Cheryl Jarvis
Writing Coach

I was the kid in school you probably found annoying because teachers tended to read my written work aloud to the class. I thought I’d die of embarrassment.

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I never imagined then that I’d become a staff editor of a city magazine, editor-in-chief of a home design magazine, features editor of a startup daily newspaper, or tv producer of a national talk show.

 

And I truly never imagined that I’d write a book that was featured on Oprah, debated on the BBC, satirized in Jay Leno’s opening monologue and a New Yorker cartoon, and optioned by Goldie Hawn’s production company. Or write another one that landed on the New York Times bestseller list and was published in 19 countries.

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As a feature writer for magazines and newspapers, I specialized in stories about ordinary people achieving the extraordinary: a 67-year-old nurse helicoptering into third-world countries to bring U.S. relief packages…

a long-married woman solo-walking the 2200-mile Appalachian Trail…. a privileged 35-year-old weightlifter defying family expectations to open an inner-city gym for African-American teenagers.

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I’ve also drawn material from my own life, turning my most difficult experiences into the most meaningful. I’ve published essays about losing 15 years of writing samples in basement floodwater, enduring a week at sea with Outward Bound, surviving a year in L.A. with my millennial son as a roomie, discovering my parents’ love letters from World War II, and (baring all) having sex with one man for 25 years.