About
I’m a passionate champion of writers and authors and my life’s work is supporting people to get published.
I’m profoundly grateful to have landed in this career at the tender age of 22. I’ve worked across many segments of the publishing industry, and because of my background, I’m publishing agnostic. I support writers to get published—traditionally and independently (hybrid or self-publishing).
I started my publishing career in 2000, and worked for traditional publishers for 13 years. In 2012, I left my job as Executive Editor of Seal Press to co-found She Writes Press with Kamy Wicoff, founder of SheWrites.com. I tell the story of why I left traditional publishing in my TEDx talk: “Green-Light Revolution.”
Since 2018, I’ve had a weekly podcast with my cohost Grant Faulkner, and in 2025, we launched the Memoir Nation Community to support writers at every stage of their journey. You can find the Memoir Nation podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts and our Community is free to join. I also invite you to subscribe to my Substack newsletter, “Writerly Things,” where I post weekly dispatches about publishing and memoir.
I bring a wide range of disciplines and interests to coaching, including the Ennegram and the Diamond Approach®. I’m a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC) with the Coaches Training Institute (CTI), a leading program in coaching that’s accredited by the International Coach Federation.
I earned my B.A. in International Affairs from The George Washington University, and my M.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies from San Francisco State University.
In coaching, I’m interested in helping writers write the best book they can write, to enjoy the process along the way, and also—importantly—to get the work publish-ready.
That said, the journey matters—and sometimes we can be so focused on the end goal that we lose direction or passion, or start to feel like the writing is a burden. My job will be to support you and devise strategies to propel you forward and help you access your untapped, forgotten, or ignored passions and energies that will get you moving, no matter if you’re completely stuck or charging ahead at a zillion miles an hour toward a hard deadline.
I’m proud to be recognized by the Coach Foundation, one of the biggest names in the coaching industry, as a Top Writing Coach.
Outside of coaching and publishing, I teach and facilitate lots of memoir courses through Write Your Memoir in Six Months, a program I co-founded with Linda Joy Myers, President of the National Association of Memoir Writers. With a true passion for memoir, we offer a biannual six-month mentoring program, as well as shorter intensive boot camps and other courses. Together we’ve co-authored two books about memoir, Breaking Ground on Your Memoir and The Magic of Memoir.
I’m the author of three books about writing and publishing:
Outside of my work as a publisher/coach/editor, I’m a lifelong runner who recently took up open-water swimming. In August 2023, I did the Alcatraz #SharkFest swim in San Francisco. I am a fiercely proud mom of a thirteen-year-old boy. I live with my partner, my son, and our five animals (two dogs and three cats). I live and work in Berkeley, CA.
