Hi, I’m Whitney! I help indie authors write awesome stories. As an indie author myself (with over 15 published books), I know how much we have to do every day–everything! We don’t have a publishing house creating covers, scheduling promotions, and booking the right editor. We do all that on our own. It can be overwhelming. That’s why it’s so important to find a team of professionals to help you get all of it done.
I love being on my clients’ teams, helping them patch up plot holes and build up characters so they seem real, so they make us laugh and cry and scream and swoon. I love the thrill of finding the exact right word to put the characters’ pain and joy on the page so that it bleeds into the reader’s heart.
I bring a long history of academic study and educational practice with me to every team I join. I have a doctorate in English from the University of Tennessee with an expertise in the novel form and in novels from the nineteenth-century. But I’m not all academic! The most valuable thing I learned as a college professor was how to meet writers where they are and get them where they want to be. I’m a teacher first and always, and I want my authors to take away not only better manuscripts from our time together, but a better understanding of how to create powerful stories on their own.
I listen to my authors, seek to understand their vision, then I help them bring that vision to life.
With over 15 years of experience as a university writing center tutor and over 10 years of experience as a college writing and literature instructor, my editing and coaching style is both constructive and fierce. When you work with me, you’ll learn not only your needed areas for growth as a writer but also your places of strength. You’ll also gain a cheerleader, someone who believes your words have the power to shape readers’ lives for the better!
In addition to my novels, I’m the published author of literary criticism, poetry, and short stories. You can check out some of my more scholarly stuff here:
- Space and Place in The Hunger Games: New Readings of Suzanne Collins’ Trilogy
- “Mad Girls: Creativity and Growing Up in Jane Eyre and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”
- “Growing Up Blake in a Potter World: Using Harry Potter to Teach William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience.” Teaching Harry Potter: Essays on Classroom Wizardry from Elementary School to College. Ed. Valerie Estelle Frankel.
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