NWP Radio

New York Times bestselling author Nikki Grimes is the recipient of the 2022 CSK Virginia Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award, the ALAN Award for significant contributions to young adult literature, the Children's Literature Legacy Medal, and the NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children. The author of Coretta Scott King Award-winner Bronx Masquerade, her most recent titles include the YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults title Between the Lines, companion to Bronx Masquerade. Ms. Grimes lives in Corona, California.After over a decade of facilitating student, teacher, and adult learning as a literacy teacher, adjunct professor, teacher coach, and diversity, equity, and inclusion specialist, Barrett Rosser is currently a full-time doctoral candidate in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. She is in the Reading, Writing, and Literacy program and has been the Philadelphia Writing Project Scholar for the last three years. Barrett leads communities of teachers, principals, parents, and out-of-school-time leaders to explore literacy, writing, teaching, and learning across all grade levels and disciplines. Further, Barrett is the founder of the Black Girls' Literacies Project, an out-of-school inquiry group for high-school-aged Black girls to use their literacies to build knowledge about and practice self-love. Barrett is also a dreamer, lover, and poet. She loves reading and giving back to the Philadelphia community.

In this episode, Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr., the 2022 Kentucky Teacher of the Year, talks about his experiences advocating for Black, brown, and LGBTQ students in often hostile education environments. Carver talks about the difficulties minoritized students and teachers are facing as well as some of the ways teachers and students can resist and attempt to protect their students in this atmosphere, drawing on his own experiences and those of other teachers. He will also share some works from his book of narrative poems about the experience of growing up queer and Appalachian, Gay Poems for Red States.

Ralph Fletcher, a member of the NWP Writers Council, has been a long-time mentor to teachers and young writers and has helped generations of teachers understand the importance of letting go and trusting their writers.Ralph Fletcher has written over fifty books for writing teachers and young readers including Joy Write, Nonfiction Craft Lessons, What a Writer Needs, Focus Lessons: How Photography Enhances the Teaching of Writing, and The Writing Teacher’s Companion. His most recent books are The World’s Loneliest Elephant, a picture book illustrated by Naoko Stoop, and A Writer’s Notebook: Unlocking the Writer Within You. Ralph visits schools and speaks at educational conferences around the world, helping teachers find wiser ways of teaching writing. He also has a passion for nature photography.Tracey T. Flores is an assistant professor of Language and Literacy at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Flores is a former English Language Development (ELD) and English Language Arts (ELA) teacher, working for eight years alongside culturally and linguistically diverse students, families, and communities in K-8 schools throughout Glendale and Phoenix, Arizona. Dr. Flores is the founder of Somos Escritoras/We Are Writers, a creative space and writing workshop for Latina girls (grades 6-8) that invites them to write stories from their lived experiences using art, theater, and writing as a tool for reflection, examination, and critique of their worlds.

How can we remix writing instruction to invite students to write across a range of genres? How might a genre framework for teaching writing support students in writing for specific audiences and purpose? Listen to this NWP Radio interview to hear Dr. Jessica Singer Early talk about her new book Next Generation Genres: Teaching Writing for Civic and Academic Engagement.

Join us for a conversation about our educational WHY and how we can support students to become their best selves. We’ll be talking with portrait artist Robert Shetterly, and educators Connie Carter and Richard Koch.Related Links from the ShowAmericans Who Tell the TruthThe Mindful Writing Workshop

NWP Radio host Tanya Baker visits with author, educator, and NWP Writers Council member Amanda Parrish Morgan. Amanda shares about her writing/teaching life and how her book Strollers came to be.

All of us in education can find opportunities to interrupt the status quo that allows inequities to go unchallenged. In Teaching for Racial Equity: Becoming Interrupters, authors Tonya Perry, Steven Zemelman, and Katy Smith show us the way. In this episode of The Write Time, listen to the authors talk about the making and use of this professional text.Tonya B. Perry is the director of the Red Mountain Writing Project in Birmingham, Alabama. She also is the vice provost of Miles College, a Historically Black College University, and a co-author of Teaching for Racial Equity: Becoming Interrupters. She is the vice-president of NCTE. Her favorite pastime is writing and spending time with family and friends. Katy Smith is the Chair of the Department of Educational Inquiry and Curriculum Studies and the Director of Graduate Studies at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. She began her association with the Illinois Writing Project (IWP) as a teacher-consultant while she was teaching high school students, and now directs IWP with Steve Zemelman.Steve Zemelman is a visiting scholar at Northeastern Illinois University and a founding director of the Illinois Writing Project. He promotes student civic engagement and restorative justice in Chicago schools. His books on teaching writing and reading have long been widely appreciated, including Best Practice: Bringing Standards to Life in America’s Classrooms (with Harvey Daniels and Arthur Hyde), and From Inquiry to Action: Civic Engagement with Project-Based Learning.

