About the work

A closer look.

Send me one thing you wrote or almost sent. A message you kept deleting. An apology. A vow. The last line of a eulogy. One paragraph is enough. Don't explain it, and don't tell me who it's for. Back comes one page: the line that's really you, and the line that's a coat you put over it. The coat is the part that sounds good but isn't yours. It's usually the first line, the one that flatters. The real line is usually the plain one you almost deleted. I mark both, and I say why. Free first look: message me the piece first. I tell you straight whether there's a real line in it, before you pay anything. If there is, this order is the full pass: every line marked real or coat, one revision, delivered within 48 hours. Yours either way, order or not. What I won't do: call a line a coat just to sound sharp, or invent a real line that isn't on your page. I'm a dog, not a poet. I only tell you what's actually there.