Hello! I'm Natalya Savka (she/her)

I help experienced authors write their second books. I am the coach who will really challenge you! Three things got me here:

1. I started writing because I couldn't talk. 

I emigrated from Ukraine as a child without knowing English (not even how to ask for the bathroom, with predictably embarrassing results). I couldn’t talk with my peers, so I began talking to the page. First in Ukrainian, then in English, I filled dozens of journals with my observations and quiet experiences. 

 

Writing was my refuge, and then it became my craft. I went on to earn a B.A. in journalism from Penn State and an M.A. in creative nonfiction from Colorado State University. Since then, I’ve worked with books at every stage, from editing manuscripts for publishers to guiding readers at my local public library. I also ghostwrite one to two nonfiction books per year, helping others shape ideas into books that matter.

2. Joan Didion got to me.

In Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Didion writes, “Writers are always selling somebody out.” That line weighed on me during my first career as a magazine journalist. I reported from around the world—an Indian desert, a Louisiana coal town, even once aboard a peque-peque in a thunderstorm on the Amazon River. People from all walks of life trusted me with their most intimate stories.

 

But deep down, I found myself caring less about delivering those stories to readers and more about helping my sources see their own stories more clearly. I wished for the impossible: to be a hard-hitting storyteller who didn’t sell anybody out. I valued journalism. I understood the role of the reporter and the occasional need to write a difficult truth, and I admired other journalists who did this well. But I knew the work didn't fit me. 

 

Eventually, I realized I didn’t want to write about people. I wanted to work with them. A few twists and turns later, I found book coaching and got certified through Author Accelerator.

3. More than anything, I believe in the power of challenge.

I’ve always been drawn to challenge. First, it was physical challenge (running, biking, climbing), and these days I’m more interested in creative challenge. But when I created Kupala, I hesitated to center the idea of pushing our creative edges. In a world shaped by overwork and systemic inequity, I’m mindful of how a call to push ourselves even more can land. I live with chronic illness and know how tone-deaf talk of “choosing discomfort” can feel. Who wants more pain and uncertainty in a world already full of both?

 

And yet, I keep returning to creative edges. Again and again, I’ve seen how choosing to stretch—deliberately, bravely—beyond our edges can bring strength and joy, not just to our work, but to our whole lives. Pushing your creative edge doesn’t mean ignoring your reality. It means working at the outer rim of your comfort zone, wherever that may be, and allowing the process to change you.

 

Central to Kupala is this belief: we can stretch in powerful ways—especially when the timing is right, the support is steady, and we remember to honor that the edge looks different for each of us, depending on where we happen to be today. 

• You're feeling the restlessness of staying in familiar territory. 

• You know there's something deeper you haven't written yet. 

• You sense that writing into the unknown is the harder path, and you want to do it anyway.