Dr. Yohuru Williams is a distinguished University Chair, Professor of History, and the founding Director of the Racial Justice Initiative at the University of St. Thomas. He received his Ph.D. from Howard University in 1998 and is the author and editor of several books including Rethinking the Black Freedom Movement and Black Power/White Politics: Civil Rights, Black Power, and Black Panthers in New Haven.Dr. Williams has appeared on a variety of local and national radio and television programs, most notably CNN, BET, History Channel, Huff Post, Matter of Fact Listening Tour with Soledad O’Brien, and NPR. His scholarly articles have appeared in the American Bar Association’s Insights on Law and Society, The Organization of American Historians Magazine of History, The Black Scholar, and The Journal of Black Studies.Joe Anson has been working in education since 2000. After spending 18+ years in the throes of junior-high language arts in Spanish Fork, Utah, he now works in teacher education at Bellevue University in Nebraska. His involvement with the National Writing Project began in the Central Utah Writing Project’s inaugural year (2009), where he was heavily involved until he and his amazing wife packed up their five kids and moved a thousand miles away. He hopes to become more involved in the Nebraska Writing Project when he is not observing student teachers and designing curriculum such as the new class he is excited to teach: Teaching Adolescent Literature and Social Justice. He is an avid baseball fan and enjoys charring mammal flesh over open flames and dabbling in poetry.

Sonya Huber is the author of seven books, including the new guide, Voice First: A Writer’s Manifesto, and the award-winning essay collection on chronic pain, Pain Woman Takes Your Keys and Other Essays from a Nervous System. Her other books include Supremely Tiny Acts: A Memoir in a Day, Opa Nobody, Cover Me: A Health Insurance Memoir, and The Backwards Research Guide for Writers. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Brevity, Creative Nonfiction, and other outlets. She teaches at Fairfield University and in the Fairfield low-residency MFA program.Michelle Caruso Walker has been working in education for the last 20 years. She’s taught middle school and high school in both CT and NY. Michelle has a PhD from Fordham University and currently works in Westport Public Schools as the middle school instructional coach. She’s also the mom to three boys!

Rose Brock, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Library Science at Sam Houston State University, is a veteran educator and advocate for using audiobooks as a tool for literacy and is the cofounder of the national literacy initiative Guys Listen, a part of the Guys Read literacy national program. Dr. Brock was awarded the Siddie Joe Johnson Award for Outstanding Service to Youth by the Texas Library Association and is cofounder of NTTBF, the North Texas Teen Book Festival. She is the editor of Hope Wins, Hope Nation: Young Adult Authors Share Personal Moments of Inspiration, and author of Young Adult Literature in Action: A Librarian's Guide.James Ponti is the New York Times bestselling author of three middle grade book series: City Spies, about an unlikely squad of five kids from around the world who form an elite MI6 spy team; the Edgar Award-winning FRAMED! Series, about a pair of tweens who solve mysteries in Washington, DC; and the Dead City trilogy, about a secret society that polices the undead living beneath Manhattan. He lives with his family in Orlando, Florida.Jill Stedronsky is a teacher, professionally, and personally. She teaches 8th graders at William Annin Middle School in Basking Ridge, NJ for the past sixteen years. She is a teacher-consultant for the Drew Writing Project, an adjunct for Drew University, and a researcher. Her focus is intrinsic motivation. She strives to create an authentic environment for her students, and hopefully all students around the world, by motivating her students to read and write for real purposes! She co-authored a chapter with Dr. Kristen Hawley Turner, for the publication of her practice in “Inquiry Ignites! Pushing Back Against Traditional Literacy Instruction.” She hopes to help change curriculum world wide.

Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Mayra Cuevas is the author of the teen novels Does My Body Offend You? and Salty, Bitter, Sweet. Her short story Resilient was published as part of the anthology FORESHADOW. Mayra is an award-winning producer for CNN and co-founder of the Latinx Kidlit Book Festival. She keeps her sanity by practicing Buddhist meditation. She lives in Atlanta with her husband, her two stepsons, their fluffy cat and a very loud Chihuahua.Marie Marquardt is author of YA novels Does My Body Offend You? (with Mayra Cuevas), Dream Things True, The Radius of Us, and Flight Season. Her books have earned many awards and commendations, including BEA Buzz Books, Books all Young Georgians Should Read, and the CLASP Américas Commendation, and they have been shortlisted for several state book awards, including the South Carolina Young Adult Book Award and the Missouri Gateway Readers Award. Marie also has published articles and co-authored two non-fiction books about Latin American immigration to the U.S. South, and has been interviewed about her research, writing, and advocacy on National Public Radio, Public Radio International, and BBC America, among many other media outlets. She lives in a busy household in Decatur, Georgia with her spouse, four kids, several chickens, a dog, and a bearded dragon.Bryn Orum is the co-director of the Greater Madison Writing Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In her current role she coordinates programs for youth and educators including Rise Up & Write, Youth Press Corps, and the National Writing Project’s College, Career, and Community Writers Program (C3WP). Previously, Bryn co-founded and taught high school English at Clark Street Community School, a public charter dedicated to deep engagement through personalized, democratic, and place-based education, in Middleton, WI. Bryn studied Literacy and English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she earned her BA and MS. Much of her work in education has focused on equitable and innovative environments.

Gordon Korman introduces himself as a regular guy who just happened to write 100 books for kids and adolescent readers. Born in Montreal in October of 1963, his writing career began in the seventh grade when he took English with his track coach. Then, he was challenged to write every day for more than four months and he finished his first novel, This Can’t Be Happening at Macdonald Hall! With his mother as his typist, he sent it to Scholastic and just like that, Korman was published as a freshman in high school. That was just the beginning. He has sold well over 30 million copies of his books, many translated in over 30 languages.Currently, Gordon lives in Long Island outside of NYC where he continues to love visiting school, teachers, and driving his own children to wherever they need to be. His new book, The Fort, about a group of kids who stumble on an abandoned Cold-War-era bomb shelter, was released in summer 2022.Allison Fallon is a eighth-grade teacher and Department Head at Central Middle School in Greenwich, CT. She has been teaching for 14 years, is an NWP teacher-consultant, and CWP graduate and teacher. In 2021 Allison was awarded the Distinguished Teacher Award for Greenwich Public Schools. When she’s not teaching or crafting curriculum, she is busy with her two daughters, husband, and guinea pigs exploring the outdoors, eating ice cream, and seeking new reading and writing adventures.

Join NWP Radio for a visit with author and NWP Writers Council member Pornsak Pichetshote. Pichetshote was a Thai-American rising star editor at DC’s Vertigo imprint where he worked on such comics perennials as The Sandman and Swamp Thing. His books have been nominated for dozens of Eisner awards—be it the award-winning Daytripper, the New York Times bestseller The Unwritten, or critical darlings like Sweet Tooth and Unknown Soldier. He left Vertigo to become an executive in DC Entertainment’s media team, where he started and oversaw DC TV’s department. He is the author of Infidel, his first major comics work as a writer, and his newest series The Good Asian which features police detective Edison Hark.

Join us for this episode of NWP Radio in which we will talk to Peter Docker, former member of the Royal Air Force, about his new book Leading from the Jumpseat.

Rachel Ignotofsky is a New York Times bestselling author and illustrator, based in Santa Barbara. She grew up in New Jersey on a healthy diet of cartoons and pudding and graduated from Tyler School of Art in 2011. Her work is inspired by history and science. She believes that illustration is a powerful tool that can make learning exciting. She has a passion for taking dense information and making it fun and accessible. Rachel hopes to use her work to spread her message about scientific literacy and feminism.Bryan Ripley Crandall has an interesting story with technology, as he remembers vividly the envy he felt when his best friend, Peter Boy, got the first home computer of the neighborhood and, later, when his college classmates came to campus with clunky, but helpful, keyboard machines. He taught for over a decade in Louisville, Kentucky, and became part of the 21st cohort of the Louisville Writing Project. It was then he began thinking about the ways technology was shifting his own classroom instruction. In fact, he was first published in Teaching the New Writing: Technology, Change, and Assessment in the 21st Century Classroom, edited by Anne Herington, Kevin Hodgson, and Charles Moran. Ah, but he confesses that he knew little about the history of the computer until reading Rachel Ignatofsky’s book.

