Meet the #AcWriMoments Contributors!

Learn about the scholars, coaches, and editors who'll be bringing you beautiful writing prompts all November long

Contributors of #AcWriMoments prompts are listed below in alphabetical order by first name. Scroll all the way through to get a sense of the wealth of different perspectives that will be shared throughout November!

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alys longley

Associate Professor of Dance Studies, The University of Auckland

alys longley is an interdisciplinary artist and creative practitioner working with choreography and creative writing as expanded fields. She is an Associate Professor in the Dance Studies Programme at the University of Auckland / Waipapa Taumata Ra and has produced numerous global projects in collaboration with international artist peers as well as educational tools for performance writing and artistic research.

“If your heart is beating and your blood is flowing, you can be dancing. Any movement can be dancing … even tapping your toe.”

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Helen Kara

Independent Researcher, Author, Teacher, and Speaker

Helen Kara has been an independent researcher for almost 25 years. She specialises in creative research methods, one of which is writing (yes writing is a research method!). She is the author of Creative Research Methods: A Practical Guide (2nd edition 2020) and the co-author of Creative Writing for Social Research (2021), both published by Policy Press.

“The thought of writing creatively can be daunting for those of us who have learned to report as factually as possible. The good news is … we can all use micro creativity: sensory language, imagery, metaphor, and so on.” (Source)

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Helen Sword

Founder of the WriteSPACE; Professor Emeritus, The University of Auckland

Helen Sword is a poet, scholar, master teacher, and international expert on academic, professional, and creative writing across the disciplines. Her books, articles, and online tools have empowered writers around the world to write more clearly, confidently, prolifically, and with greater pleasure. She is Professor Emeritus of Humanities at the University of Auckland, a research fellow in the Centre for Arts and Social Transformation, and founder of the WriteSPACE, an international online writing community with members in 30+ countries. Helen has facilitated writing workshops at more than 100 universities, conferences, and research institutes worldwide.

“By learning how to cast light on the shadows, you will soon find yourself bringing passion and pleasure to everything you write.”

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Hussain Shah Rezaie

Refugee Writer and Editor; Author of Walk With Me

Hussain Shah Rezaie is a writer and editor from Afghanistan. After living for nine years as a refugee in Tanjung Pinang, Indonesia, he has been granted permanent residency in Aotearoa New Zealand and is now preparing to move there to start a new life outside confinement. Hussain’s writings foster understanding of refugees’ plight in Indonesia through the power of storytelling. His writings have been published in a widely read newspaper and literary magazines, including Cincinnati Review, Jakarta Post, Multatuli Project, Southeast Asia Globe, and the archipelago.

“Finding the right words unburdens my pain. … And it helps me to breathe more normally than other refugees who do not have the aid of words on their side.”

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Inger Mewburn

Professor and Director of Researcher Development at the Australian National University; Author of The Thesis Whisperer

Inger Mewburn is Professor and Director of Researcher Development at the Australian National University, where she curates and operates professional development workshops and programs for all ANU researchers. Her research centres on student experiences and PhD employability, and she founded the Thesis Whisperer blog dedicated to graduate student issues, especially employability.

“I’m passionate about helping people reach their potential as researchers and helping to create a kinder, more inclusive academy.”

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Jane Jones

Book Writing Coach and Founder of the ELEVATE program

Jane Joann Jones is an academic book coach who helps minoritized scholars get the feedback and support they need to confidently write their books. In her nine years as an editor and coach, Jane has successfully helped dozens of academic authors create and execute a writing plan and ultimately write their books, confidently. Her clients have published with presses including Oxford, Princeton, Bloomsbury, University of Chicago, Stanford, Duke, and UNC.

“This I solemnly swear: I’ll never tell you ‘You aren’t working hard enough!’ In fact, I’ll probably tell you to take more breaks.”

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Jane Rosenzweig

Director of the Harvard Writing Center

Jane Rosenzweig is the director of the Harvard College Writing Center and the author of the Writing Hacks newsletter. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, Harvard Business Review, Times Higher Education, Seventeen, Glimmer Train, and the May Anthology of Oxford and Cambridge Short Stories.

“Your writing will be clearer and more effective if you make conscious choices about what to keep, what to cut, and what to revise.”

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Jillian Hess

Professor of English at Bronx Community College, CUNY

Jillian Hess is Professor of English at Bronx Community College, CUNY. She is the author of How Romantics and Victorians Organized Information: Commonplace Books, Scrapbooks, and Albums (Oxford University Press 2022). Subscribe to her newsletter, Noted, to read about the world's greatest notetakers.

