A Meeting With Your Writing: Acknowledgements

On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of A Meeting With Your Writing, I’d like to properly and publicly thank those who helped make it happen.

I want to thank all the people who inspired me, taught me, and supported me as I developed A Meeting With Your Writing. There are others who have had an influence on my business in a bigger way. I’ve limited this list to those with a reasonably direct influence on A Meeting With Your Writing. My appreciation extends well beyond those named here.

Jennifer Hofmann developed the basic structure for her Office Spa Days and then taught it to me and other volunteer hosts. She was generous in allowing me to use that structure in my own business. She also modelled compassionate ways of planning, goal-setting, and solving problems in ways that have had a pervasive influence on my approach. The Creative Haven community was an important support for me in those early days.

Fabeku Fantunmise and Charlie Gilkey both provided business advice and coaching in the early years of A Meeting With Your Writing. It took a long time for me to really integrate everything I learned from both of them, but I am forever grateful for their support. Fabeku has been particularly helpful in inspiring me to try new things and take risks. I have learned a lot about planning from Charlie, and regularly recommend his Momentum Planners. He’s developing an app for that now.

Lee Skallerup Bessette had at least one conversation with me about A Meeting With Your Writing in the summer of 2012, and we talked about what day of the week would be best. I’m pretty sure she suggested Mondays and talked through the potential benefits of that with me. That worked out better than we imagined. In the last few years, Lee has hosted a podcast with Aimée Morrison about ADHD and being women in academia: All the Things ADHD. I have learned so much from their rambling discussions and recommended the podcast to many. They’ve helped me understand both why A Meeting With Your Writing is ADHD friendly (as ADHD clients had already pointed out to me), and why my insistence on people figuring out what works for them and building on it is so important. There isn’t one ADHD friendly way to do things, either.

Joely Black and Jeanette Hannaford both started out as participants and then volunteered to host when other participants chastised me for hosting on my holidays despite encouraging others to take proper holidays. They have now become regular members of the Studio team and enable me to continue to offer A Meeting With You Writing as other parts of my business grows and develops. Their long experience as both participants and hosts is also really helpful when my confidence wobbles or new inspiration threatens to distract me from the stuff that works well.

Sarah Marie Lacy, has been my VA and tech fairy in various ways over most of the 10 years I have been doing this. She is now transitioning out of that role to focus on her art though she will remain a good friend. She helped build the systems that make my business work. I was able to use those systems myself during the years when personal circumstances (including a trans-Atlantic move) meant that my business was running at minimum capacity. And when I was ready to rebuild after that, she redesigned both websites and put the technological infrastructure in place that is the foundation for the next several years. I couldn’t have done this without her.

My approach to writing, and to supporting writers including neurodivergent writers, was also heavily influenced by people I met through the homeschooling community. Andrea Rennick introduced me to various small biz blogs and to WordPress. She has been a friend and supporter throughout this journey. Julie Bogart has taught me so much about writing and supporting writers through her business Brave Writer, and her friendship. I learned a lot about neurodivergence and strength based approaches in the community Cindy Gaddis built through her Homeschooling Creatively Yahoo group.

Last, but not least, I thank my clients!

Thank you for taking a chance on this weird thing I created back in 2012. Thank you for telling your friends and colleagues about it. Thank you to the 2 clients I initially met when we were PhD students who decided to trust I could help you with grant proposals and then other things. I am kind of amazed we’re still supporting each other 30 years later. Thank you to those universities who hired me to help their faculty with grant applications from 2005 onwards. And to the clients who first worked with me when their university hired me to help you with your grant application and followed me to a Meeting With Your Writing and beyond. Thank you to those who followed me on Twitter, thought I was saying sensible things, came to A Meeting With Your Writing, and recommended me to your followers and colleagues.

Here’s to the next 10 years!

Introducing: the Academic Writing Studio

4 years of A Meeting With Your Writing

A story from… A Meeting With Your Writing