Clients and Their Projects

Clients Building & Advancing Their Careers Through Writing

Ayori Selassie

Ayori ‘Selfpreneur’ Selassie is an Angel Investor, entrepreneur, an advisor in the field of Data and AI, and is the patented inventor behind Life Model Canvas®.

She publishes content on TheSelfpreneur.com to share perspectives and stories on disruptive social innovation in the Age of the Selfpreneur and the Fourth Industrial Revolution. 

Ayori and I spent time organizing her ideas and preparing a content calendar so she would always have a topic to write about that is important to her and her audience.

Ayori says, “Having a thought partner who takes the time to understand your goals, your personal brand, and the message you are trying to send your audience is powerful. Planning the content, developing ideas, producing a content calendar, and having someone who is an expert editing your content for crispness and clarity is incredible. I feel like I have super powers when I am working with Paula!”

Kelly L. Campbell

Kelly L. Campbell (they/she) speaks and writes about trauma, leadership, and consciousness—”The New TLC.” The author of Heal to Lead (Wiley, April 2024), Kelly is a Trauma-Informed Leadership Coach to emerging and established leaders who know they are meant for more. Kelly’s vision is for more than half of humanity to heal its childhood trauma so that we may reimagine and rebuild the world together.

Kelly and I took months to compose a comprehensive, cited, and complete proposal for her to share with literary agents. Along with the need and purpose of her book, Kelly researched the book marketplace for competition, and reached out to giants in her industry for cover blurbs and quotes.

Kelly says, “Paula is the book proposal and writing coach you’ve dreamed of. Within 30 days of proposal completion, three literary agents requested a copy and commented on how well crafted it was.

And she continues her praise, “You were one of the best investments I made in myself throughout this process, Paula Diaco… and within months of proposal completion, as you know, Heal to Lead was published by Wiley.”

Trish Alley

Defining Grace: Showing Up With The Gift of Divine Mischief is Trish’s compilation of stories, poems, and practices that have shown up in her life journey so far. Trish sees Grace as her guide on the journey. Grace, Trish asks, “How do we look to something we cannot see? We notice where She has been. I tripped over Grace on my way to giving up hope. She illuminated my path, got me back on track.”

When Trish and I met, she was eager to collect her many essays, poems, and insights, select the right ones for her memoir as well as write new ones to complete her story.

Trish is now seeking representation so she can get Defining Grace in the hands of readers eager to pursue their own Divine Mischief.

“Paula was my first writing co-conspirator. She made the ‘practice of writing’ a priority in my busy life by showing up regularly at my house. We laughed and cried a lot sitting side-by-side, as we both listened to my authentic voice and saw it come together on the page. She remains a trusted advisor as I pursue publishing.”

Alyssa Berthiaume

When Ally first connected to work with me on her book idea, I asked her what genre manuscript she was writing. She said, “Memoir.” Good thing we were on the phone and she couldn’t see the look on my face. Know that when I spoke to her, she was, maybe, 30-years-old. I knew she had grown up in a loving, stable, and happy home. What, oh, what in the way of strife or pain did she have to share in a memoir?

It became obvious, fast, that she had a lifetime of experience to share. As we mapped her story arc, which she has documented with all manner of ephemera from her earliest childhood years to a minute ago, I saw some recurring themes: Young girl meets boy, breaks up, grows up, meets a man. They fall in love and experience a mixture of fireworks, pain, and loss. Ally turned her stories, and the revelations she learned along the way, into a kick-ass memoir/self help guide: Dear Universe, I Get it Now: Letters on the Art and Journey of Being Brave and Being Me.

“Thank you for always believing in the power of words and story and helping me find my voice to tell it.”

Gerette Buglion

Gerette and I met at a women’s business group meeting. She introduced herself and said she ran an airbnb/retreat center. I needed to meet her one on one as I wanted to know more about her retreat center as a possible location for my writing workshops. She, as it turned out, wanted to know more about my writing services.

