On the cusp of 40, David Leite had "a Thelma and Louise moment — it was either drive off the cliff or go back where I came from." But Leite wasn't behind the wheel of a convertible. He was in New York City, sitting at his desk and staring at his computer screen. The cliff's edge: a career change. He wanted to be a writer and nothing else.

Leite (pronounced "leet") had been scribbling in a journal for 20 years. At 33, he sold a story about his childhood in Swansea, Mass., to the Providence Journal. While not quite the Great American Novel he'd hoped to write, it was a start. Or it should have been. Six years of spinning his wheels would pass before he saw his name in print again. "I went to a couple of how-to-get-published seminars," he recalls about the period, "but it wasn't the right time."

That changed as the advertising market, in which Leite had worked as a freelancer, slipped into a coma. As jobs dwindled, his writing increased. He canvassed several major papers, pitching a story about growing up Portuguese in a small New England town: "I wrote about wanting to eat Wonder Bread, meatloaf and baloney but getting octopus and salted cod." A Chicago paper bought it. Stories on tea and champagne followed, and then an 8,000-word article on food in the 20th century. That article appeared on the last Wednesday of 1999. It was also Leite's last article for the paper — the editor now wanted only local stories.

Still, he was ready to go over the cliff. "I'll be poor for a while," Leite knew when he made the decision to write full time, "but I have to do it."

Staying poor was not in the script. But for freelance, self-taught writers such as Leite, learning the business of writing and how best to tailor and market stories is tough and time-consuming. Where can a freelancer turn for career advice? In Leite's case, the answer was a writing coach.

These days, there are coaches for everything: life, business, marriage, creativity, spirituality. The list goes on, and the number of coaches keeps growing. According to its Web site, the Washington, D.C.-based International Coach Federation had more than 5,000 member coaches in its referral database.

Leite knew nothing about coaching before he attended the 2002 Symposium for Professional Food Writers. There on a writing scholarship, he was skeptical. Still, he had come to the symposium to learn the business of food writing. And no one, he was told repeatedly, knew that business better than Toni Allegra.

Allegra, founder and director of the annual symposium, coaches food and beverage writers. A food writer and editor herself since the late 1970s, Allegra was drawn to coaching after witnessing writers benefit from the symposium's nurturing environment. For seven years now, she has worked with individual writers, both novice and seasoned, tailoring her skills to their needs.

One current client has written 40 cookbooks, Allegra says, "but he wanted a shift, a new direction and voice. He came to me because he wasn't sure how to market himself" in a new way.

When David Leite approached Allegra, writing was the "primary source of my meager income. I wanted to learn how to be a resourceful, effective businessman." He wanted to learn how to approach editors, craft query letters and present himself professionally: "She helps me determine what and how to pursue with each editor." >>