Your Words Unleashed

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I talk about why academics have such a hard time getting straight to the point in their writing and offer suggestions on how to change it.  Remember, it's up to YOU as the author to tell the audience what to focus on, not put the responsibility on them to figure out! For step-by-step support for your writing projects apply for Leslie's Your Words Unleash...

Send us Fan Mail Learn what my most successful clients do to make sure they make progress on their writing. No. Matter. What. For step-by-step support for your writing projects apply for Leslie's Your Words Unleashed Six-Month Program . Support the show Check out Leslie's website at www. YourWordsUnleashed.com ! The three ways Leslie can help you with coaching & developmental editing...

Send us Fan Mail This past academic year has been a beast! Since summer’s just beginning, here’s your chance to take stock of the past school year. This episode will help you reflect on what’s been working well for you, what hasn’t, and what you want to change so you can create a more satisfying and sustainable life and career. For step-by-step support for your writing projects apply for Leslie&ap...

Send us Fan Mail Summer is around the corner and you know you need to do something major to reclaim the parts of yourself you have lost this past academic year. You want to take advantage of this time out of the classroom to push your projects forward so that you can start the fall semester in a calm and confident place. The problem with all of this planning is that many of you are likely burnt ou...

Send us Fan Mail How do you know if you're truly burnt out? In this episode (and the next), I delve into this topic and what you can do about it. Although this term seems like it’s everywhere, in this episode I define what it is and how to know if you actually are burnt out. I define the 3 main qualities of burnout and list the 7 characteristics of a high burnout organization so you can figur...

Send us Fan Mail A lot of the authors I work with are junior scholars very early on in their careers, and their book will be the primary stepping stone to their dream job or to achieving tenure. Others are quite established scholars, some of whom already have tenure and who have spent the majority of their careers focused on publishing journal articles.  They’ve become really good at article writi...

Send us Fan Mail If you’re like me, you’re constantly try to find ways to get more efficient at things so you can cram more into your day and feel some sense of control over your life! It’s so easy to lose momentum with your writing when things gets too hectic. On today’s episode I’m going to be talking about a different, and potentially better, way to think about time and how we can release ourse...

Send us Fan Mail This episode talks about something that strikes fear into the heart of many introvert academics: promoting your own book! Although your press will do some amount of marketing of your book, the brunt of promotion is primarily on YOU. So this episode addresses how to reframe the fear of self-promotion, followed by 6 different effective strategies for letting people know about your n...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I talk about something that can have a major positive impact on your work, your writing process. and the amount of writing you are able to produce. And that is the power of “priming” your mind. Priming basically refers to how being exposed to one stimulus can affect your reaction to another stimulus later on. In essence, your mind is constantly storing information...

Send us Fan Mail Well, the time has come for me to talk about one of the—if not THE—most important part of getting a scholarly book contract.   And that is the book proposal!  A couple of weeks ago, I did a workshop for faculty at Rutgers University on this topic, and it was amazing how many questions people had about it.   This is also an area that I work with my clients in a very hands-on way.  ...

Send us Fan Mail One of the biggest challenges my clients face is figuring out how to write during semesters when they are also teaching. It’s not just a matter of trying to fit writing into their schedules—which is a huge challenge in and of itself. But it’s also about the difficulty of balancing the short-term, hard deadlines of teaching with the longer-term, seemingly lower stakes deadlines tha...

Send us Fan Mail In today's episode I clear up the question: should you submit your materials for review to more than one press at the same time? I talk about whether you should meet with multiple editors at the same time. I also go into detail about the process of simultaneous review--what the ethics are and the three main points to keep in mind if you want to go down this path. Ultimately,...

Send us Fan Mail Today I’m going to be re-releasing one of my favorite podcast episodes, which helps you set clear and sustainable boundaries with your job. It is based on an exercise I call “Semester Absolutes” that is best to do at the very beginning of your semester before things get overly hectic and you start just saying yes to everything. Trust me, if you set your limits ahead of time and th...

