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Essay and Creative Writing Tutor — Published Author, MSW
Tim V.

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About Tim

Bio

I am a published poet and essayist with two full-length collections and three chapbooks in print, and a Licensed Master Social Worker with a Master of Social Work from the University of Denver. My bachelor's degree is in English and literature from the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith. I tutor essay writing and creative writing for students from high school through adulthood, and I work regularly on college application essays and graduate school personal statements.

For two years I...

I am a published poet and essayist with two full-length collections and three chapbooks in print, and a Licensed Master Social Worker with a Master of Social Work from the University of Denver. My bachelor's degree is in English and literature from the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith. I tutor essay writing and creative writing for students from high school through adulthood, and I work regularly on college application essays and graduate school personal statements.

For two years I worked at the middle school level, leading six class periods a day with twelve to fifteen students in each, and I also worked one-on-one with students across core academic subjects, including reading comprehension and written composition. Alongside that, I have spent more than twenty years writing, publishing, and editing, both my own work and other writers'. That combination is what I bring to a session: I can hear where a sentence goes slack or where a paragraph is burying its best line, and I can explain why, so the student can find it on their own the next time.

My approach is strengths-based and warm. I ask questions about what you are trying to say before I suggest a single edit, and I will not rewrite your work in my voice. If an argument needs structure, we build the structure. If a story has not found its center, we look for it together. We can work on thesis and evidence, paragraph order, sentence rhythm, dialogue, revision strategy, or the parts of a personal statement that are hardest to say out loud. I have spent a long time on both sides of revision, and I know the difference between fixing a draft and teaching someone to fix their own.

Bring a draft, an assignment, or a blank page. I tutor online and in person, and I am glad to work with students who are anxious about writing, returning to school after time away, or staring down a deadline. Message me with what you are working on and where you feel stuck, and we will start there.

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Education

University of Arkansas Fort Smith
English
University of Denver
Masters

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Approved Subjects

Creative Writing

Creative Writing

I have spent two decades working in poetry and short prose, placing individual pieces with literary journals and small presses. I have two full-length collections, Memoir of My Assassin's Body, released by Redhawk Publications in 2024, and Topographies Drawn with a Divine Chain of Birds, released by Lavender Ink/Dialogos in 2011, along with three chapbooks titled Fugue Engine (Cannibal Books, 2012), Light on the Lion's Face (Argotist, 2012), and Farallones (Garden Door Press, 2018). I won the Nazim Hikmet Poetry Prize in 2012. When I tutor creative writing, I begin by reading a student's existing work closely and naming what is already strong in it, because writers revise more willingly when they know what to protect. From there I assign generative exercises built around a specific craft problem, such as image, line break, point of view, or dialogue, rather than asking for open-ended pages. I teach revision as a sequence of deliberate passes with one goal each, and I use close imitation of published models to make a writer's choices visible at the level of the sentence. For students working toward publication, I also cover journal research, cover letters, and the submission process.
Essay Writing

Essay Writing

I hold a Master of Social Work from the University of Denver, where the coursework demanded sustained argumentative writing supported by peer-reviewed evidence. I also write long-form critical essays at Dear Bees, my Substack on literature, psychology, and science, where I conduct and edit an ongoing interview series with working writers. Having written both to a scholarly standard and for a general readership, I can show students how the demands of each differ. My tutoring begins with the question an essay is trying to answer, since most weak drafts come from a topic that was never narrowed into an arguable claim. Once a student has a thesis, we build a working outline so structural problems surface before they are buried in finished prose. I teach body paragraphs through the pattern of claim, evidence, and interpretation, and I spend real time on integrating and citing sources in MLA or APA format. In final revision, I have students read drafts aloud so they can hear where syntax stalls. I work with high school and college students on literary analysis, research papers, and timed essay exams, and with applicants on admissions essays and graduate personal statements, where the task is to build an argument out of a life rather than out of sources. My aim in every case is that a student leaves able to run the process without me.
Literature

Literature

I studied literature at the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith and have read criticism seriously ever since. I work through theory rather than around it — Baudrillard, Freud, Haraway, Norman O. Brown — and one of my books is a sustained critical reading of a single theoretical text. My own criticism engages primary and secondary sources at the depth a graduate seminar expects, across poetry, experimental prose, and literature in translation. When I tutor, I start with what a student noticed or got stuck on, since the confusing part is usually where the text does its real work. We read short passages closely rather than summarizing, and I hold students to claims they can defend from the page.
Writing

Writing

I am a published author with work in both scholarly and creative registers, having written criticism and reviews alongside verse and short prose, plus graduate coursework built on evidence-based argument. That range means I can move between a student's research paper and their short story. When I tutor, I start with the reader and the purpose, since problems that look stylistic are usually mismatches between a sentence and its audience. I target the two or three error patterns that recur in a student's work instead of correcting mistakes one by one, and I teach grammar through sentences the student actually wrote.
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Hourly Rate: $75
Contact Tim