We drove to a cafe, and talked for hours. We became the proverbial ‘fast friends.’ When she told me her dream was to capture her story of being in a cult for 18 years, I was captivated.

In May, 2021, her book, An Everyday Cult, will be published. Helping Gerette bring her life story to book form is one of my greatest pleasures.

“It was in the early days of the writing salon that I first felt seen–You ‘got me’ in all my awkwardness and terror of trying to express myself. Thank you for seeing and believing in me and my story.”

Leora Dowling

Leora is a speech coach and also a gifted writer. She has written blog posts, articles and part of her book in my writing salon and together we worked on her book manuscript, which she continues to write and perfect. I love that Leora is a master of both written and verbal storytelling skills.

“I really needed to work with Paula. I don’t think I could have gotten out of my procrastination rut without her. Her kind encouragement, practical schedule, and a unique sense of humor always makes me feel capable, confident and inspired. She helped me not only clarify my vision and set realistic goals, she made me want to sit down and write.”

Elisha Halpin

Elisha Halpin entered my life in a writing challenge I offered on Facebook.

We worked together in two capacities–She wrote in my entrepreneur’s writing salon, where Elisha brought her poetic prose to play, her deep knowledge as a sacred life mentor and embodiment/energy coach, and shared with the group mystical and magical writing. We also worked together on a book proposal, which she plans to use to pitch to an independent press that publishes metaphysical topics.

Elisha is a tenured professor at Penn State and an embedded faculty member in the Arts and Design Research Incubator who conducts research into somatic interventions for trauma and stress.

“Working with Paula has allowed me to claim myself as an author. Her way of organizing the process as well as helping to tap me into my creative vein is an amazing way of working. From article ideas, platform creation, and book proposal, I have benefited so much from Paula’s expertise and guidance.”

Cathy Mazak

Dr. Mazak is a writing coach to Academic Womxn and has built a successful business helping them achieve professional success through writing and publishing.

Cathy hired me to coach her through the book proposal writing process. What this did was help her get clear on the book topic and how her book topic is the same, yet different, from the competition.

Cathy talks about working on her book proposal in her podcast, Episode 60: Behind the Scenes of My Book Project:

https://www.cathymazak.com/episode60-behind-the-scenes-of-my-book-project-part-1

“I had been sitting on a kinda-sketched-out book for over a year and working with Paula guided me through the proposal-writing process step-by-step.

Working with Paula not only helped me get my book proposal DONE in a simple, systematic way, it also helped me dig deep into my book and figure out what it was REALLY about. Any act of creation (like book writing!) is hard and makes you feel vulnerable, scared, and full of self-doubt. Paula always made me feel like I could do it. She helped keep me accountable, encouraged me every step of the way, and made the process manageable.”

Janice Shade

Janice and I have worked together a few times and I had the opportunity to consult and offer developmental edits on her book Moving Mountains: The Power of Main Street Americans to Change Our Economy, and to help Janice create a strategy for building her author platform.

Janice writes regularly on Medium.com about conscious commerce and community capital.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you for all you are doing for me, not the least of which is the confidence to take this big step into writing a book! Without your guidance, I wouldn’t have the first clue of how to navigate my way into a new phase of my life as a writer–one I’ve been dreaming about for over 10 years.”

C. Jane Taylor

I met Jane when she attended my writing salon. She was invited by one of the other members who knew Jane had stories to tell. Yup, she sure did. An entire memoir’s-worth of stories.

We worked together on a proposal to submit to agents and the first draft of her manuscript. Jane is self-motivated, so my coaching was more about checking in to see what she needed and getting the first peeks at her manuscript about her family’s motorcycle tour.

Her book, Spirit Traffic, is in production and in the spring of 2022, she plans to recreate her original tour while giving readings at motorcycle clubs, women’s groups and book clubs and inviting other bikers along the way to join her.

“Working with Paula, I found the confidence I needed to finish my memoir. The book proposal she encouraged me to write helped me clarify the meaning of my book; our weekly meetings keep me on track. I could not have done any of these without her help.”