I don’t do the writing.
We find the writer.

One-on-one writing tutoring and college essay coaching, grades 8–12. In my nineteenth year teaching writing and revision, every grade level from eighth through college.

Most students write for a judge they imagine — a teacher, an admissions reader — in the voice they think will earn approval. Some need stronger fundamentals; some need the confidence to use what they already have; some need to read better before they can write better. Either way, the work starts with the writer who's already there and ends with one who can read their own draft, see what it needs, and revise without being told.

College essays Writing tutoring

Be wrong out loud.

Each session is a one-hour, one-on-one workshop. We start with what the student brings and what they think needs attention. Their diagnosis is sometimes wrong. That's still the right place to begin, because naming the problem is often the first act of revision.

Students can float an unfinished idea, ask a basic question, be wrong out loud, and get candid feedback without embarrassment. I'm not the person holding the gradebook, and that changes the dynamic: students can take risks, try something strange, and worry less about producing the answer they think they're supposed to give. Sessions aren't solemn. There is room to experiment, but also thoughtful pressure — the question that makes a student defend a choice, reconsider it, or discover something better.

Show me the sentence that made you think that.to an eighth grader

Why does this paragraph come before that one?to a tenth grader

What's the strongest argument against your thesis?to a senior

Students often become better writers when they stop trying to sound like good students. I make space for humor, oddness, disagreement, and risk, finding the sentence that feels honest, precise, surprising, or simply worth reading.

Writing is revision. Your student will learn to see what a draft is doing, decide what to cut and what to keep, and own the choice. No student writes to please me; they produce work they recognize as their own. The goal is the whole writer: one who reads closely, revises without being told, and whose writing catches up to their thinking. Every session ends with a clear next step.

He encouraged me to write frankly and structure my work so that my own ideas became more apparent to myself and to the reader. The skills I developed with him continue to influence how I write in my professional and personal life today.
Mac T. · Marist School · Class of 2020

Ground rules

Parents deserve clear expectations. These are the boundaries of my practice.

I won't write for your student.

I'll model a technique, ask questions, and explain how a sentence could work. The thinking and the words stay theirs.

I won't guarantee a grade, a score, or an admission.

I can promise careful preparation, candid feedback, and instruction aimed at stronger, more independent writing.

Students hear what parents hear.

The strengths, concerns, and next steps I discuss with you, I discuss with them.

AI is a conversation, not a search for contraband.

AI is already inside the tools students write with, so pretending otherwise teaches nothing. I teach how it can support learning and how it can undermine it: how to question a draft with it, test an argument, judge what it produces, and check its sources. Your student writes every word they submit, and a college essay never contains AI-written text. If I have a question about a draft, we look at it together, early and in the open. Families who would rather keep AI out of sessions can opt out; we use sample texts instead. Knowing when to use AI and when to refuse it is a writing skill, and I teach it.

Revision, not proofreading.

Revision needs time for a student to consider feedback and make changes. Proofreading can be part of that; it isn't a substitute for it, and I don't offer it as a stand-alone service.

Enrollment is limited.

Four essay students each application season, and tutoring as space allows. I take only as many students as I can know well.

Riddick originally helped me with my writing in high school, and has continued to provide instruction and feedback into my adult life. He's knowledgeable, patient, and great at explaining ideas in a clear, approachable way.
Matt A. · Marist School · Class of 2013 · Petty Officer Second Class, USN

College essay coaching

The personal statement is a strange assignment. It asks a seventeen-year-old to sound like themselves, in 650 words, for a stranger reading their application. Many students respond sensibly: they impersonate the applicant they think the stranger wants.

I won't pretend the essay isn't a performance. Every applicant is performing. The question is whether the person on the page is someone your student recognizes. Finding the writer is the first half of the job. Making the essay — choosing what to include, what to leave out, and what order it goes in — is the second.

One of the most valuable things I gained from Riddick was confidence in my own writing voice. During my senior year we focused on going beyond set essay structures and developing arguments that reflected my own opinions. I would highly recommend him to students looking to become more confident, independent writers.
Corey L. · Marist School · Class of 2019

The essay package

$1,200 · Six one-hour sessions

For students starting from scratch, or close to it. We start before the draft. In the early sessions, we talk, and your student writes short, rough pieces about things that actually happened to them. We look for the details and ideas that could become an essay. Sometimes we develop the topic they brought. Sometimes a better one emerges.

Then we draft and revise, and revise again. We focus on the Common App personal statement and agree at the first session which supplemental essays we can reasonably address within the six sessions. Together, we set a schedule around application deadlines, with writing and revision between meetings.

Your student writes every word. I ask questions that help them find the missing detail, question an easy conclusion, and decide what belongs.

Four seats each season, so that each student gets a reader who knows the draft rather than a place in a queue. When the seats are filled, I'll say so and suggest a time to try again.

