NWP Radio

Rose Brock, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Library Science at Sam Houston State University, is a veteran educator and advocate for using audiobooks as a tool for literacy and is the cofounder of the national literacy initiative Guys Listen, a part of the Guys Read literacy national program. Dr. Brock was awarded the Siddie Joe Johnson Award for Outstanding Service to Youth by the...

Dr. Yohuru Williams is a distinguished University Chair, Professor of History, and the founding Director of the Racial Justice Initiative at the University of St. Thomas. He received his Ph. D. from Howard University in 1998 and is the author and editor of several books including Rethinking the Black Freedom Movement and Black Power/White Politics: Civil Rights, Black Power, and Black Panthers in...

Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Mayra Cuevas is the author of the teen novels Does My Body Offend You? and Salty, Bitter, Sweet. Her short story Resilient was published as part of the anthology FORESHADOW. Mayra is an award-winning producer for CNN and co-founder of the Latinx Kidlit Book Festival. She keeps her sanity by practicing Buddhist meditation. She lives in Atlanta with her husband, her t...

Gordon Korman introduces himself as a regular guy who just happened to write 100 books for kids and adolescent readers. Born in Montreal in October of 1963, his writing career began in the seventh grade when he took English with his track coach. Then, he was challenged to write every day for more than four months and he finished his first novel, This Can’t Be Happening at Macdonald Hall! With his...

Gilly Segal grew up in Florida, and graduated from Hebrew University, and finally decided to call Decatur, Georgia home. By day, she’s the chief legal officer of an advertising agency. By night, she is a caped crusader! No, just kidding (she wishes). Her real not-so-secret identity is author. She’s been writing in one form or another since she wrote her first young adult novel–a Sunfire YA romance...

Rachel Ignotofsky is a New York Times Best Selling author and illustrator, based in Santa Barbara. She grew up in New Jersey on a healthy diet of cartoons and pudding and graduated from Tyler School of Art in 2011. Her work is inspired by history and science. She believes that illustration is a powerful tool that can make learning exciting. She has a passion for taking dense information and making...

Join NWP Radio for a visit with author and NWP Writers Council member Pornsak Pichetshote. Pichetshote was a Thai-American rising star editor at DC’s Vertigo imprint where he worked on such comics perennials as The Sandman and Swamp Thing. His books have been nominated for dozens of Eisner awards—be it the award-winning Daytripper, the New York Times bestseller The Unwritten, or critical darlings...

Join us for this episode of NWP Radio in which we will talk to Peter Docker, former member of the Royal Air Force, about his new book Leading from the Jumpseat.

Join us for this episode of NWP Radio in which we talk to Susie Wise about her new book Design for Belonging, a Stanford d.school guide. In her book, Susie talks about what it means to belong and some of the contexts, or moments, that can be designed using particular levers like space, role, ritual, and groupings. The Design for Belonging website also includes toolkits and resources to get started...

This summer, teachers are invited to join together with scholars, artists, and authors to strengthen writing and multimodal composing practices in a virtual, open institute co-sponsored by three MIchigan Writing Project sites. This NWP Radio show invited facilitators to describe how they will support participants in coming together to create brave spaces in writing instruction that centers writing...

Interested in what writing looks and feels like outside of school in those professions that depend on writing like marketing or public relations? Join us for this conversation about writing in the work-a-day worlds marketing and business with Jim Rowe, author of Get Your Ducks in a Rowe. Rowe, who has worked, coached, and supported writers in these fields talks about what kind of support writers n...

Sarah J. Donovan, PhD, is a former junior English language arts teacher of fifteen years and an Assistant Professor of Secondary English Education at Oklahoma State University. She wrote Genocide Literature in Middle and Secondary Classrooms (2016) and the young adult novel, Alone Together (2018). Dr. Donovan was the Books in Review columnist for The ALAN Review (2019) and served as a state repres...

Natasha Bowen is a writer, a teacher, and a mother of three children. She is of Nigerian and Welsh descent and lives in Cambridge, England, where she grew up. Natasha studied English and creative writing at Bath Spa University before moving to East London, where she taught for nearly ten years. Her debut book Skin of the Sea was inspired by her passion for mermaids and African history. She is obse...

