017.

Sacha is also the founder of the Annual Bloggers Bash Awards, a yearly international event for bloggers, writers and authors.

Tamar Sloan really struggled writing this bio because she hasn’t decided whether she’s primarily a psychologist who loves writing, or a writer with a lifelong fascination of human behaviour. Somehow she got lucky enough to do both.

Tamar is a freelance editor, consultant and the author of PsychWriter – a fun, informative hub of information on character development, the science of story and how to engage readers. Tamar is also an award-winning author of young adult romance, creating stories about finding life and love beyond our comfort zones. You can checkout Tamar’s books on her author website.

Gabriela Pereira is an author, speaker, and entrepreneur who wants to challenge the status quo of higher education. As the founder and instigator of DIYMFA.com, her mission is to empower writers, artists and other creatives to take an entrepreneurial approach to their education and professional growth.

Gabriela earned her MFA in writing from The New School and speaks at college campuses and national conferences. She is also the host of DIY MFA Radio, a popular podcast where she interviews bestselling authors and offers short audio master classes. Her book DIY MFA: Write with Focus, Read with Purpose, Build Your Community is out now from Writer’s Digest Books. Join the word nerd community at DIYMFA.com/join.

These new coaches are joining returning writing masterminds:

James Scott Bell is a winner of the International Thriller Writers Award and author of the #1 bestseller for writers, Plot & Structure. Among his numerous thrillers are Romeo’s Rules, Romeo’s Way, Romeo’s Hammer, Try Dying, and Don’t Leave Me. In addition to his traditional novels, Jim has self-published in a variety of genres. He served as the fiction columnist for Writer’s Digest magazine and has written highly popular craft books including: Just Write, Write Your Novel From the Middle, Super Structure, The Art of War for Writers and Conflict & Suspense.

Read more about Jim here.

Jennie Nash has worked in publishing for more than 30 years. She is the author of four novels, three memoirs, and The Writer’s Guide to Agony and Defeat. She has been an instructor at the UCLA Extension Writing Program for 10 years and is the founder and chief creative officer of Author Accelerator, an online program that offers affordable, customized book coaching so you can write your best book.

Read more about Jennie here.

Jami Gold, after muttering writing advice in tongues, decided to become a writer and put her talent for making up stuff to good use. Fueled by chocolate, she shares writing tools, presents workshops, and offers insights on her blog about the craft, business, and life of writing. Jami is the winner of the 2015 National Readers’ Choice Award in Paranormal Romance for the novel Ironclad Devotion in her Mythos Legacy series.

Read more about Jami here.

September C. Fawkes can scare people with her enthusiasm for writing and reading. She works as an assistant to a New York Times bestselling author and writing instructor, a job that includes editing manuscripts of both published and unpublished writers. She has published poetry, short fiction, and nonfiction articles, and her writing tips have appeared in classrooms, conferences, and on Grammar Girl. She holds an English degree, has served as the managing editor of The Southern Quill literary journal, and had the pleasure of writing her thesis on the worldwide appeal of Harry Potter.

Read more about September here.

Sara Letourneau is a fantasy writer in Massachusetts who devours good books, geeks out about character arcs, and drinks too much tea. In addition to WHW’s Resident Writing Coach Program, she writes the Theme: A Story’s Soul column at DIY MFA and is hard at work on a YA/New Adult magical realism manuscript. She has also freelanced as a tea reviewer and music journalist in the past. Her poetry has appeared in The Curry Arts Journal, Soul-Lit, The Eunoia Review, Underground Voices, and two print anthologies.

Read more about Sara here.

We are looking forward to another incredible year of Resident Writing Coach posts. Is there a topic you’d like to see covered? Just leave us a comment below!

Happy writing,

Angela & BeccaSave

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