Trisha J. Wooldridge is A Novel Friend.

A Novel Friend encompasses my multi-faceted love of words and helping other word-lovers achieve their dreams.

After leaving the corporate financial world and then being told that I “enjoyed reading too much” to properly finish a Masters Thesis, I struck out on my own. It helped that magazines, people, and education companies started offering me money for my writing, editing, and teaching abilities. Thus, A Novel Friend was officially born—compete with its own income tax adventures.

Being a rainbow-flavored neuroatypical, I spent a lot of my life not quite fitting in with “normal” people and developing chameleon-esque coping skills to reduce the inevitable bullying. Years of societal abuse, however, cultivated a strong level of empathy and desire to help people achieve their dreams. Especially the delicate dreams of those also don’t “fit in,” who get treated like monsters, who dare to believe in magic.

Flipping “not fitting in” into “doing what makes me happy” does make it hard to explain to people what I do, though. 

I am a storyteller, first and foremost. Stories are my passion. I speak in stories—thus the overlong “About” section. People in the writing community have advised me over and over to identify as my name, make my name my website, use my name in marketing materials. But I identify with “A Novel Friend” more than I do with just my name. Storytelling is more than the story; storytelling, wordsmithing, all of that builds relationships. 

And I want to build relationships, friendships. 

With words. 

With how I write and how I help others write. 

With the secrets in the spaces tying words together in multiple media made by words.

With humor and wordplay.

With curiosity, compassion, and respect to the monsters under the bed or in the closet, hiding because they’re scared.

What I do within, between, and around the spaces of writing, editing, coaching, and teaching is not easy to explain, and I’m okay with that. 

If the weird places, the dark corners, the in-betweens, and not-easy-to-explain realms are where you’re most comfortable too, then we’ll probably find a kinship.

I’m A Novel Friend.