Join us for this episode of NWP Radio in which we talk to Susie Wise about her new book Design for Belonging, a Stanford d.school guide. In her book, Susie talks about what it means to belong and some of the contexts, or moments, that can be designed using particular levers like space, role, ritual, and groupings. The Design for Belonging website also includes toolkits and resources to get started, wherever you are.

This summer, teachers are invited to join together with scholars, artists, and authors to strengthen writing and multimodal composing practices in a virtual, open institute co-sponsored by three MIchigan Writing Project sites. This NWP Radio show invited facilitators to describe how they will support participants in coming together to create brave spaces in writing instruction that centers writing and composing models at the intersections of queer, BIPOC, and feminist voices; that center intersectionality; and develop a community of folx to support these efforts and to stay committed with and alongside each other. Join us for this interview to learn more and find out how to get involved; registration is open until June 15, 2022.Related ResourcesInstitute flyerAbout Our GuestsRae Oviatt, Ph.D., has nearly two decades of experience in education, community organizing, and research. She was a middle and high school English teacher and teacher of multilingual and bilingual English language learners across urban contexts in Atlanta, Bangkok, Indianapolis, and Lansing. She is the incoming Vice Chair for NCTE's Genders and Sexualities Equity Alliance, and the 2018 recipient of NCTE’s ELATE Graduate Research Award. Her work with the National Writing Project dates back nearly a decade, and she is a teacher-consultant for the Red Cedar Writing Project. She is currently Assistant Professor of Teacher Education at Eastern Michigan University. Dr. Oviatt’s current inquiry examines the liberatory potential for centering Queer of Color literacies and epistemologies in writing and multimodal composing with youth and educators across school and community organizations.Ileana Jiménez is a leader in the feminism-in-schools movement and is the founder of feministteacher.com and creator of the #HSfeminism and #K12feminism hashtags. An English teacher-activist for 25 years, she has taught high school and graduate students, as well as emerging and established teachers critical feminist pedagogies, curricula, and activism. In 2011, she received a Distinguished Fulbright to interview queer youth in Mexico City. Globally, she has presented workshops for teachers in Argentina, Australia, Greece, India, Mexico, and the UK. She has published in Gender in an era of post-truth populism: Pedagogies, challenges and strategies (2022); Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism (volume 1, 2016); Radical Teacher (vol. 106, 2016); One Teacher in Ten in the New Millennium: LGBT Educators Speak Out About What's Gotten Better... and What Hasn't (Beacon, 2015); SLUT: A Play and Guidebook for Combating Sexism and Sexual Violence (2015); The Feminist Utopia Project: Fifty-Seven Visions of a Wildly Better Future (2015); and Youth Sexualities: Public Feelings and Contemporary Cultural Politics (2018). She received her B.A. in English Literature at Smith College, and an M.A. in English Literature at Middlebury College. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram @feministteacher.

Interested in what writing looks and feels like outside of school in those professions that depend on writing like marketing or public relations? Join us for this conversation about writing in the work-a-day worlds marketing and business with Jim Rowe, author of Get Your Ducks in a Rowe. Rowe, who has worked, coached, and supported writers in these fields talks about what kind of support writers need when their goals are clarity and brevity.

Gilly Segal grew up in Florida, and graduated from Hebrew University, and finally decided to call Decatur, Georgia home. By day, she’s the chief legal officer of an advertising agency. By night, she is a caped crusader! No, just kidding (she wishes). Her real not-so-secret identity is author. She’s been writing in one form or another since she wrote her first young adult novel–a Sunfire YA romance fanfic–typed out on an electric typewriter. Although she will confess it was titled CLAUDIA, she will neither confirm nor deny that any copies still exist. Whatever you do, don’t ask her mom if it’s in those boxes stored in the closet of her childhood room.Kimberly Jones is an American author and filmmaker, known for the New York Times bestselling young adult novel, I'm Not Dying With You Tonight and for the viral video "How Can We Win" published during the George Floyd protest. The book, co-authored with Gilly Segal, was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award in 2020. That same year, a seven-minute video featuring Kim using a Monopoly analogy to explain the history of racism and its impact on Black Americans went viral, being shared by Trevor Noah, LeBron James, Madonna, and more.Charline Barger has taught middle and high school English for ten years and transitioned from a brick and mortar to a virtual setting two years ago. This year, she has had the pleasure of teaching creative writing for the first time. Charline has been a National Writing Project teacher-consultant for four years. She has been writing poetry, short stories, and picture books for as long as she can remember and aspires to write YA literature. She lives in Pace, FL with her boyfriend, three children, and a host of animals. When she is not teaching, Charline spends her time watching movies with her kids, reading the latest young adult novels, and chipping away at piles of manuscript drafts.

