office hours

Our free consultations are 20-minute appointments for potential clients to tell us about their work, get details about our services, and see if we’re a good fit. They are the starting place for any service.

Office hours are 30-minute appointments where we can solve problems, offer insights, and give advice for practical steps you can take in your writing life. They are self-contained and can (but don’t have to) lead to signing up for any of our services. 

We enjoy close institutional relationships with universities like Yale, where we’re part of their Coaching for Success program. We’ve also built S&W on word-of-mouth referrals. Now we’re trying out social media. To generate interest and support people during one of academia’s most difficult eras, we’re giving back to a community where big ideas and hard work are valued.

We can help you create a writing routine, set better goals to finish a book or article, manage writing anxiety, discover your strongest motivators, or make your writing clearer and more engaging. We can also give you insights on writing a crossover or trade book or pitching a short piece for general audience readers. If you have another question related to academic writing, bring it along. There’s a good chance we’re already working on it.

We do provide hands-on editorial services, but Office Hours are better for things that can be addressed in 30 minutes or less. Usually that means things like habits, mindset, goal setting, routine creation. But you can bring a single paragraph to the meeting and we can show you some techniques to make it sing.