Award-Winning Creative Writing Tutors
serving South Bend, IN

Emma's doctoral work in contemporary American poetry at Notre Dame trained her to treat every word as a deliberate choice — a skill that translates directly into teaching creative writing across genres. Whether a student is drafting a personal essay, experimenting with flash fiction, or shaping a poem, she walks through revision as an iterative craft, not just proofreading. Her two years coaching writers at Wake Forest's writing center means she's comfortable with projects at every stage, from a blank page to a polished final draft.

Outside of medical school, Elizabeth writes short science fiction and spy stories — genres that demand tight pacing, vivid world-building, and characters who reveal themselves through action. She brings that hands-on craft experience to lessons on dialogue, narrative structure, and revision, treating each draft as something to be shaped rather than corrected. Rated 5.0 by students.

Craft matters more than inspiration — that's the premise Paul brings to creative writing after twenty-plus years of teaching at the college level. Whether a student is experimenting with point of view in short fiction or tightening the imagery in a poem, he gives the kind of line-level, workshop-style feedback that makes revision productive rather than overwhelming.

I am passionate about helping students because I've been a student my whole life! Even though I'm a professor now, I love to learn. And now that I have experience, I love to help others along the learning journey. I have degrees in English and education from Rice University, UT Austin, Texas State, and Texas A&M. I also studied abroad in England at the University of East Anglia and have traveled to many countries. I tutor English and Spanish (my family is from Mexico City). My favorite thing to tutor is writing, and I have taught writing from the Kindergarten-graduate school (Ph.D.) level (what I currently do). I am here to share tools and tips to help you succeed in your learning journey.

A background in anthropology gives Iris an unusual advantage in creative writing: she thinks constantly about how people construct meaning, tell stories, and make sense of the world. She digs into craft elements like point of view, dialogue, and scene-building, pushing students to develop their own voice rather than imitate a formula. Whether the project is fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction, she brings both rigorous feedback and genuine enthusiasm for the work.

Most creative writing advice is vague — 'show don't tell,' 'find your voice' — without explaining how to actually do it on the page. Marisa earned her writing degree at MIT through rigorous workshops that demanded craft-level revision, not just inspiration. She walks students through concrete techniques like sensory detail, narrative pacing, and point-of-view consistency to turn rough ideas into polished pieces.

Before she was a Managing Editor at a tech company, Clare was a history major learning to build arguments from evidence and tell stories that make readers care about people long dead — skills that map directly onto crafting fiction and poetry with real stakes and specificity. She brings an editor's ruthlessness to revision, cutting the vague and sentimental to surface the concrete details and sharper sentences hiding underneath a student's draft.

Living in France and England didn't just give Heather conversational French — it gave her a writer's habit of noticing the small, strange details that make a place or a person feel real on the page. She brings that observational instinct into drafting and revision, especially when students need to move past generic description and find the specific image or moment that gives a piece its voice. Her quantitative methods background also makes her unusually good at talking about structure — why a scene works where it's placed, how pacing builds, what a piece gains or loses from a different order.

Someone who went from hating reading to devouring books understands the moment when language clicks — and that's the energy Aaron brings to creative writing. He digs into craft elements like voice, pacing, and scene construction, encouraging students to experiment on the page and then revise with intention. His conversational teaching style makes workshopping feel collaborative rather than intimidating.

Good creative writing starts with a single vivid detail — not a grand idea. Hanlu teaches techniques like sensory imagery, dialogue pacing, and narrative voice, drawing on her own fiction writing practice and her International Relations background, which sharpened her ability to tell stories across cultural contexts. She's especially effective at helping writers push past the blank page and into revision, where the real craft happens.

Most creative writing feedback is either too vague ('nice imagery!') or too prescriptive ('rewrite this scene entirely'). Jennifer approaches workshop-style revision differently, asking pointed questions about voice, pacing, and point of view that let writers discover their own fixes. Her English background and NYU teaching residency give her a strong ear for both fiction and personal essay — two forms where finding an authentic voice matters most.

Songwriting, fiction, college essays, music composition — Jordan's creative output spans an unusual range, which means he knows firsthand how the same core moves (finding a voice, building tension, cutting what doesn't serve the piece) play out differently across forms. His American Studies background adds a storyteller's instinct for weaving cultural context into personal narrative, and he's especially sharp at helping writers figure out what their draft is actually about underneath the first version they put down.

The blank page is less intimidating once a writer has real techniques to fall back on — sensory detail, voice, structure, revision strategies. Joanne earned her English BA at Santa Clara with a specialization in teaching and went on to complete a Master's in Educational Studies at Michigan, giving her both the literary knowledge and the pedagogical skill to coach writers across genres. Whether someone is drafting a personal essay, a short story, or an experimental piece, she knows how to push the work forward.

Statistics might seem like an odd foundation for creative writing, but Dylan's training at the University of Chicago in finding patterns and building arguments from data translates into an unusual strength: helping writers tighten the logic of their narratives, spot where a story's internal structure breaks down, and make deliberate choices about what to include versus cut. He also writes across genres himself — from college essays to literary analysis — and brings that range to sessions where students are drafting fiction, poetry, or personal pieces that need both creative risk and disciplined revision.