NWP Radio

This NWP Radio conversation features Writing Project teacher-leader Meenoo Rami and her recently published book A Teacher’s Guide to Using AI. Offered as a companion for teachers in support of their agency in the classroom, this book offers interviews and stories from teachers across the country, important questions to consider when bringing AI into the classroom, along with clear guidance for how...

In this special episode of NWP Radio, Stephanie Jones interviews Cara Furman, author of Teaching from an Ethical Center: Practical Wisdom for Daily Instruction, about bringing ethics, philosophy, and body-centered practices into teaching. They explore how children’s literature can expand students’ ethical thinking, the importance of care and love in teaching reading and writing, and how educators...

NWP Radio sits down with Katie Wood Ray and Stella Villalba to discuss the new edition of Wondrous Words, Katie’s landmark 1999 book on responsive writing instruction. Twenty-five years later, the authors explore how teaching has changed—and why their message about writer agency, teacher decision-making, and the joy of teaching is more urgent than ever. In an era of mandated curricula and scripted...

Hena Khan has been publishing books for children, including many that center Pakistani American and Muslim characters, for over two decades. She writes award-winning books in a multitude of formats, including picture books, middle-grade fiction, pick-your-path adventures, and graphic novels. Her stories are often centered around her culture, community, friendship, and family, and draw from her own...

Tony Weaver, Jr. is a storyteller who creates diverse worlds where every reader can find their place. His debut graphic novel, Weirdo, sold out of its first printing in seven weeks of publication, received multiple starred reviews, and was named one of the best books of 2024 by School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, People Magazine, The New York Public Library, and the Children...

Rob Walker is a journalist covering design, technology, business, the arts, and other subjects. He writes the BRANDED column for Fast Company and has contributed to The New York Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Atlantic, NewYorker. Com, Design Observer, The Organist, and many others. He is the author of The Art of Noticing (Knopf), and writes its spinoff newsletter of the same name. Walker is on...

Derrick Barnes is a National Book Award Finalist for his graphic novel Victory. Stand!-Raising My Fist For Justice, which also won the YALSA Excellence in Young Adult Nonfiction Award, and a Coretta Scott King Award Author Honor. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed, multi-award-winning picture book Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut which received a Newbery Honor, a Coretta Scott King Au...

NWP Radio visits with Jessica Rubin, author of “Embracing gentle resistance to the slow violence of traditional English curriculum.” The article explains how a secondary English teacher, Kristen, maintained a commitment to nonviolence in her teaching through “gentle resistance” to the subtle violences embedded in her school’s curriculum and practices. By making purposeful, small-scale changes over...

Catherine Con Morse’s debut novel, The Notes, is a 2025 Chinese American Librarians Association Best Book Honorable Mention for Young Adult Fiction, a 2026 Panda Book Award nominee, and was shortlisted for the CRAFT First Chapters contest. Her newest book is The Summer I Remembered Everything (April 2025). A Kundiman fellow, Catherine received her MFA from Boston University, where she taught under...

Cameron Roberson, who writes under the pen name Rob Cameron, is a teacher, linguist, and writer. Rob is also lead organizer for the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers and founder of Constellations Mentorship for the Octavia Project. He has poetry, stories, and essays in StarLine*, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Foreign Policy Magazine, Tor.com, New Modality, Solarpunk Magazine, Apex,...

Ellen Oh is an award-winning author and editor of middle grade and young adult books such as The Colliding Worlds of Mina Lee, YOU ARE HERE, Haru Zombie Dog Hero, Finding Junie Kim, The Dragon Egg Princess, The Spirit Hunters series (Books 1, 2, and 3), and the Prophecy trilogy (Prophecy, Warrior; and King). She is also the editor of WNDB's middle grade anthology Flying Lessons and Other Stories,...

This special episode of NWP Radio features many of the educators behind Empowering Youth to Confront the Climate Crisis in English Language Arts, a co-published book from Teachers College Press and the National Writing Project. Recorded in three parts, you won't want to miss this comprehensive overview of this important book. (https://shop.nwp.org/products/empowering-youth-to-confront-the-climate-...

