I believe in the power of self-expression.

My mission is to create a community that will help guide life writers along the path to success—which looks a little different to each of us.

I’m Rachel Laverdiere, the creator of  Hone & Polish Your Writing.

I have been teaching for twenty-seven years. I hold degrees in both French Literature and Education, and completed the coursework for a Masters of Curriculum Studies. I am past lead CNF editor at both Barren Magazine and Atticus Reivew. I also write craft and feature articles and do manuscript evaluations for the Saskatchewan Writers Guild.

In 2022, my essay “Everything Leads Back to Where it Starts” was a finalist for Longridge Review’s Barnhill Prize–and later nominated for my first Pushcart Prize nomination. 2020, my work was shortlisted for CutBank’s Big Sky, Small Prose Contest 2019, made Wigleaf’s Top 50 Very Short Fictions and has been nominated for Best of the Net. I have 90 publications in literary journals including The New Quarterly, Grain, Pithead Chapel, X-R-A-Y Literary, Bending Genres, Atlas and Alice and The Citron Review, and a dozen publications in various anthologies.

Hone & Polish Your Writing

This online writing program is designed to guide emerging life writers to independence and self-empowerment. I’ve founded this space for developing writers to continue to grow, mentor one another and profit from courses that will support them in becoming independent with their writing.

All Hone & Polish Your Writing courses rely on the give and take of feedback within the committed community of course participants. Once the prerequisite training (Foundations of Feedback) has been achieved, writers can choose to join a critique community or take courses that focus on sub-genres of creative nonfiction. Check out my current and future course offerings here.

If you’d like to get in touch, email me at rachellaverdiere@yahoo.ca.