Services for Writers
Writing Coaching
The writing coaching experience is a special container for nurturing your creative practice. Inside it, you can make steady, clear progress toward your goals and dreams with personalized support.
If you are looking for a writing coach or editor, you may want accountability and structure—or help accessing your inspiration. You may want guidance on what to create, how to create or how to move past paralyzing blocks.
You may benefit from changing how you think and feel about your creative practice so it is more based in joy and consent than fear. You may know exactly what you want to create but not have the tools to get there alone.
You may need a expert, energetic editor to read your work, identify its strengths and opportunities, and help you to the finish line.
If you’ve been haunted by unrealized potential, you’ve come to the right place. Likewise, if you have faith in your creative process and want support to make your best work, this is the place to be. If you’re holding many pages in your hands, I can help you turn them into the completed book or book proposal.
In 20 years of coaching writers, I’ve worked with over 400 clients. The process helps people use their gifts to the fullest extent. My practice is trauma-informed, feminist and anti-racist. Each relationship is unique. I invite you to get in touch to explore if writing coaching is the next step.
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In the coaching process, you will:
be deeply seen, heard and appreciated
make and share fresh creative work or revise your existing pages
receive expert editorial feedback
get personalized prompts & assignments that fit your project
design a plan for progress and learn new habits to support it
overcome internal blocks, fears, or paralysis
move manuscripts to completion
get advice, if desired, on publishing routes and the process
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Coaching takes place by Zoom. We may also create Trello board to keep track of your goals and accomplishments.
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Yes, absolutely! In writing coaching, I am available to read up to 2,000 words of prose or 5 pages of poetry before each meeting. This is a review read so I can see your words, understand what you’re doing and offer feedback, suggestions or direction as desired. Reading your work lets me know how to help you grow as a writer, whether creatively or professionally.
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I work with people at all stages of the writing process, and all stages of a writing career—from fresh beginners to award-winning authors with multiple books. The key ingredients are desire for support, readiness to do the work and willingness to try new things ~ approaches that will make writing exciting, joyful, adventurous and productive.
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I specialize memoir, poetry, nonfiction, hybrid (mixed genre) texts, self-help/wellness, and the adacemic humanities.
I don’t work with sci fi, romance, erotica, horror or religious literature. Those are wonderful genres but I don’t have the expertise to guide writers skillfully in them. -
I design an individual journey for each writer based on listening to their needs and reading their work. Most writers partner with me for 3, 6 or 9 months of weekly meetings.
The cost ranges of these packages ranges from $1800 to $9000 based on the time frame, frequency, length of our meetings and editorial support/reading that I do.
I also offer single-session and short term coaching/co-editing as well. A regular 1-hour session is $200 and a 2-hour intensive strategy session is $350.
Get in touch with me to discuss your project and what might work for you!
Developmental Editing
As a developmental editor, I work with authors to help make their manuscripts and books as clear, powerful, moving and complete as they can be.
Developmental editing is different from just “fixing” things or polishing up a text—it’s seeing into a book’s highest potential and clarifying the path there.
Often, writers seek a developmental editor when they have a project that’s bigger than they know how to organize. Work that crosses genres or eras; hybrid or interdisciplinary texts fit in here. If you know your book has powerful bones but don’t know how to present or order it, a developmental editor can help.
Likewise, writers seek guidance when they have a text they’ve been working on for so long that they’ve lost sight of the endpoint. Or, when there’s a lot of emotion in the material that the writer finds it hard to look at directly. Your editor can help define the workable boundaries and what “finished” looks like.
Sometimes, there are three or four stories in one book and we have to lift out the one core story, thank the others and let them go.
All writers need editors to help them put their expression/vision/voices in proportion and to know when add or stop adding detail. A developmental editor helps with all these choices, giving clear guidance so the writer can relax.
A good developmental edit provides the writer the energy and clarity they need to take a manuscript to the finish line and get it into the world.
Process
I invite writers who are interested in working with me to send a sample of their manuscript by email and let me know what they’re looking for. Alternatively, you can book a discovery call and describe it to me. If we both feel it’s a good fit, then we get your book on my calendar!
We discuss the manuscript and you explain your goals, ambitions, concerns and uncertainties. Then I read the manuscript deeply so that I can feel what it might be striving to do. I’ll sleep on it for a few days, then dive in and start making comments, suggestions and edits on every page. This takes about a month.
