Academic coaching in six simple steps — While I was out of town for a few weeks, my teen life coach clients went back to school and started kicking ass. All of them. Every one. I wish you could be a fly on the wall for these sessions, to hear their descriptions of the ass-kicking. There’s the…

The research will blow your mind. — Hey parents! Got a teen? A teen who’s drowning in anxiety? An anxious teen who’s taking a bunch of high-level classes? We’ve gotta talk. When parents reach out to me for life coaching for their teen, they share what they perceive as their child’s greatest struggle. The number one concern…

It only took four decades. In Connecticut, where I grew up, the advertising wasn’t subtle. It was stitched onto throw pillows, displayed in place of pride: “You Can Never Be Too Rich or Too Thin.” The rich part I had no say in. I was a free lunch kid. I…

Let my students tell you — I’m the most privileged young adult author on the planet. It took me ten years to write my first book, Dead Inside, but during that ten years, I taught high school English. Cha-ching! I used my work-in-progress as a textbook. Translation: my 958 beta-readers were real, live teens, I got…

…okay, but mostly work — If you build it, they will come” is the biggest crock of shit ever foisted. The second biggest is my own mental script: “If I write it, The New York Times bestseller list will come.” *EHNT* Wrong answer. How do I know? Because if that mess was true, my first…

Put readers in your skin. Let them live your life. — Right. So you’re memoir-motivated. You’ve lived through something intense, something different, and readers will find it fascinating. You’re off to a great start with that hella-interesting story, but you’ve got to keep your readers riveted with your writing style. How you gonna do that? Well, pop quiz. Which is more…

Take their phone away? Preposterous. Do this instead. — Let’s say you’re in a dynamic where you know, you know, that everyone has banded together in dislike of you. Could be your job, your neighborhood, or wherever you’re stuck spending a ton of time. It’s clear they talk smack about you. They’re united in making fun of your looks…

The exact steps I took to write my award-winning memoirs — So you’ve got this life, and it’s an interesting one. It’s taught you a few things, and you’d like to share them with the rest of us. An itchy voice is playing on repeat in your brain: “You need to write a memoir!” I had that itch, and I scratched…

What I see on screens and what I see in real life are two different realities — Vanity is party-neutral. I don’t go to my salon to be in a safe space with my comrades. I go because I want good hair, but I don’t want to pay the “Would you like a wine spritzer?” tax. I made that mistake when I first landed in Carolina. I…