The Most Powerful Assumptions are the Ones We've Forgotten We're Making.
About
I used to think that a great story was all about the final reveal. I love a who-done-it! Over the years though, I’ve learned that a great story is actually a small, specific truth you can't stop chewing on.
An earthworm that isn't supposed to be there. A bird feeder engineered against squirrels. A word—like deserving — that everyone uses and no one dissects. I've built a writing life out of noticing the unexamined inheritances hiding inside ordinary things. I've come to believe that the central skill of writing a book that actually moves people depends on finding the small true thing an argument can stand on.
I work with researchers, lawyers, and social scientists who have spent years building real expertise and have started to suspect that expertise alone won't be what changes anyone's mind. A journal article persuades a room of specialists who already agree on the terms of the debate. A book persuades someone who's never thought about the question before — and that requires a different kind of writing entirely. Not simpler. Different.
I'm not a specialist in your field, I am your ideal reader. I’ll read your work the way your audience will: genuinely curious, excited to learn something new, and grateful for clear and engaging writing. I'll tell you when I've lost the thread. I'll tell you when the real argument is hiding two paragraphs below the one you're making. And I'll push, because the people I work with are usually trying to do something that actually matters — challenge a narrative, reframe a problem, help a reader see something they'd stopped questioning.
If you’d like to get a sense of how I think before we talk, check out my Substack: Nibbling on Ideas — essays on inheritance, imagination, and the assumptions we never get around to examining.
Angie Davis
Book coach, New York
