Every strong essay is written^rewritten.
One-on-one coaching for high school students — college application essays and academic writing — from a classroom veteran of nearly twenty years. Your student does the writing. I make the writing better, and the writer better still.
I develop writers. I don't write for them.
Admissions officers can smell a ghostwritten essay from the salutation, and colleges increasingly say so out loud. My job is different: drawing out the story only your student can tell, then teaching the revision discipline to tell it well. The essay that results is genuinely theirs — which is precisely why it works.
That includes the machines. I've served on AI-and-learning task forces at both the secondary and university level, and I teach students where AI genuinely helps, where it quietly hurts, and how to keep the work unmistakably their own — the habits schools and colleges now expect.
Two ways to work together
The College Essay Package
- Brainstorming & topic selection — finding the essay only they can write
- Structured drafting with feedback between every session
- Common App personal statement plus supplemental essays
- Final line-level polish, done by the student, guided by me
- Hybrid: online or in person around Atlanta
Best begun in August or early September, before deadlines compress everything. Four students per application season — when the roster is full, it's full.
Writing & Literacy Tutoring
- Argument, structure, and evidence — the machinery of the essay
- Revision habits that transfer to every future assignment
- Reading comprehension & literary analysis support
- Reluctant writers welcome — I coached wrestling; I know reluctance
- AI-era writing habits: where it helps, where it hurts, how to stay honest
- Hybrid: online or in person around Atlanta
For middle and high school students. Ongoing engagement, no long-term contract — we continue as long as it's working.
A teacher first, a tutor second
I spent nearly twenty years teaching secondary English — honors seniors, striving freshmen, and every student in between who swore they "just weren't a writer." Most of them were wrong, and proving it to them was the best part of the job.
For much of that time I was also a head wrestling coach, which taught me the same lesson writing does: skill is built through drilling, honest feedback, and repetition — not through someone doing the hard part for you. I bring the coach's method to the writer's desk.
I'm now a doctoral candidate in English at Georgia State University, where I also teach first-year college writing. I know exactly what the essay your student writes this fall will be asked to become next fall — because I'm the one at the front of that classroom.
- ~20 yearssecondary English classroom experience
- Head coachvarsity wrestling — development through discipline
- PhD candidate, EnglishGeorgia State University
- College writing instructorfirst-year composition, GSU
From inquiry to first session
Send an inquiry
A short email: your student's grade, school, and what you're hoping to accomplish this fall.
Free 20-minute fit call
We talk — ideally with your student on the line. Fit matters more than anything else I can offer, and I'll tell you honestly if I'm not it.
Schedule & begin
We set a session rhythm, online or in person. You'll get a one-page agreement covering rates, cancellations, and what I do — and don't do — on essays.
The honest answers
Will you write or heavily edit my student's essay?
No. I question, model, and coach; your student drafts and revises. Colleges are explicit that the essay must be the applicant's own work, and an essay in a seventeen-year-old's authentic voice outperforms polished ventriloquism anyway. This policy is in writing in our agreement.
Online or in person?
Either. Online sessions run over video with shared documents. In-person sessions happen in public settings — libraries, coffee shops, or school-approved spaces — with parents always welcome nearby.
How involved are parents?
As involved as you'd like at the front and back — goals, scheduling, progress updates. During sessions, the work belongs to the student. That ownership is where the growth is.
Why only four essay students per season?
Because application essays deserve real attention on real deadlines, and I'd rather do exceptional work for four families than adequate work for twelve.
What about AI? My student's school has rules — or my student is already using it.
Both are probably true. I've served on AI-and-learning task forces at the independent-school and university levels, and I teach students to work within their school's policy — using AI where it legitimately aids learning, avoiding it where it hollows out the skill, and never letting it write in their place. Colleges are now screening for exactly this judgment. Better your student learns it deliberately than accidentally.
Do you provide references?
Yes — professional references from my years in Atlanta schools, and a current background check on request.
Fall seats open in August. They don't stay open.
Tell me your student's grade, school, and goal — I'll reply within one business day to set up a free fit call.
Email me