About us - Writelike

Work

Learning to write is hard. Teaching students how to write is even harder. So our mission is to help all students in Grades 5-12 learn advanced writing skills.

We do this through a unique combination of writers’ craft, teachers’ practice, educational psychology, and digital product design.

To date, we’ve made two complementary resources:

Writelike is a mentor text modelling resource. Like an interactive lesson library with peer feedback features, Writelike shows students how to find useful patterns in authentic texts and adapt those patterns to their own content.
Frankenstories is a fast-paced, multiplayer creative writing game. Like a cross between Gartic Phone & Theatresports, Frankenstories is designed to build engagement & enthusiasm for writing and channel that into developing stamina & skill.

Backstory

Writelike began nearly 10 years ago as a research project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. One of our founders, Andrew, wanted to use ideas from cognitive load theory to create a kind of “voice gym” for writers.

Writelike was funded as a back-of-a-napkin prototype—the only non-U.S.-based project to receive the foundation’s LitChallenge grant, and one of only two projects to receive a second round of funding.

The problem was that the prototype didn’t work. Or rather, it didn’t work for average 5th graders. The cognitive load-friendly “voice gym” part was easy; filling knowledge gaps and sustaining engagement with middle-schoolers was hard.

With additional funding from Advance Queensland, we worked on Writelike on and off for over 7 years, experimenting with content & features, collecting feedback from teachers & students, and steadily making improvements.

At the end of that process, we came up with Frankenstories, a tool that perfectly complemented Writelike and solved the biggest challenge: how to make students want to write in the first place.

In 2021, once we felt we had all the pieces of the puzzle, we officially established Writelike as a company and really began to get to work!

Founding team

We are a multi-disciplinary team and we all wear several hats. Prior to launching Writelike, we worked together at Liquid Interactive on a range of multi-award-winning projects in education, health & digital public service design, including MindMatters, ESSI Money, Head to Health & Triple P Community.

Andrew Duval

Writing & teaching

Andrew leads the team and blends writing, teaching, and digital learning design. He has an MA in Scriptwriting from AFTRS, won an AWGIE award, taught middle school, spent 10 years as a creative director, and is a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grantee.

John Warner

Writing & teaching

John writes our Engaged Education newsletter. He is the author of Why They Can’t Write, The Writer’s Practice, and More Than Words: Writing in an Age of AI. He was an editor at McSweeney’s and taught composition at colleges such as University of Illinois and Clemson.

Katrina Couzens

Linguistics & data

Kat writes lessons and wrangles data. She combines a BA in Linguistics and a background in improvisational theatre and immersive storytelling, including leading narrative design for Project Immersive’s award-winning escape rooms and writing for the Woodford Folk Festival Game.

Chris Goold

Coding & design

Chris designs and builds the technology behind Frankenstories & Writelike. He is a full-stack developer with an MA in Digital Design, and he’s a competitive gamer. (He also runs Ausmash, the largest Super Smash Bros site in Australia.)

Jonathan Pearce

Customer support

Jonathan spends most of his talking to educators from all over the world, gathering feedback to constantly improve Frankenstories and Writelike. Jonathan has an MBA, but found more enjoyment working in small companies with big ideas.

Amy Hourigan

Marketing & media

Amy helps teachers find Frankenstories & be part of the Frankenfam. She has 15+ years’ experience in product and purpose-led marketing, from global companies such as online travel agency, Expedia, to Aussie innovators like online disability support provider, Hireup.