CREATIVE CONSULTATIONS
Derek has over ten years of experience teaching creative writing and literature. He offers individualized writing consultations and coaching on a one-to-one basis in poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and the lyric essay. Sessions are tailored to meet the specific goals and needs of clients. He works with writers of all skill levels and experience. To help grow and refine a creative practice, Derek will:
To learn more, please fill out my website contact form and outline what you'd like to accomplish in your specific, individual session(s). Testimonials from past and present students can also be read below.
- Provide in depth structural feedback specific to your texts.
- Guide your reading, recommending texts and facilitating discussion of them.
- Focus your writing time and energy so you get the most of it.
- Identify themes, images, and iconography idiosyncratic to your writing.
- Analyze your writing to help discover new possibilities and directions for your work.
- Provide guidance in applying for awards, residences, and submitting to journals and publishers.
- Encourage the drafting process via the use of prompts while thinking in terms of sequence.
- Teach effective revision strategies honed over years of use and teaching.
To learn more, please fill out my website contact form and outline what you'd like to accomplish in your specific, individual session(s). Testimonials from past and present students can also be read below.
"Working with Derek has been both a pleasure and a tremendous aid to my writing. He helped me work on a chapter for a non-fiction book I am writing; he listened well and understood what I was trying to accomplish, and then gave practical and incisive advice on how to express myself clearly and effectively. I am so lucky to have had his help and look forward to working with him on writing in other genres as well."
- Elizabeth Ferry -
“Working with Derek has been a GAME CHANGER for my writing. He’s exactly what I needed in terms of insight and support. Yet he’ll also call me out on my shit. Important and difficult to do that well! I’ve never met anyone who genuinely cares about words as much. There’s a clear shift in my work before and after I started our one-on-one sessions. I’d describe his style as: Encouraging, insightful, and direct. And more than just the writing itself (but equally important) Derek gives me the license to be ME. Writing can be an intimate and at times confusing mental and emotional landscape to traverse alone. And that permission to be as weird, intimate, or crazy as I need to be is often the small push I need to lean into the more vulnerable parts of a piece. I’m beyond grateful I’ve got Derek in my corner. He’s the best investment I’ve ever made in my writing.”
- Kia Orion -
"I greatly enjoyed working with Derek. He’s deeply informed about the contemporary poetry scene and teaches in a sensitive and supportive way. He’ll patiently lead students step by step through the assumptions they make in writing their poems, and ask if those assumptions match their intentions. He’ll also suggest other poets who are writing in a similar style, and show how to use their work as inspiration. I felt I learned a great deal at every session. I also like his wry sense of humor.
- Neil Bernstein -
"I have enjoyed and learned so much from my sessions with Derek. During them, we talk about writing as a process, as well as poems and essays on craft, and the writing life. He even encourages me to disagree with his readings and feedback. I appreciate that he focuses on my goals as a writer, and what I find compelling and specific about poetry. Derek assigns readings that inform how I understand my own writing. They feel necessary. He is experienced, knowledgeable, insightful, flexible, and perceptive. Since I started meeting with Derek, my poetry has opened-up and expanded. It has grown more complex and creative—closer to what I want to be writing."
- Elizabeth Steinglass -
"I have worked with Derek numerous times on a variety of projects ranging from free verse poetry to lyrical children's book manuscripts. Derek's one-on-one sessions are concise and informative. I appreciate his inquiry-based critique style. He seeks to understand the intent behind my writing before offering suggestions and feedback. His questions about my work are thought-provoking and get me thinking about my manuscript in a new light; serving to improve and strengthen my work. Our sessions are collaborative and welcoming in nature. I leave each session with a plethora of verbal notes as well as written feedback and resources. Through working with Derek, I have learned more about the writing industry and technicalities of poetry such as meter, syntax, assonance, and structure. This knowledge has helped me refine my voice as a lyrical picture book author-illustrator. I'm so glad I found Derek. I know I am a better writer because of him."
- Amanda Davis -
"Working with Derek in our one-on-one sessions has greatly improved my writing. His constructive feedback has helped me to sharpen my work. He always has helpful suggestions regarding both form and substance, and also provides thoughtful prompts which have driven my creativity. The readings he suggests have been interesting and thought-provoking, and always related in some manner to my own work. I always leave these coaching sessions feeling inspired and motivated!"
- Lacey Perkins-Kelly -
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