Mom Interviews

Founder of Writeyes

Judy Adourian is the founder of Writeyes, a teaching, critiquing and support network for writers. Judy lives in Rhode Island and has two young boys, ages 8 and 5. In this interview, Judy talks candidly about what made her leave her corporate career to start her business, the pros and cons of having a home-based business, what she has learned from becoming an entrepreneur, and how she embraced the challenge of having a child with special needs.

Company website: www.writeyes.com

Industry: Freelance writer & teacher

Date company was founded: September, 2000 (originally as Stage Fright Playwrights)

Number of employees: Just me.

Can you tell us a bit about your company?

Writeyes is a teaching, critiquing, and support network for writers. I offer correspondence courses for playwriting, personal essays, and short stories, creative writing workshops, and individual critiques of completed works.

What inspired you to start your business?

While teaching a week-long, one-act playwriting workshop at the International Women’s Writing Guild’s annual summer conference in 2000, one of my mentors, Ann Loring (a one-time lead actress on the soap opera “Love of Life” and then a script doctor for films) praised me for my ability to teach complex writing concepts in innovative ways accessible to writers of all levels. She asked if I taught my course elsewhere during the year. I confessed that between my husband’s work demands and my one-year-old son, getting out to teach on a regular basis wasn’t in the cards for me. She insisted that I start my own business, taking on private students in my home as she did, as a compliment to my already busy life as a stay-at-home mom.