Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach

Writers become writers because they read something that made them want to pick up a pen or open a laptop and do the same thing. They read some piece of literature that inspired. Did that happen to you? Maybe when you were young? Maybe last week? You opened a book and thought: This novel makes me want to tell a story, too, with characters as vibrant as these and scenes just as stunning. Or you clicked through to an online magazine and sighed: This essay gets me thinking in new directions. I want to explore things at this level, too. I want to help readers read, think, learn, and question. Or you turned the page of a literary journal and sank into the stanzas of a new poem: It has everything I love in it. I, too, want to work with images and metaphor, rhythm and rhyme. So you go to your computer ready to try your hand at the craft. You can’t wait—your mind is brimming with your own ideas and phrases. You open a new document and you start writing, and 500 or a thousand words later, you stop.