Hi, I’m Alex. What a pleasure to meet you here!

I am story coach, writing instructor, editor and Human Design nerd all rolled into one. The written word is my discipline and my gift. Over the years, I’ve helped authors break into print and win awards. Been a finalist for the BC & Yukon Book Prizes, too, with a book I wrote for an IMAX movie (that was a stoke).

By the age of seven, I knew books were it. At 17, I was a fierce journaler and poet, and had been appointed editor of the school newspaper. I went to uni, trained as a teacher, and taught in K-12, writing all the while. I wrote freelance for magazines, pitched a few lousy picture books and got rejected for all of them, stepped away from teaching to raise my boys, and wrote like a demon in the quiet hours. In 2008 I went pro, landing a contract with the Royal BC Museum that enabled me to shift into writing full-time.

I published my first book in 2010 (fiction) and followed it with 14 more (both fiction and nonfiction). As a speaker and teacher, I’ve shared the world of books and writing with all ages, from kindergarteners to high schoolers to college-level classes.

Over the decades as a freelancer, I wrote and edited a pretty wild variety of materials—from Coast Guard manuals and fashion websites to annual reports and articles about rolling papers. And bedbugs. And how to sucker people into buying those last-minute impulse items as they’re pulling out their card to tap. It was…edifying.

Freelancing was chaotic, hair-pulling work, and while it enabled me to provide for my children, it didn’t allow for a great deal of flow. I yearned for something more creative and heart-centered, but the paying work seemed to just carry me farther and farther away.

But you know, that universe knows what it’s doing.

Over time, the freelance work had added website development and content marketing into my folio. I couldn’t see at the time that the cosmos was schooling my ass in web UX so I could gain a superior understanding of the reader experience. Web UX takes notes from video game UX. It’s all about keeping the user / player engaged, curious, moving, thinking, feeling.

In parallel, readers come to books to be swept away. Absorbed. Merged. That’s a challenging state to get a reader into—but it’s the state humans can’t get enough of. Think about the books that have laid you out, made you ugly cry, pissed you off so hard you had to go eat a sleeve of Tums. That is ART. And art…takes work.

A book is nothing if not a demanding exercise in designing a kickass UX.

In 2019, a publisher asked whether I would help one of his authors get their book written. The writer was deep in the weeds with content that had made for an impressive documentary on CBC and BBC, but they had no structural framework for writing a book. That was the first assignment that saw me coaching rather than editing.

In 2020, I took on another coaching assignment, helping one of my longtime clients capture their wisdom on the page.

By 2021, I’d decided I was all in on this pivot. I formalized my commitment by pursuing certification with Author Accelerator—a mark of distinction and competence in a complex, volatile industry. Today I hold certifications in both fiction and nonfiction—one of just a handful such coaches worldwide.

As what’s called an “editorial” book coach, I work at both the story and line level. My writers learn and practice a LOT of craft along the way to putting their books into the world. If you ride with me, we read and use your favourite authors as models to noticeably improve your own writing. We dig deep with examples, practice, and loads of discussion. I keep you in that zone of proximal development, where you’re just outside your comfort zone enough to be learning, but not enough to be floundering.

And we find your voice—that elusive, hard-to-articulate-but-you-know-it-when-you-hear-it thing that makes your writing jump off the page.

I’m also a certified Big Leap coach, deeply trained in somatic and emotional processing, and steadied by years of philosophical study. I hold degrees in Education and Psychology, both of which help me teach, coach and understand my writers—and their readers.

Writing a book is a commitment not unlike starting a business. It’s huge work. It’s hard work. It’s some of the most satisfying work there is. And I stand in awe of you for undertaking it—because I get it.

As your book coach, I’m a seasoned companion on this road. One who’s walked the road lots of times before, long familiar with its potholes and soft shoulders, its sun-baked asphalt and unexpected forks.

Writing with a coach is intensely personal one-to-one work that lasts for months, if not years. There’s no other experience like it. And we travel every inch of the road together. You’ll discover more about your beliefs—and about yourself—than you knew was there.

Hold up, Tex. I’m excited too, but I might not be the coach for you if:

• you like to skip steps.

• you’re in a big hurry to get your book out there. My process is deep, thorough and skill-based. Quality takes time, and people come in at all different levels of ability. Writing a book can take four weeks. Writing a good book takes longer. There are plenty of other coaches who can assist if speed is your #1 concern.

• you have a hard time trusting. There are a lot of layers to this game, and most people don’t know what they don’t know.

• you’re not comfortable digging deep, to find the emotional connection for readers. It’s what makes a narrative sing.

• you’re not comfortable with questioning your convictions, and finding stronger ways to ground the knowledge you’re putting out there. I cross-examine when I’m coaching nonfiction, because I know that’s what readers are doing on the other side of the page.

• you’re not a 6/2 Generator in Human Design with definition in Gates 9 and 18. (Kidding. But the focus, precision and work ethic is helpful!)