My love of tutoring grows out of a love of the power of language to communicate ideas. I'm always energized by the exchange of ideas that takes place during a tutoring session, and by the challenge of discovering how each student's mind can best grasp a concept. As a writer of fiction and screenplays, my favorite tutoring assignments involve helping students with their own writing projects. It delights me to see them overcome mental blocks and discover the joys of language and self-expression. I've helped thousands of students construct essays of every kind, from academic to admissions to the essays associated with standardized tests. Through a question and answer process, I help each student to unearth what he or she has to say on a given topic, then the two of us structure and revise their drafts line by line until we're both happy with every word of the final result.

I have over twenty years' experience as a tutor and a writing coach. I worked for a major test-prep company throughout those years, specializing in the SAT, ACT, GRE and GMAT. My specialties as a student were British and American literature, but I delved extensively into philosophy, psychology, and history as well. I've pursued my interest in these subjects to this day, and enjoy including elements of them in my tutoring sessions. My other great love is film. When not tutoring, I can be found watching movies, writing them, or making them with Portland's X-Ray Film Collective.