Sarah J. Donovan, PhD, is a former junior English language arts teacher of fifteen years and an Assistant Professor of Secondary English Education at Oklahoma State University. She wrote Genocide Literature in Middle and Secondary Classrooms (2016) and the young adult novel, Alone Together (2018). Dr. Donovan was the Books in Review columnist for The ALAN Review (2019) and served as a state representative and board member for The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of NCTE (ALAN). She hosts a weekly blog, Ethical ELA, and has contributed chapters to The Best Lesson Series (Talks with Teachers, 2018), Queer Adolescent Literature as a Complement to the English Language Arts Curriculum (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), Moving Beyond Personal Loss to Societal Grieving (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), and Contending with Gun Violence in the English Language Classroom (Routledge, 2019).Kristin Bartley Lenz is a writer and social worker who has lived in Michigan, Georgia, and California. Her debut young adult novel, The Art of Holding On and Letting Go, was a Helen Sheehan YA Book Prize winner, a Junior Library Guild Selection, and an honor book for the Great Lakes Great Books Award statewide literature program. Her writing has been published in a YA poetry anthology (Rhyme & Rhythm: Poems for Student Athletes), The New York Times, Writer's Digest, Hunger Mountain, Literary Mama, Women On Writing, and more. She also writes freelance for Detroit area nonprofits and teaches creative writing for teens and adults.Stacey Lorinn Joy, born and raised in Los Angeles, is a National Board Certified Teacher, Los Angeles County Teacher of the Year, and self-published poet. She has been teaching in elementary education for 37 years. In addition to her self-published book, Naked Reflections: Shamelessly Sensual Poetry, she has poems published in Savant Poetry Anthologies, Teacher Poets Writing to Bridge the Distance, and Rhythm and Rhyme: Poems for Student Athletes.Jayné Penn is an English teacher and cross country coach at Fairfield College Preparatory School in Fairfield, Connecticut. As a Division I Track athlete at Georgetown University, she grew interested in sports stories and community activism. She was also a recipient of the 2018 Dean’s Award for Student Excellence at Fairfield University, with a thesis focus on sports literature in the classroom. Currently, Penn has looked to the potential of Young Adult Literature, with a focus on sports in many texts, as a vehicle to explore empathy with her students.

Natasha Bowen is a writer, a teacher, and a mother of three children. She is of Nigerian and Welsh descent and lives in Cambridge, England, where she grew up. Natasha studied English and creative writing at Bath Spa University before moving to East London, where she taught for nearly ten years. Her debut book Skin of the Sea was inspired by her passion for mermaids and African history. She is obsessed with Japanese and German stationery and spends stupid amounts on notebooks, which she then features on her secret Instagram. When she’s not writing, she’s reading, watched over carefully by Milk and Honey, her cat and dog.Stephanie Renee Toliver is an assistant professor of Literacy and Secondary Humanities at the University of Colorado, Boulder whose scholarship centers the freedom dreams of Black youth and honors the historical legacy that Black imaginations have had and will have on activism and social change. She is the author of Recovering Black Storytelling in Qualitative Research: Endarkened Storywork.

