Profile

Elizabeth Lutyens • Writer, Editor, Teacher

Professional Focus

Corporate and institutional copy that reads like a story

Specific Skills

Writing and editing copy for Web sites, brochures, educational/fundraising materials, newsletters, press releases, magazine-length features, book-length non-fiction and fiction projects

Examples of Projects—Completed and Continuing

Writing:

Author of a wide variety of copy for a targeted community or commercial audience:

  • Environmental Concern and Action: By Nature and Design, a college president’s fund-raising presentation piece; and a storybook-style training manual, The Story of Sustainability at Warren Wilson College: Green Walkabout Primer—both for Warren Wilson College, Asheville, NC
  • So Grows the Tree. A 300-page, hard-bound history published to coincide with independent school capital campaign for Nashoba Brooks School, Concord MA
  • Concord Unfolded. Only full-color history guide to Concord, Massachusetts, for Welch’s Grape Company and Concord (MA) Chamber of Commerce
  • Opera Small Talk. Paperback; a bonus-offer product for Home Vision (Acton MA)—now Opera America (Washington DC)
  • Website copy. For TSAChoice, IT service and solutions provider; feng shui specialist Jaan Ferree’s Intentional Design; Hoot Holler (Eclectic Bluegrass) Music—all Asheville-based
  • Articles for school/institutional publications. For Warren Wilson College: profile for Heartstone, the college’s environmental journal, and feature stories for Owl & Spade, the alumni magazine. For Nashoba Brooks School, Concord, Massachusetts: viewbook copy, features for bi-annual magazines, Website copy (www.nbsc.org), and press releases
  • Feature stories for wider distribution: Independent School, the publication of the National Association of Independent Schools, The Concord [MA] Journal; Cruising World (an international sailing glossy). “Local Color” column for Middlesex News (largest metrowest Boston daily); newsletters and promotional copy for Retirement Living Associates, Raleigh, NC

Editorial work:

  • Editor of The Great Smokies Review, an online literary magazine published by the Great Smokies Writing Program of the University of North Carolina at Asheville.
  • Editor or collaborative writer for non-fiction, self-published books—examples:
    • From Keokuk to Concord, memoir of a Unitarian minister’s wife (winner of a New England Bookbuilders Award)
    • Addio di Bicari, biography of a Boston sculptor
    • Cullathuna, memoir/writing compendium for a retired D.C. ad executive
    • The Family Business/The Family Farm, memoir of a Charleston, South Carolina, small business guru that is also a history of business in America and a guide to becoming an independent business owner.
  • Editorial services for author Caroline Preston on her two trade fiction books:
    • Lucy Crocker 2.0, Scribner, 2000
    • Jackie by Josie, Scribner, 1997—New York Times “Notable Book” award

Teaching:

As an adjunct instructor at UNC-Asheville, I teach a three-hour credit course, Language 473, the Prose Master Class. In addition to leading the workshop sessions, I offer instruction in fiction and non-fiction craft.

Comment

I began my 20-something-year writing career as a journalist specializing in human-interest stories. When I sidestepped into copywriting and editing, I continued searching for the story and the people behind it, even when the subject was high-tech infrastructure or how to buy a Subway franchise. After completing a master of fine arts degree in fiction writing (Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, 1999), and as an instructor of fiction and memoir writing, I remain convinced that story-telling, even for corporate projects, is the most effective way to reach the (always) reluctant reader.