Guest Post: Why Being a Book Coach Is On My List of Essential Life “Items” In An Emergency
By Los Angeles-based Book Coach, Tamara Schweitzer
This guest post is by Author Accelerator Certified Book Coach Tamara Schweitzer, who lives in a neighborhood adjacent to Pacific Palisades, one of the parts of the city flattened by fire.
This past week, as the Los Angeles fires raged all over my beloved city and I personally witnessed the magnitude of devastation among friends and neighbors that broke my heart into a million pieces, I also came to understand the essential role that book coaching plays in my life. Since embarking on my book coaching journey a few years ago, I have derived an immense amount of personal fulfillment from my newfound profession. But, it wasn’t until the fires broke out and the first messages that I exchanged were with two of my closest clients, that I experienced a deeper meaning to my identity as a book coach.
More often than not, we think of the coach as the one guiding the client, reassuring them in their moments of doubt and talking them through their fears and uncertainties. But what happens when the coach is actually the one in need of that comfort and support, or when the coach AND the client are living through an unprecedented traumatic event together in the same city, as I have been with my client Diana since the fires broke out last week? What happens is a beautiful story of reciprocity that I wanted to make sure to document.
As Angelenos, we have now witnessed countless acts of heroism and the incredible goodness at the heart of humanity in response to this catastrophic event. And what I soon recognized is that this is true for book coaching as well. Because inherent in the book coaching relationships are also acts of heroism and the very best of humanity on display. At the core of what we’re really doing as book coaches is seeing and receiving another person exactly how they are at any given moment. And sometimes (although I hope never again in my lifetime), that means in the midst of a terrifying natural disaster.
The day before the fires started, it was the last day of winter break for my elementary-aged kids, and I was looking forward to getting back into a routine to start the new year. I had my regularly scheduled Monday Zoom with my client, Jean, who lives on the East Coast. She works as a middle school librarian and she had already gone back to work after the new year, so we were meeting as we always do after her school day. Jean and I have been working together for the past nine months on revisions for her women’s fiction novel. On that Monday “before,” we had an in-depth discussion about the story arc for one of her characters and how she wanted to handle the structuring of a tricky and sensitive subplot.
We’re usually just getting deep into a brainstorming session when our time is up and we have to get back to reality and attend to our family lives (but if I could, I would Zoom with Jean all day!). Inevitably, our conversations end up continuing into the week in the form of voice memos or text messages sent back and forth. When ideas or thoughts strike, we always make sure to be in touch with each other. To me, this is one of the most exciting parts about being a book coach; no matter what’s going on in my life or what I’m doing that day, when I get a message from Jean, I can enter into that magical world of story that’s full of possibility and comfort.
And so my week continued. My kids returned to school the next day, only we never got back to routine. The day started with exceptionally strong wind gusts and I was just praying that there wouldn’t be any wildfires, even though something in my gut said otherwise. When you live in LA and hear that the Santa Anas are coming and know that the weather has been dangerously dry, you brace for the inevitable fire. We’ve been there many times before; it’s terrible and there’s damage in the hillsides and unfortunately,B SOME homes do burn down, but to a degree that makes sense. I never would've imagined entire neighborhoods and livelihoods wiped out in an instant. We watched in horror at what didn’t seem real because it looked as if an evil force took a wand and went “poof!,” making it all disappear into ruins.
The morning of the fires, I was in Santa Monica, a neighborhood adjacent to the Pacific Palisades. I went into a workout class at 10am and by the time I came out an hour later, there was smoke billowing in the sky above and word of evacuation orders for most of the Palisades. I immediately reached out to my client Diana, a long-time Palisades resident. That community plays prominently in her memoir-in-progress, which tells the story of battling chronic migraines and treatment-resistant depression as a young mother. When Diana and I met a few years ago through an online community of writers and readers that grew out of Zibby Owens’ brand “Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books,” we immediately connected about being fellow Angelenos. During our disconnected Covid times when everyone was behind a screen, Diana and I made it a point to meet in person frequently, and soon enough, she was working with me as my practicum client to develop the Blueprint for her memoir, part of my book coaching training with Author Accelerator.
Any coaching relationship develops over time, but I’ve also been incredibly lucky to find an instant connection with these two particular clients. In my first discovery calls with Diana and Jean, there was an inner knowing and trust that we felt with each other, which is paramount with someone who you are going to peel back the layers of your life with. And it’s not the same as the way that you might do that with a best friend. There’s a special category of relationship reserved for coach and client and a cherished space that it fills in my life. And I hope for my clients that there is a feeling of safety in having someone else out there in our big, bad world who knows and cares deeply about a very intimate part of their lives. The story that they hold close to their heart, that they haven’t yet been able to put out there, but that they know needs to be told.
