Consultant

Literary consultancy can take many forms: ghostwriting, editing, coaching, marketing and publishing. Over the last forty years I have had the pleasure to work with authors, entrepreneurs, public speakers, doctors, dentists and other health professionals, educators, seminar companies, fitness experts, artists, fashion and style consultants, non-profit foundations, life coaches, chefs and caterers, visionaries in service industries, memoirists, progressive thinkers and everyday people with a story that needed telling. 

In addition to consulting on or writing over fifty books and four hundred articles, I have worked as in-house copy writer, copy editor and proofreader for New York publishers; served as fiction and/or poetry editor for literary journals; consulted on film scripts; written and sold book proposals and film treatments for clients; helped individual and companies create newsletters and promotional and marketing materials, press packages, brochures and website copy. 

Here are a few testimonials:

Hands down, Kirpal Gordon is the best writer I have worked with in my fifty-plus years in business. A fountain of good ideas, he’s an even better listener. In our eight-year association spanning many books and articles, he has always managed to make what I say from the stage read even better on the page. 

—Walter Hailey, founder, Planned Marketing Associates

Upon reading a scene from my novel at Kirpal Gordon’s writing workshop, he gave me more insight than I’d ever all the time I had previously invested, including having paid an editor to do a 400 page-by-page rework—and that was just the first ten minutes of the first session! Using a Socratic method that I much admire, he helped me develop a more critical and appreciative eye toward my own work.

—Leah Klein, psychotherapist, author, Red Blood/White Snow

Kirpal’s voluminous cultural knowledge, both lived and learned, coupled with his instinctive sense of pacing and rhythm, makes him the perfect third eye. More important, he has a knack for familiarizing with the writer’s voice and getting under its skin. This is a rare gift as, too often, the writer finds himself in a singing contest with his ostensible editor. I can’t recommend Kirpal Gordon enough. 

—Norman Ball, author, Between River & Rock: How I Resolved Television in Six Easy Payments

Gordon has the rare genius for being able to see every side of a circumstance at once and then to turn that vision into a coherent and precise description that immediately communicates. There may be no one else who can so thoroughly grasp all the salient issues with such precision and leave the reader a more knowing and feeling person. 

—James D. Pendleton, visual artist

I’m a fitness expert, not a writer. To build my business, I needed written material that matched my in-your-face personality with a maximum lose-weight-now wake-up call. Kirpal not only delivered the words but showed me the difference between a front and back end to the range of my services. 

—Rocco Castellano, H.I.T. Fitness

I’ve never met a more all-around talented wordsmith than Kirpal Gordon. He edited my twenty years of interviews with Texas songwriters into a readable format and wrote the prospectus that sold the idea to the University of Texas Press. I received a large advance and a beautiful book now in its second printing, and I’ve just signed a second book deal, thanks to his head start. 

—Kathleen Hudson, director, Texas Heritage Music Foundation

Like a jazz improviser, Gordon knows what notes to play and what notes to leave out in a press kit or a CD’s liner notes. Ginsberg called Kerouac “the great rememberer.” I call Kirpal “the great appreciator.” 

—C. Ridge Floyd, composer, performer and recording artist

There may not exist a book pitch, feature article or essay that Kirpal Gordon’s editing eye cannot improve upon—exchanging ideas with him is a joy. He’s the ultimate manuscript doctor. 

—Paul Hinkle, public speaker, Hinkle & Associates

Kirpal Gordon makes my words sing like they’ve never sung before; the written word is the soul of his existence. 

—JoAn Majors, author, EncourageMENTORS: 16 Attitude Steps for Building Your Business, Family & Future

Gordon is a writer’s writer, one of those rare and special guys who not only lives and breathes the written word but exudes it from every pore. To know him is to love the passion of ideas in a multitudinous creative context, and with every encounter, to be once again inspired to dive in and produce something terrific, to discover in one’s own life and work a thimbleful of what he has in 55 gallon drums.

—Scott Key Shelton, entrepreneur

Combining sound judgment with a most unusual range of background knowledge, Kirpal Gordon is learned but without the arrogance. His script consultations are quite rewarding. 

—Francine Lefrak, producer, HBO Films

Thanks to a thorough appreciation of my work, Kirpal has helped me reach an audience I didn’t even know existed for what I do. 

—Brice Adams, visual artist

My first contact with Kirpal Gordon came through EMPIRE, his prison brainchild which won the accolades of Governor Cuomo. Because his work embraces my own literary vision—to integrate the music, rhythm and soul of the English language with a spiritual sensuality and erudite scholarship—I invited him to be a contributing editor of my literary magazine and press. He has consulted on countless manuscripts, made helpful suggestions, referred me to hundreds of useful contacts, venues and authors and helped me build a presence beyond what I thought I could achieve. 

—Steve Hirsch, publisher, Heaven Bone Press

Kirpal Gordon is a highly professional, insightful and knowledgeable editor who can tweak a word or punctuation mark and make a strong piece even more powerful. He ‘gets’ the author; with an uncanny ability to feel what is in the writer’s heart, he masterfully helps to reveal the intent with clarity and polish. I couldn’t have completed my book without him and I’m forever grateful that I found him. 

—Susan Margulies Kalish, poet, The Cerebral Jukebox

Kirpal’s consultations with my team as well as the material he has written for CareerTHINK, a three-day intensive program designed for college and high school age students, have helped enrich our seminar and propel us to our fullest enrollment to date. 

—Hermann Schulze, founder and director, CareerTHINK

Kirpal Gordon wrote the most inspired appreciation of my work I have ever read. When I called him up to thank him, he helped me develop the best brochure of my work I have ever had. 

—Marilyn Branham, visual artist

In the face of spur-of-the-moment changes and reversing editorial decisions, deals and deadlines, Kirpal Gordon is a fantastic asset. He’s focused but with a sense of humor; he knows how to keep his cool. 

—Loreacy Moses, editor, Custom Home Builders

Intelligent, intuitive and street smart, Kirpal brings a lot of gifts to the table. Working with him is like watching your good ideas get better. He can synthesize many points of view. Not only that, I just like him! 

—Mac Lee, D.M.D., author, Nothin Personal Doc, But I Hate Dentists!