Michelle Rosa Raybeck (known to her students as Ms. Michelle) offers  a broad range of services because her 30-plus-year career has spanned a broad range of interrelated fields. She doesn't specialize, because she has the skills and experience to offer ghostwriting, editing or academic coaching services in almost any field.

Michelle's career began in 1993 (!) as a reporter at a weekly newspaper serving six northern New Jersey communities, where she later served as editor in chief and won awards for her journalism. She was later selected to spearhead the Special Sections department for their weekly newspaper group, winning awards for our specialty inserts on topics ranging from home improvement to bridal to restaurants.

In addition to reporting on a wide variety of topics, Michelle also devoted a significant portion of her time to helping other reporters to do their best work, mentoring them from rough, undisciplined rookies into polished professional journalists. She did this by teaching them to self-edit “with an X-Acto knife, not a hatchet.” That’s still how she approaches every text: her goal is to help you communicate your message as clearly as possible while preserving your personal or brand voice.

Inspired by some of the education reporting she'd done, Michelle pivoted into education. She taught English and journalism at high schools throughout northern New Jersey, which also included overseeing student newspapers. When she wasn’t in the classroom, Michelle was tutoring privately.

While home recovering from an injury, she started herfirst ghostwriting and editing business, working on projects ranging from memoirs to doctoral dissertations. Michelle served as editor on the Roshni: The Light of South Asia book series.

Later, Michelle and her husband started Pink Dog Estate Sales; they conducted 330 estate sales throughout northern New Jersey in nine years. Michelle managed all operations for this small family business, including marketing, legal, accounting, human resources and physical site setup.

Since 2024, Michelle has been building Ms. Michelle’s Writing Desk from the ground up. She earned a Certificate in Editing from the ACES/Poynter partnership so my skills are fresh. She finished her  first novel, Ramapo, and secured agent representation with Albert T. Longden Associates. She honed my SEO skills while working as a freelance brand copywriter. in 2025, Michelle has been copyediting highly technical textbooks for a well-known textbook publisher, writing feature articles for BC the Magazine, and reporting on the end-of-life experience for SevenPonds magazine. As Chair of the Oakland Newsletter Committee, she writes feature articles and mentor amateur reporters. At the same time, she also tutors privately in English Language Arts and provide academic coaching services, helping students get organized to position themselves for academic success across the curriculum and throughout their lives.

What can Ms. Michelle help you to do with words?