So on that fateful Tuesday of the fires, my first meeting of the year with Diana was on the calendar for later that week. After a couple of personal hiccups at the end of 2024, we decided it made the most sense to clear the decks and go head first and focused come January. We had talked throughout the holidays and the winter break. She had her marching orders for what we would focus on during our meeting and she was looking forward to getting back to her manuscript. She decided that 2025 was going to be the year to meet the goal of finalizing her manuscript.
And I believe it still will be her year, but instead of getting to check in about writing that day, she texted me back that she was at home in the Palisades and waiting for evacuation orders that would come any hour. Her house was in an area that was in a holding pattern as the firefighters tried to navigate the area, which was quickly in gridlock and panic mode. I was on edge all day waiting for more updates from her as she soon became an evacuee and wouldn’t know the fate of her house for days to come. She ultimately learned that her house is still standing and she still has her possessions, but the foreseeable future includes not just displacement, but grieving for a place that she can no longer call home. Unfortunately, as the hours passed, the names kept mounting of more friends and even the head of my kids’ school who had lost everything in the Palisades.
In the midst of all this devastation, I wasn’t expecting for anyone on the East Coast to know the extent of what was happening in LA in real time. But then, like a balm to my soul at the exact time when it was needed most, a text message came in from Jean that afternoon checking to see if me and my family were safe. A brief, but desperately needed exhale. In the subsequent days, I didn’t need to say much to Jean. She was there with empathetic messages of support, holding me in my sadness and paralyzing state. Jean too has a connection to LA. She moved here after college to pursue her dream of becoming a filmmaker. While she ultimately found her way back to the East Coast and a different life’s path, she so sensitively put herself in my shoes, just as we do in our work together as storytellers.
That first night, as the smoke encroached upon our ability to take a collective deep breath and ash rained down on the doorsteps of our houses, I spent many hours thinking about my list of essential items. My family and I live in a part of West Los Angeles that was thankfully out of harm’s way, but no matter where you live in Los Angeles, our sense of safety has been shaken to its core and for more than a week, we were in go mode–preparing for the nightmare to get worse. As I looked around at the physical essential items that fill up my life and my home, I kept coming back to the intangible things that matter too–top of list being my book coaching relationships.
Together with my clients, we have made a commitment to do soul-nourishing work and a big part of the process is holding space for that. So even when we can’t physically or emotionally bring ourselves to concentrate or make progress on our writing (as was the case for Diana, Jean and myself this past week), just knowing that you have a partner in the process who believes in those goals and dreams, is a cherished (intangible) possession that fills my heart on a daily basis.
And so I’ve been clinging to the moments of connection that always come during our coaching sessions, but now frequently extend beyond those Zooms. These are the moments I love the most. First a sounding board, and then a landing pad. I don’t often think about the fact that that’s what I’m really doing as I’m checking in with clients, or when I’m walking writers through months of revisions, hopping on Zoom calls and suggesting their next steps. I do not take for granted that together with my clients, we are building a trusted support system. Technically, I may be the person receiving them on the other end of their deadline, with words of feedback exchanged on a page, but in time, they have received me too.
When everything is stripped away (as it sadly has been the reality for so many this week) and we survey what’s left, we are never alone if we’ve laid that foundation of support. And a foundation does not have to be a big community. It’s as simple as having that one go-to person. More and more these days, my go-to people are those in my book coaching orbit. There is no one I’d rather hear from more than Diana and Jean, or a fellow book coach in the Author Accelerator community.
After such a harrowing week, I feel so grateful knowing that there is someone (and in my case, two different women who I adore) who will always be there. We have a standing date to show up for each other. During the couple of years of knowing both of these clients, we have shown up in almost every state of being: overwhelmed, exhausted, defeated, scared, sad, overjoyed, hopeful, focused, energized, and everything in between. And I never thought I’d be adding–while an unprecedented firestorm is burning Los Angeles. But just that simple act of showing up is so affirming, and enough to keep us going, heading towards the horizon…together.
Tamara Schweitzer is an Author Accelerator certified book coach who has earned certifications in fiction, nonfiction, and memoir. She is passionate about working with writers who want to tell stories about identity, and she enjoys exploring with her clients the many ways that their personal and family lives shape who they are and what they believe. She is also a writer, and has recently started working on her first book, a memoir that examines her identity as a third-generation Holocaust survivor. You can find her on Instagram at @tamsbookcoaching
Beautiful piece, Tam. It's a privilege to be your client. Big hugs from Boston to you!
Wow - this was a beautiful post. You captured the horror and terror of our city burning, while also describing the special relationship between a book coach and her clients, what has evolved to become a relationship between friends.