Work with Stina

I support writers in developing and achieving their own specific vision and goals for their work. Whatever it is that you want to bring up and out and into your writing, I will bring shovel and spade and we will DIG until we find (more of) it. We can play, sandbox style, through various generative exercises designed specifically for YOU and your work. Together, we can polish already-developed work and consider the best ways to present your writing to the wider world.

Until I began coaching writing in this way, I had no idea how valuable such help could be. (I am working with my own book coach to help me finish my memoir.) If you have questions as to how I can be of service in your writing process, don’t hesitate to reach out.

manuscript review

For those who may need …

  • Revisions, editing, and finishing book-length projects, including fiction, nonfiction, poetry.

  • Supporting a PhD candidate through writing and defending your dissertation (not available at all times, check current availability).

  • Checking in with you at 2:31 am when obsessed with your 7th revision of the concluding poem of your chapbook.

writing coach

A writing coach’s job description changes with every client, but may include:

  • Discussing revisions to individual works or smaller collections of work.

  • Connecting you to educational and professional resources and support.

  • Leading you through generative and craft-related activities, with some created just for you to develop and refine your voice or project.

  • Conducting research for your project.

  • Ask if you’re resting and hydrating when deadlines approach.

  • Encourage you to both honor and “do rich violence to your work.”

the “business” of writing

For those who need support with …

  • Submitting to presses, contests, award programs, and retreats

  • Polishing that 50-page pitch you’re sending an agent or press

Client testimonials …

Andy Izenson, senior legal director of Chosen Family Law Center in New York, and author of the forthcoming book of radical Jewish trans alchemical poetry, The World That Is Coming Inside You

"I spent a really long time thinking about publishing a chapbook but feeling like I was missing some ineffable spark or information or audacity necessary to actually doing anything about it. Whatever that spark is, Stina French has it in spades and is overjoyed to share it with you.

Stina is generous with their time, their expertise, and their emotions. It feels like an incomparable gift to have a poet as talented as they are supporting not only the broadest scope of where to submit and how to charm publishers, but also laser-focused on the tiniest line-edits of each piece of writing. They will spend twenty minutes debating with you the relative merits of punctuation, but always says: I’m not trying to turn your poem into my poem, I’m trying to help you make your poem the best version of itself.

Do not start working with Stina unless you’re ready to be celebrated, lovingly challenged, and taught things you didn’t know you didn’t know; and absolutely do not start working with them unless you’re ready to hang up from a video call with them one day and realize that whatever obstacle was between you and presenting your writing, the best version of itself, the version you can be really proud of, to the world – that obstacle has dissipated like a cloud before the relentless sunlight of Stina’s regard."