Here are the partners that make Writing the Community happen!
K-12 Schools and Community Partners Fall 2024
Arizona School for Deaf and Blind
CAPE School District
Cavett Elementary School
Drachman Montessori K-8 Magnet School
Imago Dei
Flowing Wells High School
Mansfield Middle School
Prescott Lakes Parkway School
Pueblo Gardens PreK-8 School
Mentor Teachers
Saraiya Kanning is a creative writer and visual artist with an interest in wildlife and ecology. As an educator, she seeks to inspire students with joy and curiosity for art making. She often highlights the intersection of art and science in her workshops and enjoys facilitating writing exercises that celebrate Sonoran Desert ecology. Kanning holds an MFA in fiction writing from the University of Arizona. She teaches drawing and painting through various venues around Tucson and in her home studio. You can view her visual art at raebirdcreations.com.
Eva Sierra is a queer, bilingual poet from Douglas, Arizona. Eva's writing reflects their cultural identity, themes of childhood, mental health, and the realities and beauties of living on the border to Sonora, Mexico. Eva's poetry found room to grow at the Tucson Youth Poetry Slam, and eventually becoming the program's coordinator from 2015-2019. In 2019, Eva and the late Isaac Kirkman founded 'The Reading Series,' a literary program and poetry open mic that weaves the occult into its workings and prioritizes safy, healing, and justice. Eva is also a teaching artist and has taught poetry writing and performance workshops at dozens of schools, libraries, literary events, and other community spaces across Arizona.
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, and transplanted to the Sonoran Desert in 2002. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing with a concentration in Poetry from the University of Arizona in 2007, and then went on to teach English to high schoolers for the next 15 years. In May 2022, she stepped away from full-time teaching to pursue a solopreneur venture as a nightly dreamworker and freelance educator. She began her career as a visiting poet in 2005 when she was still a young mom, wearing her infant in a rainbow sling while teaching poetry lessons to young elementary students through a Poetry Center residency, and then later as a graduate student working with high school students at Cholla and Desert View. Currently, she is focused on writing down her dreams and sorting through way too many old journals, mining for hidden gems. Website: symbodythedream.com.
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 Christian Science Monitor, Image, Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts, 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.
Sevi Giovanni 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 a Tangled Wilderness. Sevi enjoys holding an inviting space for young people to interrupt the rigidity of writing with play and curiosity.
Enrique Garcia Naranjo a.k.a. Q (they/them) is a writer, musician & culture worker from Tucson, Arizona. Moving between mediums, Garcia Naranjo's work aims to educate fellow organizers & artists; to disseminate radical teachings; to agitate the status quo. Their writing has been published by The Los Angeles Times, PBS News Hour, The Moth & Mixmag. Garcia Naranjo hopes to continue publishing & cultivate honest reflections, & imagining a futurity that centers decolonization & liberation for all subjugated peoples. Find their work on TWELVOTWO.COM/DJQ.