Kids Gain More from Writing Lessons than Just Grammar

Years ago, in my mid-20s and fresh out of an MFA program, I got a job teaching literature and writing at a tiny private school in Austin, Texas.

I loved much about the job: The old Victorian buildings that made up the campus; sharing with my AP Literature students the last paragraph of Cormac McCarthy's The Road (the most beautiful paragraph ever written!); laughing off a stressful day with my colleagues in the overcrowded break room.

I did not, however, find much time to write—the very passion that fueled my enthusiasm in the classroom, and led me to teach in the first place.

Years prior, when I was still in college, I'd taken a fiction writing class that reignited in me a long-forgotten love of creative writing. By the time I eventually moved to Austin, I held my MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Pittsburgh, where I'd also taught college students through a teaching fellowship.

As a middle and high school teacher, though, I found myself feeling increasingly disconnected from myself.

It's a strange feeling, inner disconnect. It's so internal that it's easy to ignore—which is exactly what I did for four consecutive years.

Me with a few beloved former students.

By the fall of my fourth year at the school, I was earning enough extra money tutoring on the side that I figured I could start my own business and free up time to write. The unconventionality of the choice felt scary, though, and I was overwhelmed at the idea of disappointing the students in our small community.

One evening, I sat cross-legged on a yoga mat after a vigorous and sweaty class (yoga was one of the healthier ways I maintained sanity during the busy school year!). My eyes were closed and the room was quiet. Then, out of the blue, a voice rose up in me.

I mean, it wasn't quite a voice, really. It was more like knowledge, strong and clear—and it came from deep in my gut.

The voice, the inner knowledge, the whatever-it-was, said: You're a writer. You need to make time for writing.

It’s hard to ignore such a moment. I left at the end of the school year, and began focusing on writing my novel, The Crocodile Bride.

Like any journey worth taking, its had its dramatic highs and lows. I spent eight full years drafting and revising the novel—and incredibly, I finished the last of it while sitting in a chemotherapy chair, receiving life-saving infusions in that first summer of our global pandemic. (You can read more about that here, if you'd like, or over here in this more recent Newsweek piece​.)

The novel earned a New York Times review, was named a New York Times Editors' Choice, and opened up countless doors for me professionally and personally.

Along this decade-long journey from teacher to novelist to cancer survivor, the most critical, stabilizing, meaning-making tool in my possession has, without a doubt, been listening for that inner voice.

When I coach young people, I see the ways writing helps them listen for their own inner voices—whether we're working on admissions essays, a student contest, or an essay for my programs.

I see how working with a coach gently supports them in that process—which can sometimes feel a little terrifying (case in point: I spent those four years as a teacher ignoring that inner voice!).

If my story resonates and you'd like your students to work with me on admissions essays; in my 12-session coaching program, Writing for Your Future Self; or in my brand new Writing for High School coaching program for rising 9th and 10th grade students, let’s connect!