Tina Cane is the founder/director of Writers-in-the-Schools, RI, and, from 2016-2024, served as the Poet Laureate of Rhode Island where she lives with her husband and three children. In her capacity as poet laureate, Cane established her state’s first youth poetry ambassador program in partnership with Rhode Island Center for the Book, and brought the Poetry-in-Motion program from the New York Cit...

Mahogany L. Browne is a Kennedy Center Next 50 fellow, writer, play-wright, organizer, and educator. Browne received fellowships from ALL ARTS, Arts for Justice, AIR Serenbe, Baldwin for the Arts, Cave Canem, Poets House, Mellon Research, Rauschenberg, and Wesleyan University. Browne’s books include A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe, Vinyl Moon, Chlorine Sky (optioned for Steppenwolf Th...

Ballenger shares her teaching journey and the core ideas in her book about the power of inquiry-based learning, which encourages teachers to honor students’ unexpected questions and ideas as opportunities for deeper exploration. Ballenger also discusses the challenges teachers face in maintaining time for reflection and collaboration, as well as the importance of fostering democracy and inclusion...

In today’s episode we will talk about the recently published book, Going the Distance: The Teaching Profession in a Post-COVID World. This comprehensive study of teaching during the COVID-19 Pandemic has a lot to teach us about creating a healthy, resilient teaching profession able to face future crises.

Born in Louisville, Mississippi, Jermaine Thompson learned language from big-armed women who greased their skillets with gossip and from full-bellied men who cursed and prayed with the same fervor. Jermaine earned his MFA in poetry from the University of Missouri Kansas City in 2018, and he currently teaches 9th–12th grade Humanities at Build Up Community School in Birmingham, AL. Jermaine is inte...

Join The Write Time featuring Kate Messner, Write Out Author Ambassador and author of award-winning picture books like Over and Under the Snow, Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt, and The Brilliant Deep as well as books for older readers like Breakout and her forthcoming novel in verse, The Trouble with Heroes. Kate is interviewed by San Diego Area Writing Project Director and early elementary...

This episode of NWP Radio features Tomas Moniz, a member of the NWP Writers Council and the author of All Friends Are Necessary, a tender and open-hearted novel that explores the power of friendship, community, and the families we create for ourselves.

Based on the insight that "places are everywhere," this NWP Radio show explores how educators are using place to support students in having authentic opportunities to learn, grow, and connect. Join this team of teacher-editors and -authors from Place-Based Writing in Action: Opportunities for Authentic Writing in the World Beyond the Classroom to explore what is possible when you tap into this "ev...

This episode of NWP Radio features a conversation with Tess Taylor, an avid gardener, the author of five acclaimed collections of poetry, and the editor of Leaning Toward Light: Poems for Gardens and the Hands that Tend Them.

Join us for a conversation with NWP Writers Council member Lissa Soep, author of Other People’s Words: Friendship, Loss and the Conversation that Never Ends. “Other People’s Words shows us how we carry within us the language of loved ones who are gone, and how their words can be portals to other times and places. Language—as with love—is boundless, and Other People’s Words is an intimate, original...

Join us for a conversation with Andrea Balis and Elizabeth Levy, authors of Witch Hunt: The Cold War, Joe McCarthy, and the Red Scare. About the Authors Dr. Andrea Balis is not only a distinguished faculty member in the history department of John Jay College, City University of New York, specializing in twentieth-century political history, but also a versatile writer and director. Elizabeth Levy i...

Join us for a conversation with Stephanie Vanderslice, a professor of creative writing, the co-director of the Arkansas Writers MFA Workshop at the University of Central Arkansas, and the author of Teaching Creative Writing: The Essential Guide.

This episode of The Write Time features members of the Furious Flower Syllabus Project, an open-access curriculum for incorporating Black poetry into classrooms of all ages and levels. More about the syllabus and guests at https://teach.nwp.org/the-write-time-and-the-furious-flower-syllabus-project