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About Christina Honde

My approach

I enjoy working with people who have important things to say and want to say them in the best way possible.

I’m eager to share the proven techniques developed at the University of Chicago, because I’ve seen over and over how they can help people transform their writing.

I know it takes practice to master any new skill. So my basic workshops provide time for you to practice what you’re learning. And I offer a variety of follow-up practice options to help you continue to improve.

I believe we all learn best when we feel supported and enjoy the learning process. I want to help you recognize what you already do well, and I work with you to zero in on your problems and see that they often have simple solutions. (See what people say about my coaching.)

My background

I’ve always loved writing, and people always told me I was a good writer.

So when I started graduate school  at the University of Chicago, I was unimpressed when  I heard about a “great” writing course called The Little Red Schoolhouse (a.k.a. Academic and Professional Writing). “Oh,” I thought, “remedial writing–I don’t need that.”

Then, the momentous encounter

I was invited to join faculty—including Joe Williams, the originator of the Schoolhouse program—to teach in the University’s M.A. program in Tokyo.  Joe wanted all of us to know the Schoolhouse techniques, so I started attending the lectures.  And I was astonished to find it was an  enjoyable course that taught many practical techniques I had never heard of.

What I found out

The Schoolhouse took all my good writer’s intuitions about writing, put them into words, and distilled them into  easy-to-apply principles and guidelines. And I saw how the techniques helped people transform their writing. Students said the course was “brilliant,” “life-changing,” “one of the most useful classes at the University.”

That was the beginning of my love affair with these writing techniques, an affair that continues to this day and has led to my being called a “missionary” for good writing.

Carrying forward

At the University, I taught in the writing program over a period of ten years. My students were graduate students from various fields, many of them non-native speakers of English, as well as business and professional people in the University’s extension program.

When the course went online with Cardean University, I taught numerous MBA students (most of them working professionals) and helped train new teachers.

And since 2001 I’ve also been teaching these phenomenally effective techniques  to writers  whose main work products are complex documents.