My developmental editing process includes two layers. The first is big-picture editing of content (for organization and structure, sequence, argument, narrative arc, balance, depth). The second is fine line-editing.
A full developmenal edit includes one extensive round of in-text edits, comments and suggestions using the Track Changes feature in Microsoft Word and two Zoom editorial meetings.
I will share my screen with your edited manuscript and give my overall feedback, addressing the manuscript’s key strengths and areas for improvement. I explain the big action items for you to improve the text, share examples of my recommended changes and answer your burning questions.
When we are on the same page, I transfer the complete edited draft back to you. You are welcome to book one more editorial Zoom meeting to discuss your thoughts and dialogue about edits after you’ve read the new draft.
Recent Books Coached & Edited
Moving Stones: About the Art of Edmonia Lewis
by Dr. Jennifer DeVere Brody (Forthcoming from Duke University Press, 2026)
An interdisciplinary, boundary-breaking book by a Stanford scholar about the life of pioneering Black lesbian sculptor Edmonia Lewis and her influence on contemporary art.Enlightened Birth: Lessons in Love, Intimacy & Surrender for the Childbearing Year
by Kate Coletti (Agented, on submission)
A midwife’s warm, wise guide for expecting mothers on physical, emotional and spiritual preparation for birth.Setting Boundaries That Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered Paperback (New Harbinger Press)
by Julianne Taylor Shore, LMFT LPC SEP
A psychotherapist’s pioneering framework for using boundaries and brain science to create relational safety and interact with other people with our emotional authenticity intact, no matter what
Client Testimonials
“"Abe's work is magic. I can walk in the door with ten pages of notes for an article and walk out two hours later with a narrowly-focused paragraph-by-paragraph outline that's ready to write from. I would not use another writing coach or editor in the world.”
—Katie Matlack
"The first time I met Abe I sat at her kitchen table and cried. My manuscript was due to the publisher in a matter of weeks and it wasn’t quite where it needed to be. Abe made me a cup of tea and said, “I’m going to help you get this finished.” And she did. Together we plotted a timeline that—to my surprise—included dedicated breaks for creative recharge in addition to standard revision goals.
Despite the tight deadline, Abe went over every chapter, editing individual sentences with a fine-toothed comb and zooming out to suggest changes in structural flow. Her sensitivity to diverse readers was especially invaluable for the travel-based portions of my memoir."
-Clara Bensen, author of No Baggage: A Minimalist Tale of Love and Wandering
“Abe can describe the taste each poem leaves in her mouth. She gets down to the pith and doesn't waste energy fiddling around the edges. She has a rare kind of insight and instinctual knowing about how humans want to, need to, connect. You can trust her large heart with your work.”
-Tina Posner
Dr. Lynn Hoare, Co-Director, Center for Imagining and Performing Justice and author of Devising Critically Engaged Theater with Youth
“I received more than I could have hoped for from my work with Abe - she is a writing coach, mentor, and editor – all at the same time. Working with Abe provided the support, encouragement, coaching and editing that I needed.
In our working sessions, Abe often started with questions about my work and what I had written – this helped to clarify and specify my own ideas. Her coaching and encouragement kept me going at various points when I was ready to give up. As I moved into the final draft, Abe offered clarifying edits and shaping that shifted my writing into a clean, clear, professional work ready for submission. It was exciting to have the support to write something I had put off for a long time because I was nervous; Abe helped me move through my own fear and anxiety so that I was able to produce writing that honestly reflected my own work in a way that felt like an important and valuable contribution to my academic field.”
Deborah Esquinazi, documentary filmmaker
“The incredible gift here is the way the space is created that's both safe and challenging. Abe is a master at holding space and guiding the energy so creativity can happen effortlessly, while also challenging artists to excellence.”
Naomi Canale, Picture Book Author-Illustrator
“Abe is a master storyteller and editor. She took my story to a new level and helped me create something I am going to be proud of putting into the hands of readers. Many classics were made at the hands of great editors, and Abe is just that.”
Rachael Wilder, author of The People’s Pelvis
“When I decided to self-publish my book, I turned to Abe for editing and guidance in the process—from how to structure the manuscript to cover art, marketing, book design and editing. Every sentence was perfected over multiple edit rounds as I found the strongest voice for the book to reach its audience. She’s been my anchor and lighthouse over this huge process. I needed an editor who understood writing for teens and adults and a diverse LGBTQIA+ audience.”