Community Corner

Coach Can Help Students' Writing Habits

Writing coach Kim Lifton blogs on Patch and you can too.

Kim Lifton can help students get into college.

Lifton is a college application essay expert and writing coach and  co-founder of WowWritingWorkshop.com, a company dedicated to helping college-bound students tell their stories in their own words and their own voices so their admissions essays stand out from the crowd.

Many interesting people blog on Patch and we want to introduce you to some of them. Each week we will highlight a new Patch blogger.

This week, Lifton answers our questions.


Where did you grow up? I grew up in Southfield, went to Birmingham schools and graduated from Wylie E. Groves High School in 1980.

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What are your hobbies? I make scrapbooks, swim with a masters group at Ferndale High School and do pilates at Equilibrium Studios in Bloomfield Hills. I made a 50-page book for my parents’ 50th anniversary and a bigger one for my daughter when she became a bat mitzvah. Life came full circle when I made a book for my friend, Susan Lichterman (who also lives in Huntington Woods) when she turned 50; we started scrapbooking together during high school to document our youth group adventures. She also helped make a book for me when I turned 50.  

Favorite book? One of my favorites is Fatal Vision by Joe McGinniss. I am fascinated by the case it is based on, and find true stories more interesting than fiction. This book is – and always has been – considered controversial, which is a plus. It chronicles the 1979 murder conviction of a former Army doctor, Jeffrey MacDonald, for stabbing his pregnant wife and two daughters in their home at Fort Braggs. I love that the case, and the book, still gets ink in the press. In the latest twist, documentary filmmaker Errol Morris wrote a book that paints MacDonald as a man wrongly convicted on the basis of incomplete and corrupted evidence, as well as prosecutorial misconduct. It has been 40+ years since the murders, and the MacDonald defense team is still appealing the conviction. Is he a psychopath who killed in a drug-induced rage? Or was he wrongly convicted? I don’t know. I might need to check out the Morris book before the end of 2013.

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Favorite movie? I did like Truman but the book was better. I just love the Sound of Music with JULIE ANDREWS. I didn’t even watch the TV version. Why mess with perfection? I have another favorite – The Way We Were with Robert Redford and Barbara Streisand.

How did you get involved in writing? I liked writing in school, but I liked knowing things others did not even better. I had a knack for finding stories first, and I liked to write. It was a perfect combination for journalism, and I enjoyed every minute of my career as a working journalist.

What's your single most important piece of advice for students’ essays? Before you start writing your college essay, figure out what you want colleges to know about you. Once you’ve done that, you will be ready to answer any prompt.

What the biggest writing mistakes people make on the college essay? Not answering the prompt, not writing about themselves, and not writing it themselves. 

You can follow her blog on Patch.

Get Started blogging on Patch:
  • Click the "home" tab above. The click "Start your own blog" on bottom left of the page.
  • Upload a photo to illustrate your blog that you own or have permission to use. You can also just use a Patch logo offered on the page.
  • Hit “Create your blog”
Success! You Created a Blog! Now you can:
  • Write your first post
  • Share something and it will appear on the home page.
  • Find your blog in the "Your Blogs" menu next to your Profile
Instructions and links are all right there on the page!

Questions? Contact Patch Community Editor Jason Alexander at jason.alexander@patch.com or 810-488-1353.


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