Creative Mentorship

Pursue your creative goals

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Cultivate self-trust & enchantment

What does it look like to have a resilient relationship with your creativity?

It looks like having creative practices & goals that align with your values.

It looks like being more fluent in play, curiosity, and devotion.

It looks like reaping the rewards of your creativity more often, and in more circumstances.

In other words, it’s about building a life where you can turn to your creativity on a daily basis for multiple reasons: for personal expression, professional support, spiritual aid, and emotional nourishment, alongside your tangible artistic endeavors.

How do we work together?

I structure my containers by the month ($700), and strongly encourage a 3-month ($2,100 or $700/month) or 6-month ($4,200 or $700/month) commitment to begin with, which gives us time and space to get to the rich places that reveal themselves as we build our relationship. Many of my clients choose to renew at least once. No-fee payment plans are always available, and I offer sliding scale rates to a limited number of clients at a time, as well as discounted rates for those local to the Columbia River Gorge.

What’s included each month?

  • Two hour-long coaching calls—think trauma-informed mentorship meets creative brainstorming. It’s kind of like meeting with a personal trainer, teaching artist, and couple’s therapist for you and your Creativity, rolled into one.

  • Two written feedback sessions. These are standing invitations to share writing with me before each call, and they serve a variety of purposes: They let us invite the full scope of your creativity into our container (so that we’re not just talking about it, but looking at & engaging with it directly); they allow our conversations to exist in both written and verbal form, making them bigger overall; and for those working on book manuscripts or related projects, it lets me provide you with strengths-based editing and developmental feedback. (We’ll clarify these details up front.)

  • Between-session support. Because revelations, obstacles, and needs don’t occur on schedule, text, email, and audio note exchanges are welcome throughout the month. We’re working together in a container, not by the hour.

  • Book & author recommendations, writing prompts, and other spontaneous creative invitations. For support and nourishment outside our 1:1 time.

  • Accountability & momentum. Working together for 3+ months creates structure and ritual, leading to a more impactful experience. It also encourages two of the most important qualities for creative living: repetition and devotion.

  • Personalized mentorship and support from a well-rounded guide. When we work together, I bring my whole self to the table. That means you have access to the full range of skills and experiences from Sarah the coach, poet, past social worker, intersectional feminist, HSP, Autistic human, and working writer.

  • For 6-month containers: a 90-minute natal chart reading with Mallory Hasty, where she’ll guide you in exploring your creative journey via the planets & the stars.

I’m ready / curious. Now what?

The next step is to schedule a free introductory call! This lets us get to know each other, talk about where you’re at, and make sure working together will be the right fit at the right time. Because of the intimate nature of this work, I offer hour-long intro calls prior to any long-term commitment.

Questions? New to the world of mentorship? Looking for a container with a slightly different pace or frequency? Reach out so we can talk things through and explore options! I will never try to sell my services to someone who decides this isn’t the right fit.

Client testimonials

  • “I came to Sarah because I was creatively stuck, frustrated and blocked. I had spent a full year trying to write a book proposal for my publisher but no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't do it. Everything felt so hard and impossible, until I met Sarah. She has helped me build a sacred connection and relationship to my creativity. If you are wanting to come home to this sacred part of yourself or if you are wanting an incredibly gifted and wise writer and editor on your side, Sarah is that person. Your life will change if you venture down your own journey with her support.”

    ~Sarah Baldwin

  • “I love how Sarah cares so deeply about a writer's journey. She was in the process with me and made such beautiful connections to help propel my writing forward. By the end of the session, I felt so seen and supported. If you're looking for someone who is gentle, reflective, and sees all of your potential, hire Sarah!”

    ~Nisha Mody

  • “Working with Sarah is like being in a literary salon with a philosopher, a psychologist, an activist, a painter, and a friend all at once. She penetrates the writing because she listens deeply to the soul of the writer, to what they’re saying, and especially to what they’re not saying. Sarah is among the species of editors that are going extinct, her empathy profound, her insights piercing, her generosity almost saintly because it came from a place of having been wounded herself. Any writer would be lucky to have her on their side.”