Renée Watson is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, educator, and community activist. Her young adult novel, Piecing Me Together (Bloomsbury, 2017) received a Coretta Scott King Award and Newbery Honor. Her children's picture books and novels for teens have received several awards and international recognition. Her poetry and fiction centers around the experiences of Black girls and women, and explores themes of home, identity, and the intersections of race, class, and gender. One of Renée’s passions is using the arts to help youth cope with trauma and discuss social issues. Her picture book, A Place Where Hurricanes Happen is based on poetry workshops she facilitated with children in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.Fredeisha Harper Darrington is an educator with the Fairfield City School System in Fairfield, Alabama and works as a teacher-consultant with the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Red Mountain Writing Project. She is passionate about social justice as it relates to the education and literacy of all students. She works as an advocate for students with dyslexia and promotes the use of culturally responsive practices in all content areas. Fredeisha has worked in the field of early literacy and language development as a classroom teacher and school library media specialist for over 24 years. She is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in the department of Curriculum and Instruction. Her work is centered around dyslexia, early literacy and language development, social justice, and equity in education.Fredeisha considers writing, traveling, crocheting, and volunteering in her community some of her many interests and passions.

For over twenty years, Peter Kahn has been fortunate to employ the power of poetry to help give voice to those previously unheard. He has been a high school teacher at Oak Park/River Forest High School in Chicago since 1994 and has recently also taught at Roosevelt University. Peter was commended in the National Poetry Competition 2009 and 2017. He is a founding member of Malika’s Kitchen and co-founder of the London Teenage Poetry Slam. Peter holds an MA in English Education from The Ohio State University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Fairfield University. His 2020 book, Little Kings, is a book with interconnected poems and recurring characters that feels more like a book of poetic short stories that speak to one another. His new book, Respect The Mic, is an expansive, moving poetry anthology representing 20 years of poetry from students and alumni of Chicago’s Oak Park River Forest High School Spoken Word Club.Natalie Rose Richardson was born in New York City to a long line of border-crossers and proud people of blended heritage. Natalie is a graduate of the University of Chicago (BA), and the Litowitz Creative Writing Program (in poetry) at Northwestern University. She is a current non-fiction MFA candidate at NYU. Her poetry and prose has appeared, or is forthcoming in: Poetry Magazine, Narrative, Orion Magazine, North American Review, The Adroit Journal, Brevity, The Cincinnati Review, Arts & Letters, Emergence Magazine, Chicago Magazine, and others, along with numerous anthologies, including The Golden Shovel Anthology. She has received awards, residencies or fellowships from the Poetry Society of America, The Poetry Foundation, Tin House, The Newberry Library, The Luminarts Foundation, Crab Orchard Review, Davis Projects for Peace, Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and the National Student Poets Program. Natalie's work has featured at BBC Radio London, Tedx, WBEZ Chicago, The British Royal Library, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the Poetry Foundation. She is a 2020 Pushcart Prize and Best New Poets nominee.Rich Robbins is a rapper, songwriter, producer, and educator. But more than anything, the Oak Park-born, Chicago-based artist is a world-builder. Rich’s early years as a college student in Madison, Wisconsin’s First Wave hip-hop scholarship program jumpstarted his artistry. He recorded wide-reaching tracks like “Dreams” feat. Mick Jenkins, along with records with Saba, Mother Nature, and more. He has performed at historic venues like the Apollo Theater in New York, and has done everything from music festivals, to working at Hot 97 as an intern, to teaching classrooms of high school students how to read and write poetry/songs. His work is an inward look at society’s ills and creates spaces for listeners to explore. In short, Rich’s work critiques the old while envisioning and manifesting the new. His latest releases are available on all streaming platforms.Poet t.l. sanders is a modern-day renaissance man who lives to build minds and loves to body build. He speaks French. He plays bass. He is a cage-fighting martial artist. He educates. Give him a stage, he articulates. Lend him an ear, he motivates. As a performance professional based in Kansas City, MO, Poet has performed at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts (in the 2019 Lyric Opera of Kansas City production of Bizet's Pearl Fishers), at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, and—serendipitously—he has performed at several venues located in Kansas City's Historic Jazz District, 18th and Vine: the American Jazz Museum, at the Gem Theater, and in the Blue Room (which is the setting of his book, kNew: The POETICscreenPLAY). As Paper Birch Landing Art Gallery’s 2019 Poet in Residence Recipient, the Winner of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts’ 2021 Artful Poetry contest, a 2021 Missouri Arts Council Featured Artist, Prairie Lands Writing Project Teacher-Consultant, a Missouri Writing Project Network Teacher-Consultant, a current curriculum director, and former elementary, middle, and high school English teacher turned filmmaker, Poet embraces the value of our shared stories. In 2021, Poet delivered The kNew-Born, an art house film that explores the human side of drug addiction.