inspired by Angelina Joshua’s project, My Grandmother’s Lingo | SBS and written alongside students in her Writing and Rhetoric class, as part of their unit on language and power. Tom Meyer , aside from his amazing family of five humans, two dogs, three cats, two donkeys, ponies, horses, and chickens, is a founding director of the Hudson Valley Writing Project and a professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz. He found inspiration for “A Plea” when listening to Yo-Yo Ma accompanying Angelique Kidjo singing “Blewu" during an online HVWP Community Writing session during the COVID shutdown in Spring 2020. Jess Oakley is a HVWP teacher consultant who has been a fellow in both the Early Career Leadership Institute and the Institute for Leadership in the Teaching of Writing. She credits HVWP as she now enjoys the challenge of writing poetry after a lifetime of a tumultuous love-hate relationship with the genre. Olana O’Connor is a trained Kundalini teacher, an adjunct professor and a student teaching supervisor within the Department of Teaching and Learning at SUNY New Paltz. Olana emigrated with her family at the end of her high school years from Ukraine and dedicated her life to the education and well-being of others. Olana’s writing weaves her journey as an immigrant, mother, teacher, and lifelong learner. Meg Davis Roberts is a former high school English teacher who now works as an assistant professor of English education at SUNY New Paltz. She joined HVWP in 2024. Caitlyn Robillard (formerly Giampaolo) is a 7th & 8th grade AIS teacher at Tri-Valley Middle School and teacher consultant for HVWP. She enjoys audiobooks on her (long) commute, lavender coffee, and home-grown beets from Trudy’s garden. Mary Sawyer is a founding director of the Hudson Valley Writing Project. In 2021, she retired from her work as Associate Professor and Coordinator of SUNY New Paltz’s undergraduate and graduate programs in Adolescent Education-English. She still enjoys writing, especially with the support of a writing community.
Sarah Wheeler is an English teacher who lives in Rhinebeck, with her family and menagerie of pets. She joined HVWP’s Leadership in the
HVWP COMMONPLACE 85
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online