Vision
Our vision is to create greater equity in and through the literary arts.
Through our work, we increase access to arts education, build community, and amplify youth voices.
Mission
Teachers & Writers Collaborative (T&W) seeks to educate the imagination by offering innovative creative writing programs and by providing a variety of publications and resources to support learning through the literary arts. Our programs inspire the imagination and foster self-expression, communication, and life-long love of literature.
T&W programs include writing workshops for youth, creative aging art workshops for seniors, training for teachers, the New York State Poetry Out Loud high school recitation competition, and publishing Teachers & Writers Magazine and books on teaching creative writing.
History
Teachers & Writers Collaborative was founded in 1967 by a group of writers and educators who believed that professional writers could make a unique contribution to the teaching of writing and literature. Those responsible for shaping T&W’s program and philosophy in the organization’s early years included June Jordan, Rosellen Brown, Victor Hernández Cruz, Kenneth Koch, Herbert Kohl, Phillip Lopate, Grace Paley, Muriel Rukeyser, and Anne Sexton, among others.
Since its founding, T&W has published more than 80 books about teaching writing. T&W writers have brought writing residencies and professional development workshops to hundreds of thousands of students and tens of thousands of teachers in New York City schools. This depth of experience led the National Endowment for the Arts to call T&W the arts education group that is “most familiar with creative writing/literature in primary and secondary schools.”
Core Values
T&W’s programs are centered around our core values of creativity, practice, collaboration, and diversity.
Creativity:
We inspire imagination, foster critical thinking, and nurture development of student voices.
Practice:
Programs are informed by the creative process and practical experience of writers.
Collaboration:
Programs are created from the ideas, planning, and best practices of writers, partners, and 50 years of T&W experience.
Diversity:
We engage and support all students through multi-modal strategies and use of diverse texts.
Asari Beale
Executive Director
Nancy L. Weber
Education Director
Alice Pencavel
Program Coordinator
Alice Pencavel is a writer and teacher. Prior to joining Teachers & Writers in 2021, Ms. Pencavel worked as a Teaching Artist for multiple non-profits, including Arts Connection, SAY (Stuttering Association for the Young), Brooklyn Acting Lab, Stages on the Sound, Girls Write Now, and Teachers & Writers, among others. As a playwright, she has collaborated with Naked Angels, Lincoln Center Theater, MCC, Manhattan Repertory, Superhero Clubhouse, and the Kitchen Theater. She also worked in Customer Support with DonorsChoose, helping public school students receive educational materials. Having served as a Teaching Artist with Teachers & Writers, Ms. Pencavel has seen first hand the impact of bringing writing programs into schools, and is thrilled to offer her services in this new capacity. Ms. Pencavel holds a BFA in Acting from Ithaca College, and an MFA in Playwriting from the New School.
Rowana Abbensetts
Communications Manager
Join our team!
Click on the links below for open positions on the T&W staff.
Patricia Hampl
Regents professor of English at the University of Minnesota; author of Blue Arabesque, I Could Tell You Stories: Sojourns in the Land of Memory, Virgin Time, and A Romantic Education; recipient of numerous awards, including MacArthur, Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships.
Wandy Hoh
Managing Director, Macquarie Asset Management
Luis Jaramillo (Chair)
Author of the novel The Doctor’s Wife; director, School of Writing, The New School.
Bernard Levine
Senior Vice President, Wells Fargo Advisors.
Steven Schrader
Author of the short story collections Crimes of Passion, On Sundays We Visit the In-laws, and Arriving at Work, and the memoir What We Deserved; publisher of Cane Hill Press; former Teachers & Writers Collaborative director.
Nancy Larson Shapiro (Vice Chair)
Director of Teachers & Writers Collaborative from 1979-2005; co-editor of The Point: Where Teaching & Writing Intersect.
Barbara Stallworth
PMP, Lead Program Manager, S&P Dow Jones Indices
David Wagner (Treasurer)
Banking Executive
Tiphanie Yanique
Author of How to Escape a Leper Colony: A Novella and Stories and the children’s picture book I Am the Virgin Islands; recipient of the 2011 BOCAS Fiction Prize for Caribbean Literature, the 2010 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award for fiction, and a 2008 Pushcart Prize; visiting associate professor of English, Wesleyan University.
Join our Board and make a difference!
Teachers & Writers Collaborative is currently seeking new members for the Board of Directors. To learn more about this unique opportunity to make a difference in the lives of New Yorkers, contact T&W Executive Director, Asari Beale.
Teachers & Writers Collaborative thanks the members of the T&W Advisory Board for their support of our work.
Abiodun Oyewole
Max Rodriguez
Mike Rose
Esther Rosenfeld
Jessica Siegel
Martin Skoble
Mark Statman
Peter Straub
Catherine Bowman
Rosellen Brown
Billy Collins
Christina Davis
Sasha Waters Freyer
Dixie Goswami
Colin Greer
Marvin Hoffman
Kaylie Jones
Marc Kaminsky
Simon Kilmurry
Karen Koch
Katherine Koch
Leonard Marcus
Bruce Morrow
Sidney Offit
Susan Straub
David Unger
Meredith Sue Willis
Linda Winston
Alexandra Tyler
Zelda Wirtschafter
Kevin Young