Hi, I'm Louise. I am passionate about writers and writing.  I am a certified book coach and co-author of three books of memoir and biography. I was also an opinion writer, editor, award-winning journalist and war correspondent at the London Sunday Times and USA Today.

 

I became a book coach and memoir writer because of what happened on a vacation beach in the US Virgin Islands. My husband, a once-brilliant Washington Post foreign correspondent, was descending into dementia. He said he knew he could not write the memoir he had begun.  Time had run out on his brain. I promised I would write it for him. We had met as Cold War Moscow correspondents, and it was my story too, one of love enduring through injustice. A wonderful editor coached me as I wrote the memoir -- even though, as a lifelong journalist, editor and author, I thought I already knew how to write one. How wrong I was! He taught me memoir's essential rules, structure and storytelling. The Inconvenient Journalist was bought and published monhs before I expected it to be. 

 

I made it my mission to do the same for other writers. I went through rigorous training to become a certified book coach, building on my lifetime of writing and editing. A book coach is like a sports or life coach for books. As your book coach I will be by your side, part editor, part mentor, giving you guidance, feedback, cheering your progress, always telling you the truth about your writing and keeping you on track.

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More about me: My life and work have taken me all

over the world. Born in the UK, I grew up in Uganda and Kenya, and studied at the universities of Lancaster (UK) and Paris. I have worked in the UK, Spain, France, Switzerland, Russia, Taiwan, China, the former Yugoslavia and the USA. I speak several languages. My permanent home is just outside Washington DC but I am living for now in Thailand where I brought my sick husband for compassionate care. I am writing a memoir about that -- with a book coach, of course. I would never now dream of writing any other way. I would love to be your book coach on your writing journey.

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