Here are the partners that make Writing the Community happen!
K-12 Schools and Community Partners Fall 2025
CAPE School District
Drachman Montessori K-8 Magnet School
Homer Davis Elementary School
Imago Dei Middle School
Inclusive Academy
International School of Tucson
Flowing Wells High School
Mansfield Middle School
Prescott Lakes Parkway School
Pueblo High School
Tucson Magnet High 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 was born in Washington, DC, raised in Western Maryland, but now considers herself of the Sonoran Desert, having lived in Tucson for the past 23 years. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing with a concentration in Poetry from the University of Arizona in 2007. 2025 is her third delightful year serving as a teaching artist for Writing the Community.
Judy Sensibar is delighted to return to the classroom to share her love of writing. After many years teaching English and Language Arts to students in Providence, RI, Jakarta, Indonesia, Pittsburgh, PA, and here in Tucson, she relishes working with young people again to help them express themselves through poetry. From working as a journalist to volunteering as a neighborhood activist, she has learned writing is the key to communicating well, connecting with others, and a wonderful way to learn about yourself.
Elizabeth Brown writes short stories, essays, and poetry; her work has appeared in The Southern Review, The Christian Science Monitor, Image, and The Daily Beast, among other places. She has a poem coming in The Iowa Review. 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.