I’m working on a new website (unicorns! services for writers! hoorah!). Amid all the chores, there is one delightful task: to solicit testimonials from happy clients. Here are a few … couldn’t wait for the new site in order to start sharing! Thank you SO much for to these lovely beings who’ve written such kind words about me.

(And, erm… she said shyly … if you’ve worked with me and you feel like adding your own testimonial in the comments or by emailing me … I would be MOST HAPPY and grateful!)

If you want your book to sizzle, you want Minal Hajratwala to touch your project. In Minal, you get a whip smart, inventive and big picture editor, an insightful reader, a dedicated partner, and most importantly a gentle and sensitive friend that sees you from early draft to published prose. (T.L. Coulter, memoir writer)

My sessions with writing coach Minal Hajratwala were chock full of helpful information that addressed my creative impulse at large, my specific novel-in-progress, and provided invaluable encouragement and advice to me as a writer. Here’s an example: In April on 2011, I wrote to Minal to see if we could schedule a coaching session. I wanted help preparing my application for a writer’s retreat. Not only did we schedule a session, but Minal’s experience and tips made my application so successful that I was added to a select group of 30 writers who would become Lambda Literary Foundation Fellows! By the way, Minal was in India at the time, and I was in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil! Nothing daunted, we made excellent use of Skype and email. Thanks, Minal! (Dawn Robinson, novelist)

Minal is a writer’s editor. She provided the perfect mix of encouragement and helpful suggestions that made my manuscript sing. She has the rare ability to see the macro and micro and give specific instructions on how to make your text clearer, more pointed and more poignant. I was thrilled with her coaching. (Sarah Richards, journalist, Author of Motherhood, Rescheduled: Life Off the Biological Clock — Simon & Schuster 2013)

Minal Hajratwala was an immense help in the development of my writing project. She gave me many suggestions that contributed to greater focus and direction. She helped me build more creative tension in the manuscript. And she passed on many practical tips that made for a smoother, yet more dynamic reading experience. Minal saw the potential in the project, understood the writing process, and remained supportive throughout. (Paul Joseph, Professor of Sociology, Tufts University, Fulbright-Nehru Distinguished Chair 2011)

I took a first draft of my essay book to Minal Hajratwala for two reasons: she’s smart on politics, race, gender, and all that good stuff AND I love the way her prose leaves me feeling like I’ve just read a book of poetry. Working with Minal, I found a third reason to sing her praises: she’s gentle on the soul and sharp on the writing. She read my manuscript with a fine eye and gave me guidance on where to go next, but she did it all with a great generosity of spirit and respect for me as a writer and for my book-in-progress. I left our coaching session renewed! (Daisy Hernandez, essayista)

The writer’s coach’s writing coach, Minal Hajratwala, opens my head up, unscrambles the stories in my brain, and sets me on a course for completion. She is my writing compass and my personal crazybrain surgeon. From Minal, I have learned how to coax my most complex and deep ideas out of the darkest corners of my mind and out into the light, onto the page. I would never be able to finish my novel without her.

In 2010, I wrote this about my first round of work with Minal as a writing coach:
“Working with Minal set my process free. She helped me to digest the fantastic feedback I’d gotten and then empowered me to pick and choose from that feedback. With Minal’s support, I developed a third draft and then set it aside again, to participate in NaNoWriMo 2010.”

Now that she’s reviewed a manuscript for me, I’ll add that she is a most loving and careful reader. Her feedback after reading the fifth draft of my novel has propelled me forward. She delved even deeper than I’d hoped in terms of attention and devotion to my manuscript, really partnering with me in the challenge of cracking open my big ideas and smoothing out my jagged parts. (Kristy Lin Billuni, The Sexy Grammarian, novelist)