The single essay session

$225 · One hour · Includes advance reading of one essay draft

For students who already have a draft of the personal statement or a supplemental essay and want a second reader. Send the draft and its prompt at least 48 hours before we meet, and I'll read it closely beforehand.

In the session, we look at whether the essay sounds like the person who wrote it, where it loses the reader, and what it's leaving out. I ask questions that help your student decide what to change and why. The revisions are theirs, and they leave with clear priorities for continuing the work.

This is a revision session, not a proofreading service. It does the most good when there is time afterward to rethink, rewrite, and read again. If we continue with the package, subject to availability and decided before a second session, this meeting counts as the first of six sessions and the $225 applies toward the total.

Services and rates · 2026–27

Rates are published so you don't have to ask.

Grades 8–10

$110 per hour

These are the years when arguments become more demanding, and when many students first decide they're "not a writer." That verdict is almost always premature. We work on a focused thesis, the paragraph that does one thing well, close reading, and the habit of revision, all built around current schoolwork. Where reading is the obstacle, we start there: comprehension, annotation, and the habit of noticing how a text makes its effects. For some students, the fear of being judged gets in the way of writing. Room to experiment, paired with clear expectations, helps them move forward.

His instructional style allowed creative freedom while enforcing the structure of a traditional essay. That early high school course prepared me for writing assignments in later years and gave me a strong foundation for expressing ideas with clarity.
Lillian T. · Marist School · Class of 2025

Grades 11–12

$135 per hour

At this age, writing has deadlines, and I respect them. We work on the assignment in front of the student, whether it's the AP essay, the research paper, or the analysis due Monday. Underneath it, we build the analysis, style, and research-based argument that college writing demands. I taught AP Language and Composition for five years, and most of my week is now spent with college freshmen, three months out of high school. I tutor seniors toward the writers those classrooms expect.

My writing/literature class this semester — my professor also raved about my writing, just like the professor I had in the fall in the other English class. Still think it's funny bc I never thought of myself as a real proficient writer until these professors have brought it up.
A note from a former student in his first year at Rutgers · May 2020

Tutoring meets weekly or biweekly, online or in person around metro Atlanta, in public or school-approved settings. Parents are always welcome. Sessions are paid in advance, and I ask for 24 hours' notice to reschedule. Full terms are in the engagement agreement every family signs before we begin.

What each year asks

These are broad expectations. Students develop at different rates, and our work begins with what each student needs.

Eighth grade

A clear idea, real evidence, and sentences the student controls — explaining how character, conflict, setting, and language develop a theme.

Ninth grade

The shift from what happens to why: a focused thesis, paragraphs that each develop a supporting claim, and quotations explained rather than dropped in.

Tenth grade

Ambiguity, symbolism, structure: sustaining one argument across a full essay, weighing sources, answering the other side, revising for precision.

Eleventh grade

Competing interpretations and the study of how writers persuade: arguments drawn from several sources and adapted to purpose and audience.

Twelfth grade

Independent reading of complex texts, sustained analysis and research, in a voice of their own, with real responsibility for revision.

My experience

I'm in my nineteenth year of teaching, and I have taught every grade from eighth through first-year college. I know what each year asks of a writer because I have taught each one. I teach first-year college writing, the course every undergraduate takes, so I know which writing habits survive the crossing from high school and which don't.

I began at Woodberry Forest School in Virginia as the first Kenan-Lewis Fellow, teaching English and coaching wrestling, 2008–2009. From 2009 to 2024 I taught English at Marist School in Atlanta: eighth-grade composition, AP Language and Composition, world and American literature, and an interdisciplinary senior seminar in speculative fiction and physics. Since 2024 I have taught first-year writing at Georgia State University, where I'm pursuing a PhD in literary studies, have completed graduate coursework in literacy studies and composition pedagogy, and serve on the English department's AI pedagogy working group. In 2026 the Department of English recognized my work with its Graduate Writing Award.

I hold an M.A. in English from Middlebury College's Bread Loaf School of English and a B.A. in English from Washington and Lee University.

As Marist's head wrestling coach from 2009 to 2023, I led the team to a 301–106 record, coached nine individual state champions, and received the Frank Hagan Memorial Coach's Award. Coaching informs the habits I bring to writing instruction: close attention, honest feedback, and patience with the work of improvement.

He was my wrestling coach my junior and senior years, and has since become a lasting influence on how I think, learn, and communicate. We still spend hours talking about literature, philosophy, family, and personal growth. He invests deeply in people, and his encouragement has inspired me to read more and write more thoughtfully.
Connor C. · Marist School · Class of 2011

References and a current background check are available on request.

Tell me about your writer.

What grade is your student in? What are they working on, and what would you like help with? Share anything else you'd like me to know before we meet.

I reply within two days and welcome new students as space allows. If we're a fit, I send a short engagement agreement, we choose a time, and payment confirms the first session.

Or contact me directly at riddick@riddickbeebe.com or 404 502 7059.

I don’t do the writing.We find the writer.