“Knowledge is messy—so notes are messy. And I love that about the process.”

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Jim Lang

Professor, Teacher, Author, Columnist

James M. Lang is a visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence in 2023-24. He is the author of six books, the most recent of which are Distracted: Why Students Can’t Focus and What You Can Do About It (Basic Books, 2020), and Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning (Jossey-Bass, 2016). He writes a monthly column on teaching and learning for The Chronicle of Higher Education, and his book reviews and public scholarship on higher education have appeared in a wide variety of newspapers and magazines, including the Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Time, The Conversation, Commonweal, and America.

“The careful thinking that we do in the academic world needs to find a wider audience—one that extends beyond our classrooms and disciplinary journals and conventions.”

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Jo Van Every

Academic Career Guide

Jo Van Every is an Academic Career Guide and runs the Academic Writing Studio, a community with coworking, group coaching, and classes to support academics in protecting time to write and resist overwork. A Canadian residing in England with a dog, cat, and partner, Jo is a feminist and a keen textile maker. Her former work as a sociologist and with a research funding agency informs her work supporting academics to develop consistent writing practices and manage their workloads in the face of institutional demands and busy home lives. You can subscribe to her newsletter here.

“I am more interested in questions than answers. I don’t think academic work is about winning arguments; the creation of knowledge is inherently collaborative. I consider ‘thought provoking’ to be the highest praise.”

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Katie Linder

Podcaster, Author, and Coach

Katie Linder has a passion for helping others engage in and create meaningful change. She is the creator of the You’ve Got This podcast and blogs weekly at The Academic Creative. Katie’s most recent book is Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers. Currently, she serves as the Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Innovation and Strategy at the University of Colorado Denver. Katie is also a Certified Coach through the International Coach Federation.

“In a very deep way, and with an incredible amount of consistency, I trust that I can do the things that I set out to do. This is what helps me get out of my own way.”

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Laura Portwood-Stacer

Founder of Manuscript Works and Author of The Book Proposal Book

Laura Portwood-Stacer is a developmental editor and founder of Manuscript Works, a consultancy serving academic authors around the world. Her book, The Book Proposal Book: A Guide for Scholarly Authors, and online workshops have helped thousands of writers who want to publish with scholarly presses. To get free book publishing tips and announcements of upcoming programs, subscribe to the Manuscript Works newsletter.

“You don’t have to be perfect, and neither does your proposal or your book [or other writing]. You just have to have a message to share and readers you hope to share it with.”

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Leslie Wang

Founder of Your Words Unleashed

Leslie Wang is the creator of Your Words Unleashed, which offers private coaching and online workshops that help scholars master their writing habits and publish books that matter. A certified life coach and former tenured professor, she helps authors access their own internal wisdom, overcome anxiety and imposter syndrome, and make decisions grounded in their core values so they can write with more ease and purpose. For actionable writing tips and mindset strategies, listen to Your Words Unleashed Podcast or subscribe to her weekly newsletter.

“As a scholar, your research can transform how people think and make you a powerful agent of social change.”

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Margy Thomas

Creator of ScholarShape

Margy Thomas, creator of ScholarShape, helps you center your scholarly work around your deep wisdom and intrinsic motivation so that the scholarship you create expresses what you believe is true and important, resonates with readers, and contributes to the collective project of healing the world. ScholarShape was founded in 2013 as a developmental editing service and has grown over the past decade into a larger project devoted to elucidating the patterns of Story-Argument across genres, disciplines, and ways of life. For free Story-Argument tools, visit the ScholarShape Extracts and check out the Scholar Magic course.

“Within your life is a Story-Argument that exists nowhere else. Excavate it, shape it, and share it somewhere, somehow: This is the work worth doing.”

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Marialuisa Aliotta

Professor of Experimental Nuclear Astrophysics, The University of Edinburgh

Marialuisa Aliotta is an Italian experimental nuclear astrophysicist interested in laboratory investigation of nuclear reactions that occur in stars and govern their lifetimes and evolution. She is Professor of Experimental Nuclear Astrophysics at the University of Edinburgh (UK), where she contributes to both the undergraduate and graduate teaching programme of the School of Physics and Astronomy, including through masterclasses on Academic Writing in the Sciences.

“The field of nuclear astrophysics is perfect for stimulating your curiosity and it is connected to the fundamental, big questions that humankind has always asked – where do we come from, why are we here, are we alone in the universe, where do the building blocks of life come from?”

