Kern Carter
Memoir, fiction, and narrative non-fiction.
About
I help people turn their experiences, expertise, and ideas into books that readers connect with and keep thinking about. I’m Kern Carter, a Toronto-based author, ghostwriter, editor, and book architect with five published books, including titles published by Penguin Random House and Scholastic. Alongside my own writing, I’ve ghostwritten full-length books for CEOs, entrepreneurs, influencers, and thought leaders. My work spans memoir, leadership, personal development, and fiction. My strength is finding the story inside everything you want to say. You might have decades of experience, a powerful personal journey, or an idea you know deserves a book, but need help giving it shape. That’s where I come in: identifying the central thread, building a compelling structure, and developing a manuscript that sounds like you. I approach each project as a creative partnership. Through thoughtful conversations and close attention to your voice, I help uncover the experiences, insights, and details that give your book its character. For memoir, that means shaping lived experience into a narrative with emotional depth. For leadership and expertise-driven books, it means connecting your stories to clear ideas readers can apply. My experience also extends to teaching storytelling and the business of writing at Humber College, editing manuscripts, and helping authors think through their positioning and marketing. I bring that broader perspective to every project, including who the book is for, what it promises, and what will make someone recommend it. Whether you’re starting with a few notes, a rough manuscript, or simply the conviction that you have a book in you, I can help you build it with care, clarity, and ambition.
- Location
- Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Experience
- 10 years
- Listed
- November 2026
- Categories
- Memoir or autobiography · Narrative nonfiction · Book proposal · Fiction
- Languages
- English
- Range
- $25,000
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0 contracts paid in full
This number is built only from contracts paid start to finish through Notable Authors. Nothing self-reported is counted. The clients behind it are real and anonymous: a redaction bar sits where each name would be. How that works →
Services
Memoir Ghostwriting: Your Life, In Your Voice
From $25,000I work with people who want to turn their experiences into a compelling memoir, whether they’re documenting a defining chapter, sharing lessons earned through adversity, or preserving a legacy for their family and a wider audience. As an author with books published by Penguin Random House and Scholastic, I bring a novelist’s understanding of character, scene, and narrative momentum to the work. As a ghostwriter, I listen closely for your voice; how you speak, what you notice, and what matters most to you. Through in-depth interviews, we’ll explore the experiences and relationships at the heart of your book, establish its central themes, and build a narrative that gives readers a reason to keep turning pages. You can come with journals, recordings, scattered notes, an unfinished draft, or simply a story you’re ready to tell.
Typical turnaround By arrangement
Novel Ghostwriting: Turning Imagination Into Art
From $25,000You have an idea for a novel. A character you can’t stop thinking about, a world you want to explore, or a story you’ve started but haven’t been able to finish. I help you develop that idea into a complete manuscript with compelling characters, purposeful scenes, and a voice that fits your vision. I’m the author of five published books, including novels published by Penguin Random House and Scholastic. My fiction explores identity, relationships, family, belonging, and the choices people make under pressure. I bring that attention to emotional depth and narrative momentum to the novels I write for clients. We’ll begin by discussing your premise, intended audience, and ambitions for the book. From there, we’ll develop the characters, central conflict, setting, and structure. A sample chapter will help us establish the voice and style before I move into the full manuscript.
Typical turnaround 6-9 months
The record
What this proves →Nothing here yet, and nothing on any profile yet. This site is new. A record appears when a whole book has been written and paid for through it, so the first ones are months away.
Writing samples
The writer’s own material, published exactly as written.
Boys And Girls ScreamingFiction · Opening chapter · 431 words · 2 min read
IT WAS QUIET THAT night. I was only five, sitting cross-legged in the corner of my bedroom with more paint on my arms and legs than there was on the paper in front of me. I could hear her pacing. Every step made its own creak, back and forth like a rusted seesaw. I don’t know what took her so long. It’s not like she ever wanted me.
“You shouldn’t be here.” I must’ve been three the first time she said those words to me. If I close my eyes tight enough, I can see the black moles dotting her face. Hear the slow, deep crawl of her voice.
“I’m leaving,” she said. “You hear me?” She was standing in the doorway of my bedroom holding a gym bag in one hand and a suitcase in the other. I was still holding on to that paintbrush. There was paint all over my face, on my elbows, and all over my clothes. I looked up at her, but she didn’t move any closer. The last sound I remember is the click of the front door lock.
Days later I was still in my room. Still splashing paint and dusting crumbs of dry cereal off sheets of paper covered in blotches of color. That was when I heard the front door. Loud knocks. Then banging. I held my breath and tried staying still.
“Candace? Candace, you in there? We’re coming in, OK?”
I shut my bedroom door and hustled to the corner near the window. The paper was still wet with paint when I squeezed it to my chest. Hearing the front door open made me jump back against the wall.
Go away.
All I wanted to do was keep painting.
“Candace?” My bedroom door opened. “Candace, are you OK?”
The property manager’s face was the first I saw. I only knew him as the man downstairs who said hi every day when I came home from school. Then I saw Mrs. Heard, her hair the same brown as my skin and draped down one shoulder. She took my hand and walked me to the bathroom while the man from downstairs stayed in the bedroom shaking his head.
I had no way of knowing my life was about to change forever.
No way to stop Mrs. Heard from cleaning me up and taking me to her home. Ever wasn’t in the picture yet, but that first night at Mrs. Heard’s house, in my own room with the lights that didn’t go all the way dark, I closed my eyes and let myself dream.
Selected credits
Self-reportedProvided by the writer. Most ghostwriting is confidential, so we cannot confirm these and do not present them as fact.
$25,000
Contact Kern