Book Coach, Editor, Writer
Hi, I’m Katelin. I love Jesus, stories, tabletop games, and being outdoors. My heart beats to help writers tell their best stories and achieve their writing goals.
Book Coach
I’ve always enjoyed talking with writers about their goals and projects, so over the years I took time to have one-on-one conversations with the writers I knew. I was their sounding board to work though story issues. I helped them brainstorm and set goals. I provided accountability, listened when they shared their writing struggles, and encouraged them through all the ups and downs of writing a book.
Then I found Author Accelerator and learned about book coaching. A book coach does all of this along with developmental editing and project management. I immediately knew that I wanted to be a book coach. This is the career that uses all of my skills and talents, allowing me to work closely with writers on the content that I’m most passionate about: stories.
I received my fiction book coach certification in August 2022, memoir certification in March 2024, and nonfiction certification in July 2024.
Fantasy is my favorite genre, so I started with fiction certification. I added nonfiction and memoir because I realized I want to help people write the book they are burning to write, no matter what the genre. When someone has a mission or passion to write and publish a book, I want to help them achieve that goal.
As an Author Accelerator certified book coach, I am qualified to coach writers using Author Accelerator's strategy, methods, and materials, but I operate independently of Author Accelerator and am not affiliated with them.
Editor and Project Manager
Besides write novels, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do professionally after college. I found a job with The Evangelical Catholic and enjoyed helping wherever needed, discovering my strengths and learning skills along the way. At different times over fourteen years working there, I was office manager, writer, editor, project manager, and team lead.
I found that while I don’t enjoy writing for other people (it’s hard enough to write my own stuff), I love editing. There’s so much satisfaction in taking a piece from good to great. The Evangelical Catholic produced a lot of content for communications, fundraising, marketing, teaching, and inspiration, and I had many opportunities to provide copyediting, line editing, and developmental editing.
Through my work there, I also learned that I love project management. I have a natural talent for breaking down a large project into manageable chunks, keeping people on track to finish projects, and accompanying them through the ups and downs of creating something new.
I also created online courses, book layouts, published small group guides and training workbooks on Kindle Direct, and corresponded with the organization's publisher about other book projects.
But the most fulfilling thing was managing a small team of content creators. Guiding and accompanying writers to create their best work felt like what I was made to do. As I ended my time with The Evangelical Catholic, I began my journey as a book coach.
More recently, I served as Freelance Production Editor for Augustine Institute’s Word of Life eighth-grade curriculum, which was another great experience helping a team create a book.
Life-long Writer
As a kid, before I learned to write, I used to take blank lined paper and scribble lines and loops in imitation of my mother’s cursive. I imagined creating some vague greatness in those doodles. Years later, I’m still seeking to create greatness from word doodles.
Throughout my school years and into adulthood, I wrote journal entries, short stories, poems, fan fiction, novels, and flash fiction. I completed the 50,000 word novel challenge of National Novel Writing Month five times. Some pieces I finished while others remained messy first drafts. I enjoyed writing, and liked many of my stories, but I never published anything. I want to share my writing with the world someday, but I haven’t yet completed any specific piece I want to publish.
I struggled along the way to learn how to write well and how to craft a good story. I read books on writing, attended workshops, and joined writing groups. I re-imagined, re-outlined, and revised my first novel so many times before I realized that it was fundamentally flawed and time to move on to a new story.
Once, I gave up writing completely, feeling that I was obsessing over my novel too much. I thought: “What good is my writing doing for the world? This is a waste of time.” It took me several years of ignoring God’s promptings before I finally believed him that writing, like all art, is good, beautiful, and worth pursuing.
Now, I’ve found my passion for writing again, and I’m revising a novel that I might try to publish someday. I learned a lot from Author Accelerator and feel ready to write my best work yet.
“None can sense more deeply than you artists, ingenious creators of beauty that you are, something of the pathos with which God at the dawn of creation looked upon the work of his hands.”
— St. John Paul II, Letter to Artists, 1.
Other Fun Stuff
My Catholic faith permeates every part of my life. I love that God created us, loves us, became human to die and save us, and invites us to participate in his creative life of love for all eternity.
I am a mentor at the Legend Fiction community for Catholic fiction writers and I volunteer for the Catholic Writers Guild.
I live in Wisconsin with my husband. We play board games and tabletop roleplaying games. Some of my favorites are Near and Far, Eclipse, and Sentinel Comics: The Roleplaying Game. But learning new games is just as fun as playing old favorites. We also play some video games, especially Final Fantasy and Zelda.
Of course, I’m always reading and watching movies and TV shows. I’m a fan of Brandon Sanderon’s Cosmere books, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars, and Avatar: The Last Airbender, among others.
Outdoors, I enjoy hiking, sailing, kayaking, and fishing. I don’t get to go on these sorts of adventures as much as I would like! When I was younger, I was a figure skater and foil fencer, and I wish I was cool enough to say that I kept up with those sports.
Book a time to chat with me! I’d love to meet you.
