Success Story is a team of student-centered, experienced educators and writing coaches who understand how to support youth in finding their authentic stories. Success Story coaches use all the following methods:
- Encouragement and Positivity. We find your writing superpowers and have no doubt they exist. We show you how these craft moves–ones you already possess–can help you tell your most compelling and competitive personal stories. We show you how to build on that scaffold to develop your ever-evolving, always-unique voice. Writing is a joyful experience if you see what your talents already are and where you can truly connect with your reader. We get excited about your current skills and your potential as a writer.
- Writing as a Process. We teach you skills for brainstorming, revision, and editing, focusing on skills for each phase. We teach you how to “throw spaghetti at the wall” to get your best ideas out there; we teach you how to write intuitively, whether outlining or free writing, and depending on your preference; we teach you how to trust in “overwriting” before “underwriting”; we teach you how to find an eye for excess phrasing and find the more powerful, succinct delivery.
- Differentiated Skill Scaffolding. We meet you where you are and deliver just-in-time content and skill exercises to help you find salient, memorable details; to find insightful, in-depth elaboration and commentary; and to find compelling, coherent structures for essays of all sizes.
- Questioning. Each coaching session is Socratic, as are comments in documents. We are constantly inviting students to reflect more deeply on their identities, goals, and dreams, rendering unique portraits of their journey thus far.
- Person Over Product. In a highly competitive and stressful landscape, we want students to see who they are first–values and character, talents and skills, interests and dreams. We encourage self-awareness while holding up a mirror. We find a way to bring the personal to the argument so that students are expressing their truths that will fit with the right schools.
- Structure. With reminder emails and calendars where necessary, we ensure that you stay on track.
- Collegiality for Student Success. The Success Story team is in regular consultation with one another, sharing documents and supporting with additional eyes on documents. No matter who you work with, you get the collective wisdom of the Success Story Hive. With full services, Lyn is always involved at the stage of the Pitch Session and Final Review.
Lyn Fairchild Hawks, Founder of Success Story and Writing Coach
Lyn (she/her) started Success Story in 2020 because she loves helping students tell their most authentic, cinematic stories. Her students earn merit scholarships and hear good news from schools such as Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill, Stanford, NC State, NYU, University of Chicago, UC Berkeley, Cal Poly, and Cornell. She is a graduate of Stanford University with a B.A. in English and an M.A. in Education, and holds an MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is an award-winning author of young adult novels, short stories, and books for educators, including lessons for teaching Shakespeare. She is also an award-winning screenwriter.
As someone juggling critiques from agents, editors, and producers, she understands what it’s like to wrestle with feedback and make deep revisions. For 15 years she designed and ran online programs for gifted youth at Duke University while providing freelance support to students with their college essays. She lives in Chapel Hill, NC with her partner, Greg Hawks, an Americana singer-songwriter. Her stepson, a proud graduate of DePaul, now does sound design for award-winning independent films. He still forgives his stepmom for making him rewrite all his essays. When Lyn’s not thinking up new coaching strategies, she loves drawing, cooking, dancing to ‘80s music, and using SOARE (young hawk!) as her favorite way to start Wordle.
Margaret Bennett, Writing Coach, Success Story
Margaret (she/her) is excited to be part of the Success Story team and help students use words to capture the magic and magnificence of their lives. Margaret is a graduate of Stanford University with a B.A. in English and an M.A. in Education. She loved working with her high school English students for over twenty years where her focus was the teaching of writing. While it was her day-to-day interactions with her students that brought her the most joy, she has also enjoyed serving as course team lead and department chair, supervisor and mentor to new teachers, WASC Coordinator, school leadership team Coordinator, and head coach for the Cross-Country and Track teams.
Margaret lives in San Jose, CA with her husband who is a recently retired high school social studies teacher. She has two sons; one is a graduate of UC Davis and is a software engineer and the other, a graduate of Princeton where he was a starter on the men’s soccer team. He is now finishing his Masters in Marketing at Santa Clara. While her sons were young, Margaret worked as an independent consultant with Creative Memories helping busy people to capture their stories and memories in photo books. As a top leader in the country with Creative Memories, she wrote and presented several speeches at the national conventions. When she isn’t teaching, or spending time with her family, she loves gardening, reading (YA as well as whatever her book club recommends), hiking, traveling and photography.
Joanne Miyahara, Writing Coach, Success Story
Joanne (she/her) has always loved learning and teaching, especially getting to know students’ experiences, interests and values to help them grow as thinkers, communicators and leaders. With a B.A. in English from Pomona College and an M.A. in Education from Stanford University, she taught at a top public high school in California for thirty-four years. Teaching reluctant to gifted writers across all levels of English, she emphasized authenticity and inquiry throughout the writing process. Founding AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination, a college readiness program) at her school, she supported first-generation college students throughout their high school pathways to earn acceptances at colleges such as Stanford, University of Chicago, Wellesley, Olin and all UCs. As a mentor teacher and staff development leader, she focused on college readiness, growth mindset, 21st century skills and real world applications, peer coaching, inquiry and critical media literacy. She’s also been a National Board Certified Teacher and District Teacher of the Year.