Send us Fan Mail Right now, I’m visiting my family in California, so I’ve decided to re-release the very first episode of my podcast.  It also happens to be my most listened-to episode of all time.  For those of you who started tuning in later, I introduce myself and explain why I became a book writing coach. I also talk about how your thoughts and mindset influence your writing and give you an ex...

Send us Fan Mail This episode will give you some questions that will help you process the roller-coaster of 2022 in all its glory and reflect on everything you’ve accomplished! You can get reacquainted with your own priorities and the things you value, and bring them front and center again moving forward.  By the end of the year, we forget so much of what happened, especially since we’re all still...

Send us Fan Mail Today’s episode is inspired by a lively webinar I participated in recently called “How Writing Coaches Get Unstuck” that helped kick off Academic Writing Month for Sage Publishing. The webinar featured myself, Michelle Boyd, and Cathy Mazak. We’re all writing coaches and published authors and were also there to celebrate the publication of Michelle’s wonderful new book with Sage,...

Send us Fan Mail Today’s podcast episode is inspired by a workshop I recently ran for mid-career faculty at Rutgers University. The topic was the challenges of writing your second book. They asked me to run this because most book writing advice—and let’s admit, job advice in general—is geared towards helping junior faculty. This makes sense in a lot of ways because junior scholars have the most to...

Send us Fan Mail Today I am going to try to clear up some misconceptions about book contracts and clarify whether or not it’s in your best interests to obtain an advance contract for your manuscript. In a nutshell: it depends! And I’ll explain all the reasons why and help you sort this out for yourself. For step-by-step support for your writing projects apply for Leslie's Your Words Unleashed...

Send us Fan Mail On today’s episode we are going to talk about a topic that is somewhat taboo in academia, and that’s money . Specifically, I’m going to give you some ideas for how to get writing coaching and other kinds of professional development funded by your institution.  But more broadly, I’m going to talk about the concept of money mindsets and why we need to view spending money on ourselve...

Send us Fan Mail Hi writers! I bet that things are really starting to ramp up in your work weeks.  Now that the semester’s up and running again, you need to focus and prioritize your book writing time much, much more. That is, if you hope to get anything done besides teaching, service, and the writing projects you’ve committed to that have clear deadlines. So today I’m going to be talking about a...

Send us Fan Mail Today I’m going to be talking about something that comes up a lot with my coaching clients, and that is ways to manage fears around writing. My view is that fear arises when your inner critic is trying to protect you and keep you safe.  As I’ve talked about before, your inner critic has positive intentions even when it’s making you feel anxiety and self-doubt by telling you horrib...

Send us Fan Mail Today’s episode is meant to help you figure out what to prioritize in your work this semester.  I want you to keep your own mental, physical, and emotional health and well-being at the forefront, and this means SAYING NO to things that do not serve you. When I talk about saying no to requests, I’m especially referring to service and committee work that can be extremely tiring and...

Send us Fan Mail On today’s episode I’m going to be talking about how important it is to be part of writing groups and how to run them. This is always true, but especially so when you’re working on your first book. When you have the support and accountability, you will not only write more, but you’ll feel a lot better while doing it. And who doesn’t want that? For step-by-step support for your wri...

Send us Fan Mail On today's podcast episode I thought I would do something a little bit different. Rather than giving tips or advice about writing, I’d like to help you create a sense of internal calm with a short guided meditation. When you’re in a calm, curious, and collected space, much more is possible in every realm of life. In the days ahead, with their many challenges, you can use this...

Send us Fan Mail Today's episode talks about ways to befriend your inner critic and treat yourself with more compassion. For step-by-step support for your writing projects apply for Leslie's Your Words Unleashed Six-Month Program . Support the show Check out Leslie's website at www. YourWordsUnleashed.com ! The three ways Leslie can help you with coaching & developmental editing...