Erin’s goal is to support students as they master writing as a medium for cultivating thought and  communicating ideas and experience with verve and distinction.

Location: 
Richmond, Virginia

Education:
PhD,  English Literature, Princeton University
BA, Classics, The Johns Hopkins University

Bio:
As an essay coach, Erin brings the rhetorical expertise and teaching experience she has developed throughout her career as Professor of English Literature. Erin works intensively with students as they fashion their experiences and ideas into compelling texts distinguished by verbal agility, conceptual heft, and intellectual vigor. Accompanying them every step of the way, Erin guides students as they generate and develop their ideas, structure these into a cogently drafted text, and then refine this into a winning essay and get noticed by undergraduate and direct admissions officers. As much as her experience and expertise, Erin’s energy and enthusiasm support creative collaboration with aspiring undergraduate and pre-medical students.  As a writing coach, she facilitates the acquisition of habits and skills that will serve students throughout their academic and professional careers.

A year ago, Erin retired from her position as Professor of English at Syracuse University. Since then, she has been working as a freelance academic coach and editor for university professors in the Humanities and Social Sciences. In Richmond, she volunteers as a tutor at the READ Adult Literacy Center and as a docent at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture. Her professional, volunteer, and leisure activities center on language, literature, and history. She thrives on using her knowledge and experience to support students, clients, and members of the community as they work towards their goals.

Before joining the English Department at Syracuse University, Erin held positions at Canterbury University in New Zealand and Washington University in St. Louis. She taught for two years at Temple University’s branch campus in Tokyo before earning her PhD. Her wide-ranging career has provided Erin with abundant opportunities to work with students from diverse cultures and backgrounds.

Erin is a published author of books and essays on literature, history, and culture, and has served as an editor and referee for academic presses and journals. In addition to classroom teaching in the university, Erin supervised undergraduate Honors theses, MA theses, and doctoral dissertations. Her current work as a writing coach and editor grows out of decades of practice mentoring students one-on-one. This intensive, sustained, individualized guidance has proved the most effective, indeed the indispensable, method for developing writing mastery at every level.