Story Grid
Editor Roundtable
Podcast

Anne Hawley is a third-generation native Oregonian, a graduate of Portland State University, and a big fan of Regency England. When she’s not editing stories, she’s writing them, reading them, researching them, or podcasting about them. She specializes in helping writers discover the heart of the story they’re trying to tell so that they can tell it more beautifully. She can often be seen riding her Dutch bike Eleanor around Portland. She’s the author of Restraint, a love story set in 19th Century London.

Kimberly Kessler didn’t finish college. In October 2014, she quit her corporate job to pursue passion projects—and it has been the best decision of her life. Since that day, she gained a son through open adoption, wrote her first novel, and got to add TEDx speaker to her resume. Now Kim is a developmental editor, getting to combine her two favorite things in the world—stories and people. Nothing is more rewarding than helping someone else get a breakthrough on their plot and process. But most of all, she hopes to help others realize it’s never too late to live your best story.

Leslie Watts is a certified Story Grid editor, writer, and podcaster. She’s been writing for as long as she can remember: from her sixth-grade magazine about cats to writing practice while drafting opinions for an appellate court judge. When the dust settled after her children were born, she launched Writership.com to help writers unearth the treasure in their manuscripts. She believes writers become better storytellers through practice, and that editors owe a duty of care to help writers with specific and supportive guidance to meet reader expectations and express their unique gifts in the world.

Valerie Francis is a Certified Story Grid Editor and best-selling author of both women’s and children’s fiction. As a writer, she understands what it feels like to struggle with a manuscript that doesn’t work and has spent many late nights rewriting drafts in frustration. That all changed in January 2015, when she discovered The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know (then in blog form). Since then, she has been studying and applying Shawn Coyne’s methodology and knows from experience how well his technique works. In fact, that’s why she became a Certified Story Grid Editor — to help her fellow authors, in all genres, learn to apply these editing principles and ultimately become better storytellers.

Jarie Bolander is an engineer by training and an entrepreneur by nature. He has over 20 years of experience bring innovative products to market, which gives him a unique perspective on the power of storytelling in business. His editing approach is to be data driven and to understand how we can help the author bring their vision to life. He has published four books — The Entrepreneur Ethos, Frustration Free Technical Management, #Endurance tweet – A Little Nudge to Keep You Going, and Business Basics for Entrepreneurs.