Hello, writers, editors and readers. I hope you will find something useful here.

I am a newspaper writing coach in North Carolina and I have self-published four  books. Two of them are in paperback at Lulu.com and all soon will be; all are available as e-books at Ebookomatic. You can find them here.

I have been writing a blog on this site for about two years now. The blog page is the first one that comes up to visitors, but if you somehow arrived at this page first, click the blog link at left to read my thoughts on writing, style and grammar. If you have questions about writing, you're welcome to e-mail me at johnrains@hotmail.com. Be sure to put something in the subject line such as "writing coach" or "writing question" so I won't delete your message as spam. And it is better to e-mail than to post a comment, because the comments are cluttered with trash from spammers, may they be cursed forever.

I work primarily, but not exclusively, with newspaper writers. I hope some of my thoughts will be useful to writers in all fields and genres.

If you are an editor or writing coach, I will be happy to share resources such as tip sheets and slide presentations that I have used in seminars for writers. You can find more of my work at sites such as No Train, No Gain. Writing-World.com and the American Copy Editors Society. Check the links page.

I am available, by the way, for seminars at your business or newspaper. Drop me a line and we'll work out a deal.

Thanks.