With her husband, a high school administrator, she also served as a Resident Fellow at Stanford. As her son has autism and her daughter ADHD, she understands many of the challenges and strengths of learning differences; she’s incredibly proud that her son earned a B.M. in Jazz Studies from San Jose State University and her daughter a B.S. in Business Administration from U.C. Riverside. Recently retired, she mentors AVID seniors as well as some AVID graduates through college, and she helps address food insecurity and social justice issues. She finds the most joy watching her son rock out with a band and her daughter captivate an audience with her dancing, hiking amidst redwoods with her husband, and creating music with a praise band and the Santa Clara Chorale.
Jesse Weiner, Writing Coach, Success Story
Jesse is a graduate of the University of Boulder–dual degrees in English and International Affairs–with a minor in French. She holds an MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She has served as a high school academic advisor with Colorado Early College, helping over 200 students a year, and as an English teacher. The 2020 recipient of the Norma Fox Mazer Award, which honors excellence in craft, she writes in multiple genres and forms, but her main loves are horror, historical fiction, fantasy, and novels in verse for teens and adults. She is a judge for the popular online writing platform NYC Midnight and a graduate of the highly-competitive AWP mentorship program. Her professional memberships include The Author’s Guild (AG), the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP), PEN America, and the Editorial Freelancer’s Association (EFA). When she’s not spending time with her family in the beautiful Colorado outdoors, she is a home baker for Cake4Kids.
Tami Polge, Leadership Consultant, Success Story
Tami (she/her) is thrilled to be part of the Success Story team, guiding students as they uncover their strengths and weave compelling tales of their leadership growth. She holds both a BA in Education and History with English endorsement and an MA in Curriculum and Instruction from UNC Chapel Hill. Tami has decades of experience in education, including as a classroom teacher, team and department chair, and supervisor and mentor to new teachers.
She champions teaching that is engaging, personalized, and relevant. She has helped develop new programs and has served as director of service learning, curriculum consultant, workshop presenter, board member, and leadership coach. These various roles have instilled in her the qualities of a bold, compassionate, reflective leader with a creative and visionary approach to empowering others.
Tami also cherishes time with her husband, a video game programmer, and their four kids, ages 9-20. They embark on outdoor adventures, competitive board games, and finding their way out of escape rooms. As a child, Tami read every mystery novel she could find and still enjoys piecing together clues to tackle challenging problems, especially alongside a good team. Having now also seen her own children successfully navigate the college application journey, she has a new appreciation for the life lessons learned during this special time. When she’s not mentoring students or attending conferences, you can find Tami savoring life’s moments–skiing and hiking among snow- capped mountains, collecting seashells on a beach, or paddling under the stars. She thrives on cultivating opportunities for lifelong, experiential learning and building meaningful connections with others. Read more about Leadership Consultation here.
Mindi Trimble, College Prep Mentor & Essay Specialist
Mindi (she/her) is a member of the Success Story team and has over 15 years of experience in higher education and college prep. In her founder role at Mindi Trimble Mentoring, she’s been described by her students as “college coaching bubble wrap,” encouraging her students to POP with fun, stress-relieving ideas for navigating their educational journeys using her Majorly Determined method. She then makes sure they don’t POP under pressure by guiding them through carefully selected and impactful coursework and extracurriculars. This work culminates in personality-filled applications that get put in the “yes” pile to colleges including Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, Yale, UPenn, and the Universities of California, North Carolina, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Virginia and more. Besides increasing acceptance rates, working with Mindi has been known to yield college financial offers ranging from five to thirty times family investments in her programs.
When not singing her students’ praises, Mindi flexes her Phi Beta Kappa-from-UC Berkeley knowledge at trivia nights, her muscles on hikes with her husband Scott and German Sheagle Allie Boo, and yes—her actual operatic training with silly versions of soprano arias to her twin boys.
Krystyna Walters, Test Prep & Academic Lead
Krystyna (she/her) is proud to serve on the Success Story team as the point person for test prep and academic tutoring. As the founder of Avery Prep, she leads and manages a team of eight of the country’s sharpest, most effective tutors, helping students strengthen the grades, skills, and scores that support a compelling overall application.
Over a 15-year career, Krystyna has helped students earn perfect and near-perfect SAT and ACT scores while developing a clear, strategic approach to academic growth. She created the Blueprint to 1600/36, a method designed to help students build mastery, confidence, and strong performance under pressure. Through Avery Prep, students receive support in all academic subjects, AP courses, and standardized tests.
Families who come through Success Story work with Krystyna to identify the right academic or test prep plan, and in most cases, she thoughtfully matches them with an exceptional tutor from her team. Known for her warmth, high standards, and ability to quickly identify where a student is stuck, Krystyna ensures that each family receives personalized guidance and outstanding instruction.
Together, Success Story and Avery Prep help students pair compelling personal narratives with the strong academic performance that opens doors to higher education opportunities.
Emily Dorn, Chapel Hill College Coach
Check out Emily Dorn’s App Camps! Offered in person in Chapel Hill, July and August 2026, in a small group setting (maximum of 6) students will meet the following goals: fill out the Common App, learn how to add specific schools, understand each school’s requirements, gain strategies for responding to supplemental essays, discuss test score submission, and begin specific essay prompts if available. Learn more about Emily’s services here.