Helping writers write the books writing them.
A marriage of readers, working since 1998.
Heidi Lynn Staples, PhD · John Staples, MFA
"I put a brief out for a developmental editor and I just got so much more"
SUZY CASHMAN
Author of The Invitation
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Imago Intensive, completed in twelve weeks.
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Returning for Imago Immersive for her second book in September.
ON THE FEAR OF BEING OVERWRITTEN
“My main concern was — is this person just going to come in and rewrite what I’ve written? That wasn’t what I wanted. Heidi reads between the lines. She tapped into the vision, the vision beyond the vision.”
ON THE PROCESS
“She held my hand with gentle inquiry and a really keen eye — her expertise, her insight, her wisdom, helping the book and myself flourish in the process.”
ON THE TRANSFORMATION
“When I first approached Heidi, what I had was a jumble of words. I said it was a manuscript, but it wasn’t really. Twelve weeks later, we delivered a book together.”
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Selections from Suzy Cashman's Imago Scan
THE IMAGO METHOD
Begin with a conversation, move through a blueprint, continue into a writing journey.
The Imago: in Latin and in Jung, the image of the fully realized form a thing is becoming.
The Imago Conversation: a first conversation. Where we meet the work and the writer behind it, and we feel together whether the work is for us and we are for it.
The Imago Scan and Reader Response: the blueprint. Two complete readings of the manuscript, working in concert.
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The Scan is Heidi's: a structural reading of the work across five dimensions, delivered as a presentation deck with a video talk-through, an annotation of the manuscript, and an editorial letter.
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The Reader Response is John's: a sentence-level reading of the same manuscript, returning to the writer what the work does to a reader who meets it. Delivered as an annotation of the manuscript and an editorial letter.
The engagement opens with a forty-five-minute intake call and closes with a three-hour consultation. Some writers stop here, satisfied with the blueprint. Some continue.
Imago Intensive: a thirty- to ninety-day supported writing sprint, from blueprint to published book. The Intensive privileges timeline and coherence within a deadline. Best for writers with a clear ambition and a near-term window.
Imago Immersive: a year or more writing journey, from blueprint to published book. The Immersive privileges personal discovery and achieved complexity. Best for writers who have time to let the book reach what it is becoming.
ABOUT US
A marriage of readers, working since 1998
We've been reading each other's work since we met in Prague, 1998, a conversation started across poems, stories, manuscripts, and the long, slow shape of two writing lives held alongside each other.
We've been reading students' work, too, across decades of university teaching, and the work of writers submitting to literary magazines where we have both served as readers, including the Georgia Review, Salt Hill, Verse and with Deb Olin Unferth on our own, Parakeet.
In 2025, we began offering this informed attention to writers outside the classroom.
Heidi Lynn Staples, PhD performs the Imago Scan. A poet, memoirist, and former tenured professor of creative writing, Heidi brings her training in poetry and depth psychology to read for what the work is reaching for beneath what it has so far achieved — and how it needs to move to get there.
John Staples, MFA performs the Reader Response. Ten years teaching English and creative writing, published fiction, Irish literary bursaries, and editorial experience at award-winning literary magazines. John meets the work as a reader meets it and returns it to the writer with clear line-editing advice and distilled feedback.
Two readings, working in concert. The conversation between them, built up between us across twenty-five years, is the Imago Method.
Every Imago Journey begins with an Imago Conversation. If you are writing a book that matters to you, we would like to hear what you are working on.
https://calendly.com/storytellingrx/a-conversation-about-your-book