    ~Abbigail N. Rosewood

  • “I came to Sarah for help with an inner war between my creative self and my business/work self. I was stuck in a bind because I felt that I was being forced to choose one over the other in how I present myself to the world. Sarah helped me reach clarity about what each of these parts was afraid of and how they were needing support. I was able to take what we uncovered and fully process it with my therapist. With Sarah and my therapist's help, the inner war is over, and now my inner creative self and business self are playing on the same team. It is so freeing!”

    ~Natalie Ross

Who are my clients?

You are a creative person: whether you claim this truth with ease or you carry it in a more private place, you know on some level that your creativity plays a vital role in who you are, what you care about, and how you move through this world.

You have a strong affinity for the more-than-human world.

You know that creativity gives you access to a special, sometimes unbelievable place, where presence, self-knowledge, playfulness, and magic cohabitate.

You desire to take the next step forward: begin writing the book; finish an old project; or re-commit yourself to your creativity as a whole, inviting more of it into your daily routines.

Excited by the thought of working together?

Schedule a free introductory call below, or write to me at sarah.teresa.cook@gmail.com with your questions.

Who am I?

I’m an Autistic writer: Since the age of 3, I’ve been mesmerized by the physical act of putting words on a page, which helps me see myself more fully in this neurotypical world. I view writing as a combination of magic, discovery, and fortitude of the self.

I love bugs, hiking, game shows, and not drinking alcohol. I love that my sun & moon are both in Taurus. I love having two middle names: Teresa Leonora. I love the desert, and I love getting tattoos.

I hold an MA in English, with emphases in poetics and creative writing, and a minor in Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies.

I believe in borrowing lenses from the social services field, where I spent about 8 years in housing advocacy, youth services, and community mental health. I am both trauma-informed and strengths-based in my 1:1 and group work.

I spent a lot of time believing I didn’t have intuition, and that I would never be creatively successful on my own terms, and that I wouldn’t be a real writer until I could check off certain boxes. But it was my own creativity, paired with coaching, therapy, and other healing modalities, that brought me back to my full self and my own terms.

I trust that writing is always at least a little bit spiritual: you take your imagination, which lives in your body yet isn’t confined to it, and you use it to build, examine, and rebuild your tender self and all your weird, wonderful ideas. What else in life can provide us with medicine and play in such equal amounts? We put words on a page and, over time, come to inhabit our lives differently. Like magic! But also: like choice.

FAQ

  • Nope! As a writer, I tend to attract other writers, but I also work with artists & creative folks working in all mediums and at any stage of their creative journeys. Some of my clients have long-established creative practices and professional goals; some haven’t made anything in years, and they’re simply looking to begin making again.

    I also love working with folks who aren’t in traditionally creative spaces, but who are interested in bringing more of their innate creativity into their daily lives.

  • I do! If you have a creative need that warrants a different time commitment, write to me at sarah.teresa.cook@gmail.com so we can chat!

    Most of my clients renew beyond one container, and working together for at least 6 months allows so many wonderful things to occur: structure and consistency are built, buried insights & deeper threads are uncovered, and our relationship blossoms as we get to know each other more intimately.

  • Yes! I reserve a number of slots on my client roster for sliding scale rates. Email me at sarah.teresa.cook@gmail.com to request my current tiered pricing and check availability.

    If you’re local to the Columbia River Gorge, please reach out for my discounted local rates.

  • That’s okay! Our calls and interactions will be rich and fruitful, and by meeting consistently you will build momentum and discover your own creative pace.

    That being said, I will do everything I can to make sending writing feel accessible and not scary, because sharing your words will both directly and indirectly support your larger creative goals. I offer strengths-based feedback and questions whether I’m reading the draft of a chapter from your book, or a page of notes from your journal. All of it counts. All of it is useful, and full of possibility.

  • Cool! Strengths-based and trauma-informed support can be helpful with small creative projects, too. Reach out at sarah.teresa.cook@gmail.com so we can explore our options.

  • You count! Your desire to create, no matter how much or little work you’ve done, counts. Let’s talk about worth and worthiness in our first session, and see what it looks like to let your creative channel itself be a portal into self-trust as you discover more about your creative impulse and desires.

Building creative resiliency allows you to write and make more freely and consistently, and to do so on a bedrock of self-trust and internal worth.

Which means less time spent beating yourself up and more time spent playing, taking artistic risks, & experiencing joy.