Meet Pearl Klein,
Wordgasmic Writing Coach & Live-Action Language Generator
I feel most myself when I’m exploring, discovering, and revealing the layers of truth and meaning within words.
Having spent over a decade teaching required college English classes, I know that not everyone feels that way. In fact, a lot of people are downright traumatized by an English teacher wielding a red pen.
My mission is to use my linguistic powers to help you express your most important and most deeply felt ideas to the world in a way that gets the message into the right ears, minds, and hearts.
The Journey from Poet to Teacher to Copywriter — and Beyond
From the time I was 9 years old, I thought I would grow up to be a teacher and a poet. (This had everything to do with my close bond to a teacher, one who used Kenneth Koch’s Rose, Where Did You Get That Red? and Wishes, Lies, and Dreams to share his love of creating poetry.)
Though I no longer work in the classroom, and it’s been over 15 years since I thought about publishing poems, I’ve never stopped teaching and writing.
In my 40s, I began acting, directing and writing plays. If you’re anything like me, talking through your ideas and getting feedback on them immediately is the best way to complete a project, and the collaborative aspects of making theater fed directly into my business as a writing and copy coach.
I launched my business to help creative entrepreneurs lose their fear of the written word. I work WITH clients, not FOR them, hearing and taking a stand for their best traits and ideas, with their bottom line always in mind. I want YOUR voice to resound clearly, distinctly, uniquely, and beautifully into the world.
A prop signed by the cast and crew of a play I directed. Photo by Bob Freeman.
Pearl Klein sucked the ideas out of my brain and turned them into usable poetry for my website. She’s like a breathing, talking thesaurus of creative phrasing. And she did it very quickly!! Within minutes she had established a vocabulary and a creative direction for talking about an entire client segment that I have struggled communicating about for months.
Bollywood dancing at the 2013 World Domination Summit closing party. Photo by Armada Studios.
As a visual artist, I can have trouble articulating what I think about my work. I gave Pearl a 4-page list of words describing what I do and she made word magic. We worked collaboratively and ended up with a polished Artist’s Statement in my own voice. I’m very happy with it and thoroughly enjoyed both the process and Pearl herself.
Stories of My Life:
Math, Sex, and the Scenic Route
I.
I went to a small high school (class of one dozen odd eggs), and in math class I could have conversations with my teacher if I didn’t understand something. The class worked problems in the room; with 5-10 people, we could talk through them until light bulbs went off. I thought, if I’m in a class of 20 or more (considered small by most standards), I won’t be able to have a conversation about math.
So I didn’t take math in college. But I learned how to have learning conversations.
II.
When sex is really good, it’s not because one person is feeling good OR the other person is feeling good, it’s because you’re rubbing against the other in a way that feels good to both of you.
That is really good sex AND really good writing practice. It’s a give and take.
III.
In 1990 I auditioned for a playwright who was directing his own script. I had never before acted, unless you count some monologues in high school acting class (“It’s my fault the jury found you guilty — partly my fault — I helped”).
The playwright (who later went on to win a Pulitzer and a Tony, but at the time was just my housemate), asked if I had any acting experience. I’ve slept with lots of actors, I told him. He blushed. No, you were there, I said, in Edinburgh, at the Fringe Festival. Remember all of us sleeping in the living room?
I was a theater groupie for four years in college but didn’t start my acting and directing career until I was 39. I played The Woman Who Loved to Make Vaginas Happy in The Vagina Monologues. I did a modified strip tease on stage and I worried about being TOO good as a dominatrix sex worker.
Why was the audience so quiet?
In December 2013, I had a handful of clever domain names, a pile of notes, and a cold cup of coffee.
Two days later, my site went live, and I was ready to help solo business owners get their message out to the world and start connecting with their ideal customers right away.
How did I go from zero to website so fast?
Collaboration.
See, I have these two creative buddies, and when we put our heads together, we can get a lot done in a short span of time. We got intentional about my website, and within a day, with Bob’s tech support and Shawna’s focused questioning and critiquing, I had fresh copy written and all my website basics in place: Home page, About page, and Services page.
As my client Heidi put it, “I’m a big collaborator. One of the hardest things about building my business: doing it in a frickin’ vacuum.”
Just because you’re in business for yourself doesn’t mean you have to do everything by yourself. I wouldn’t be where I am today without Bob and Shawna, though today we work separately more than together.
When you write your own copy, and spend hours re-reading and revising until you can’t see it any more, you need another pair of wise eyes on it.
And when you put off marketing until you get the message perfect in your mind, nobody will know you’re there.
Talking through your ideas and getting feedback on them immediately is the best way to complete a project.
I’m here to tell you it’s not only possible, it happens for my clients every day. On your own, you’re expected to be a marketing whiz, a web designer, an accountant, a CEO, COO, CFO—and oh, yeah, an expert in the work that you actually WANT to do. Yikes.
Add writing to the mix and it’s enough to push the most creative, energetic self-starter over the edge.
You started an online business so you can live a satisfying and independent life, but how do you tell your ideal audience how you can help them?
By writing collaboratively. Let me join you and see how far you can go today.
Do you wonder if you have the right to call yourself a writer?
Wonder no longer. If you own an online business, you need to be a writer.
Find out how we can work together.
I know Bob Freeman took this one. He’s directing me in a horror movie; click the picture to see Trans Plant.