Renée Watson is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, educator, and community activist. Her young adult novel, Piecing Me Together (Bloomsbury, 2017) received a Coretta Scott King Award and Newbery Honor. Her children's picture books and novels for teens have received several awards and international recognition. Her poetry and fiction centers around the experiences of Black girls and women, and...

For over twenty years, Peter Kahn has been fortunate to employ the power of poetry to help give voice to those previously unheard. He has been a high school teacher at Oak Park/River Forest High School in Chicago since 1994 and has recently also taught at Roosevelt University. Peter was commended in the National Poetry Competition 2009 and 2017. His new book, Respect The Mic, is an expansive, movi...

In this conversation with Rebecca Harper, director of the Augusta University Writing Project and author of Write Now & Write On: 37 Strategies for Authentic Daily Writing in Every Content Area, we will discuss writing instruction, daily writing, writing across the curriculum, and her upcoming Deeper Dive in the Write Now Teacher Studio.

Former teacher Laura Purdie Salas believes reading small picture books and poems can have a huge impact on your life. She has written more than 130 books for kids, including Lion of the Sky: Haiku for All Seasons (Kirkus Best Books and Parents Magazine Best Books of the Year), the Can Be… series (Bank Street Best Books, IRA Teachers’ Choice), and Bookspeak!: Poems About Books (Minnesota Book Award...

Tiffany D. Jackson is the New York Times Bestselling author of YA novels including the Coretta Scott King— John Steptoe New Talent Award-winning Monday’s Not Coming, the NAACP Image Award-nominated Allegedly, Let Me Hear A Rhyme, Grown, and her latest titles Blackout, White Smoke, and Santa in the City. She received her bachelor of arts in film from Howard University, her master of arts in media s...

Join colleagues from the Bay Area Writing Project as they learn alongside youth through a partnership with YRMedia called Teach YR. Through this partnership, teachers dig into the ways that youth media informs, mentors, and pairs with curricular design and the teaching of writing in their context and classrooms. This NWP Radio show will share inspirational media created by youth for public broadca...

K-Fai Steele is an author-illustrator who grew up in a house built in the 1700s with a printing press her father bought from a magician. She wrote and illustrated A Normal Pig and her latest book is All Eyes on Ozzy! She was a James Marshall Fellow at the University of Connecticut, a Brown Handler Writer in Residence at the San Francisco Public Library, and an Ezra Jack Keats/Kerlan Memorial Fello...

Join us for a creative Write Out broadcast led by leaders of Outdoor Afro, the nation’s leading cutting edge network that celebrates and inspires Black connections and leadership in nature. Outdoor Afro leader Leandra Taylor and National Park Ranger Alanna Smith will lead us in creating and customizing journals to use for nature and historic writing. Don’t miss this event, just in time for Write O...

Join us for a “behind the scenes” exclusive as we engage in the power of stories, storytelling and writing with partners from the Park For Every Classroom project. Park for Every Classroom (PEC) is a National Park Service partnership program that includes a network of educators, partners, and Park Rangers that collaborate to engage communities in place-based learning. In this special Write Out bro...

Carmen Oliver grew up in Manitoba, Canada, surrounded by lakes and prairie grass where she built tree forts, caught tadpoles, and sailed on homemade rafts. She is the author of the picture book series Bears Make the Best Buddies (Reading, Math, Writing, and Science) as well as the nonfiction picture book biography A Voice for the Spirit Bears: How One Boy Inspired Millions to Save a Rare Animal, a...

In this episode, NWP Radio talks with Cathy Fleischer and Sarah Hochstetler about Everyday Advocacy, the kind of advocacy that teachers can do as part of their regular teaching lives. Our guests will also discuss resources from the book, and the launch of a new website that was made possible by a National Writing Project seed grant and the collective efforts of colleagues who share this commitment...

Varian Johnson is the author of several novels for children and young adults, including The Parker Inheritance, which won both Coretta Scott King Author Honor and Boston Globe/Horn Book Honor awards; The Great Greene Heist, an ALA Notable Children’s book and Kirkus Reviews Best Book; and the graphic novel Twins, illustrated by Shannon Wright, an NPR Best Book. Varian was born in Florence, South Ca...