Here are the partners that make Writing the Community happen!
K-12 Schools and Community Partners Fall 2026
CAPE School District
Centennial Elementary School
Doolen Middle School
Drachman Montessori K-8 Magnet School
Imago Dei Middle School
Flowing Wells High School
Mansfeld Middle School
Prescott Lakes Parkway School
Pueblo High School
Roskruge Bilingual K-8 Magnet School
Mentor Teachers
Saraiya Kanning is a creative writer and visual artist with a special interest in wildlife and ecology. As an educator, she seeks to inspire students with joy and curiosity for art making. Through her teaching, she highlights the intersection of art and science and explores how one's identity connects to the places and communities in which we live. Kanning holds an MFA in fiction writing from the University of Arizona. She teaches drawing and painting online and through various venues in Colorado Springs, Colorado. You can view her visual art at raebirdcreations.com or on Instagram @raebirdcreationsart.
Eva Sierra is a poet, educator, and cultural advocate from Douglas, Arizona. Eva is the author of two chapbooks, Caña y Limón and RAIN, and her third chapbook, CIELO, is set to be released in 2025. In 2023, she was awarded the Fellowship in Cultural Exchange in the Literary Arts from the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University. Eva is also the co-founder and director of The Reading Series, a poetry open mic centered on healing, justice, and the occult.
Charlie Buck has published in The New Yorker and Story magazines, among others, and has work forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly Review. She's received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Yaddo, and MacDowell colonies. Charlie loves the lively exchange of words and feelings that happens in a classroom full of young writers.
Taylor Johnson earned her MFA in Creative Writing with a concentration in Poetry from the University of Arizona in 2007. Her favorite place besides a classroom with youngsters is being out on a wander in the desert or singing to backyard toloache flowers. She's at her half-decade mark as a teaching artist for Writing the Community.
Elizabeth Brown writes short stories, essays, and poetry; her work has appeared in The Southern Review, The Iowa Review, The Christian Science Monitor, Image, and The Daily Beast, among other places. Her poem, "My Voice" won third place in the 2023 Caterpillar Poetry Prize and was published in The Irish Times. She finds joy in inspiring others to find their own voices, creating work that is unique and true.
Claire Hong (she/her) is a poet and teacher with a background in agricultural and community work. She currently teaches writing at Pima Community College. Hong is the author of Upend (Noemi Press 2020), which retraces her family history, including the immigration trial of her Tlingit and Chinese grandfather who the US government incarcerated on Angel Island during the Chinese Exclusion Act. She is a recipient of a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award (2023) and received a Stegner Fellowship in Poetry from Stanford University (2019-2021). She has creative writing degrees from the University of Arizona (MFA) and Pratt Institute (BFA).
Jesse Cramer is inspired by spirals, shadows, caterpillars metamorphosing into butterflies, laughter and tears.
KaNeshia Michelle Hooks is an independent fiction author, storyteller, and owner of IMANERD LLC, a small video editing business. Armed with an MFA in Creative Writing from Northern University, her diverse portfolio spans screenwriting, poetry, and nonfiction. KaNeshia also volunteers her time leading dynamic workshops on the Hero’s Journey. By analyzing films like The Matrix and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, she teaches how story structure directly parallels everyday human experiences. Connect with her at Kanhooksmichelle@outlook.com.
Sevi is a poet, musician, teacher, and plant enthusiast who found their way to the Sonoran Desert through a deep admiration of desert flora and ecology. Sevi’s collection of poetry, Wash Sea Out of Hair and Drive, is published by Strangers in Tangled Wilderness. Sevi enjoys holding an inviting space for young people to interrupt the rigidity of writing with play and curiosity.
Mariana Rivera is an Indigenous artist born and raised on the Pascua Yaqui Reservation of Tucson, Arizona. Mariana is a 2026 Fellow of Indigenous Nations Poets, and has a background heavily influenced by spoken word. Previously, Mariana has interned for local open-mic groups such as Tucson Youth Poetry Slam (TYPS) and The Reading Series. A major focus of her arts practice is working to include community into the arts.
Chervanna Givens is a poet and teaching artist residing on Tohono O’odham land, known as Tucson, Arizona. Chervanna has lent their writing and teaching abilities across their home state of Arizona. They’ve worked with The Virginia G. Piper Writing Center at Arizona State University and coached students for the nationwide poetry recitation competition known as Poetry Out Loud. Chervanna encapsulates their life in their debut collection of poems, If the Suburbs Were Real (2020), published through Sprawl Press. Chervanna hopes to inspire and uplift voices through the magic known as poetry.
Lenna Mendoza (she/her) is a poet originally from Texas. Her work has appeared in Best New Poets, Prairie Schooner, and Quarterly West, among others. Lenna's debut collection As Lightning (November 2026, University of Wisconsin Press) was an Editor's Choice selection for the Brittingham and Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry and a finalist for the Jake Adam York Prize. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Mississippi.
Matisse is an apprentice to letters and listening. As a teaching artist, they seek to shephard the mystery, embrace detours, and protect the spaces of yielding and quiet that capacitate vital expression.