I’ve spent 30 years writing books and articles. Throughout those years, I have conducted a shadow career in what is now known as “comms” or “narrative strategy”.
As the art of communication has become professionalized, it has grown increasingly complicated and, as a result, unnecessarily expensive. I can help you make an impact while keeping it simple.
I won’t add extra layers of process to your project. In 30-plus years of writing for change, I’ve consistently found that the most effective communication strategy is to say what you mean as clearly as possible. But figuring out exactly what you mean, and crafting that meaning into a message that others will understand and act on, often requires trying out various ways of saying it until clarity emerges.
I can help you do this.
Listening is the heart of my practice, in my own journalism and the work I do with others. Working together, we will find the words to say what you mean in a way that will reach other people; maybe even change them.
For the past 25 years, my own focus has been the impact of our vast and unaccountable carceral system on children, youth, and families. If your work involves prison or system-impacted youth, I’ll bring a wealth of knowledge to our collaboration.
I also spent many years paying the bills by writing for women’s magazines. If you climbed Half Dome after your heart transplant, or hired mercenaries to rescue your child after your ex spirited him away to war-torn Croatia, or escaped the Colombian rebels who kidnapped you while you were bird-watching, I can also help you tell that story.
“More drama!” my editors at the glossies would write in the margins of my drafts. “More emotion!”
They were right. If you want to change a mind or capture a heart, you need more than sharp analysis. You have to evoke what a colleague once described as the two-foot drop from the head to the heart. I can help you do that.
I can ghostwrite your memoir or op-ed or speech or help you to write and edit it yourself. (I’ve done all these things, but I can’t say more in public; that’s why they call us “ghosts”).
I’ve also written white papers, newsletters, annual reports and mailers. I especially enjoy work that involves deep research but I’m happy to help with the day-to-day work of getting your message out. I can help you launch and maintain a Substack or make your LinkedIn page more compelling (the posts that break through are stories, too).
I can also write a grant for you or edit those you’ve already drafted. I spent a decade writing grants to keep the youth newspaper I ran afloat and went on to support much of my own work via philanthropy, including raising the funds to research and write all three of my books. If you believe your work matters, let’s lose the jargon and help funders understand why it does, and why you’re the one to do it.
I always tell students that good writing is good thinking. If you’re looking for someone to think alongside you and help turn that thinking into powerful writing reach out to me here. I’m listening.