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Martha B. Coven

Author, Writing Consultant, and Visiting Professor, Princeton University

Martha B. Coven (@mbcoven), author of Writing on the Job: Best Practices for Communicating in the Digital Age, is a Visiting Professor at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and an independent consultant. She has been writing on the job for more than 25 years, in the White House and for members of Congress as well as in the private sector.

“People who write well on the job are more effective at carrying out their organization’s mission and more likely to advance professionally.”

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Michael W. Moses II

Assistant Professor of Higher Education & Qualitative Methods, UC Riverside

Michael W. Moses II is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education & Qualitative Methods at University of California, Riverside. His scholarship uses critical race theory to understand racism in higher education, qualitative methods, and academic writing and professional development practices. His recent work theorizes composting and the body as novel approaches to reimagine what it means for academic writers to write every day.

“We’re socialized to think writing is solely a product of the mind. I use critical race theory to center the body as equally important to writing.”

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Michelle Boyd

Founder of InkWell Writing Retreats and Author of Becoming the Writer You Already Are

Michelle Boyd is an award-winning writer, a former tenured faculty member, and the founder of InkWell Academic Writing Retreats. She specializes in helping stuck, scared scholars free themselves from fear and build a satisfying, sustainable writing practice. ​Michelle has helped hundreds of scholars—from all ranks and a wide range of institutions and inter/disciplines—move past their anxieties, reconnect with their writing, and develop a calmer, more confident, more productive writing practice. Sign up for InkWell's free online retreat to experience the power of retreat writing for yourself."  

“Successful writers write from the inside out: they turn inward to discover their own writing process.”

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Patricia Goodson

Professor at Texas A&M University; Founder & Director of POWER Services

Pat Goodson is a Professor at Texas A&M University in the U.S. She founded and directs POWER Services to nurture graduate students’, post-docs’ and faculty’s academic writing. She has authored two books for academic writers: Becoming an Academic Writer: 50 Exercises for Paced, Productive, and Powerful Writing, and 90 Days, 90 Ways: Inspiration, Tips & Strategies for Academic Writers (with Mina Beigi and Melika Shirmohammadi).

“As I learned, practiced, and saw the positive outcomes in my own writing, I became convinced that anyone can write—as long as they learn the steps to developing a healthy writing habit.”

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Steven Pinker

Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology, Harvard University

Steven Pinker is an experimental cognitive psychologist and a popular writer on language, mind, and human nature. Critically acclaimed for his research on vision, language, and social relations, he is currently the Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. He writes for publications such as the New York Times, Time and The Atlantic, and is the author of twelve books, including The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 2oth Century, on the psycho-linguistics of good writing.

“I would argue that nothing gives life more purpose than the realization that every moment of consciousness is a precious and fragile gift.”

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Selina Tusitala Marsh

Professor of English at the University of Auckland; Commonwealth Poet (2016); Poet Laureate of Aotearoa New Zealand (2017-19)

Selina Tusitala Marsh is an Auckland-based Pacific poet and scholar. Her work has been published widely, and she has received major awards for her services to poetry, literature and the Pacific community, including being named New Zealand Poet Laureate 2017 – 2019. Selina has performed her poetry for a range of audiences, from primary schoolers and presidents (Obama) to queers and Queens (HRH Elizabeth II). She also develops Writing, Creativity, and Innovation Workshops for the educational, government, and corporate sectors.

“I inspire people by performing my poetry, telling my tale and helping others find theirs.”   

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Sophie Nicholls

Associate Professor at Teesside University and author of Dear Writing

Sophie Nicholls is a best-selling author, teacher, and researcher, who is passionate about using creative writing in education, health care, and professional development. She is currently an Associate Professor at Teesside University and creates workshops and writing communities for universities, businesses, and voluntary organisations. Drawing on psychodynamic therapies and mindfulness, her teaching and research explore the connections between creative writing and wellbeing. Her Substack newsletter, Dear Writing, explores writing, life, and creativity through the lens of personal wellbeing.

“I believe that creativity has never been more important. The world needs writers and makers. It needs our ideas, our courage, and our talents.”

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Stay tuned! Each day in November 2023, we’ll bring you a useful, beautiful writing prompt from one of our contributors.

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For more scholarly writing inspiration, check out these resources from the curators of #AcWriMoments:

• ScholarShape by Margy Thomas

• WriteSPACE by Helen Sword