Welcome back to our Commonplace !
A commonplace book—a collection of cherished words. A common place to gather as writers and thinkers. A commonplace practice turned extraordinary whenever we weave our thoughts together.
The American academic calendar is said to have an agricultural origin, including long summers for folks to do farm work. In the 21st century, farming is hardly a common lifestyle, but it’s nice to think of the work we do in the classroom as closely tied to the earth and its cycles. After all, as teachers, we do cultivate minds. We stir up the soil around our growing students, encouraging movement from what is familiar to what is new. Perhaps that’s how we might think of Voltaire’s directive: “Il faut cultiver notre jardin” ( We must cultivate our garden) . Of course, the key word in that phrase is “notre” ( ours) —it’s shared. We work together with, in, and for it. Thanks to the writers in this issue, and thank goodness for all those who keep nourishing seeds, sowing truth, and planting hope even when conditions are less than optimal.
Congratulations to HVWP on its 25th anniversary this year. May the teachers and writers in our community flourish for many seasons to come!
Sarah Wheeler and Meg Davis Roberts Hudson Valley Writing Project
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Contents
Remember Gaby DiMuro.............................................................................................4
Acorns Sucheta Baichwal......................................................................................8
Sowing and Reaping Tim Dewar..............................................................................................10
Pinning Poems Tom Meyer..............................................................................................13
Fatal Flaw Kait Rosenfeld.........................................................................................15
Abecedarian: Inverse Universe Michelle Bulla..........................................................................................18
Shingles Chris Gabryszewski..................................................................................20
Family Grown Kira Lamarre Herbert................................................................................21
A Place at the Table Monica Freitas Argentina...........................................................................23
Drawing Out the One in There Joan Ottulich...........................................................................................25
Teaching (about Teaching): Haikus Meg Davis Roberts...................................................................................27
Part I: The Flapping of Wings in an Unwelcome Space Part II: The Graceful Flight in a Field that feels like Home Kasey Stecher.........................................................................................28
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Algonquin Paul Lander.............................................................................................31
My Little Cheetah Boy Mayra Rivera...........................................................................................33
Garden Party Mary Sawyer...........................................................................................34
Contributors ......................................................................................... 39
Cover photo by Lucía Brea
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Remember
By Gaby DiMuro
Remember the hands that look like your hands that inscribed your name on the Tommy John glove he let you pick out so you could play catch Together Remember the eyes that look like your eyes that watched you grow up teared up when you moved beamed at your return and closed when
you said Goodbye
Remember the hair that looks like your hair thick brown with a wave now ready to be dyed by each other’s hands laughing while we paint color on our Roots Remember the feet that dance like your feet that taught you to groove while cleaning the house
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to Donna, to Tina to Cyndi, to Cher to the rhythm of her Heart
Remember the hand that reached like your hand into the Honeycombs box wedged in the backseat as we tripped across the country shoulder to shoulder finding our way Home Remember the voice that sings like your voice car windows rolled fur flying high lyrics floating out worry-free and alive yawping the soundtrack to our Youth
Remember their backs that gave you their shirts hand-me-downs hand-me-ups matching tees Goonies, Yankees, Cutters, all on the same Team Remember our hearts that break when we hurt that heal when we thrive that beat with our strength
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that pump out our love through vessels and valves into our imperfect World
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Mount Finlayson (San Juan Island, Washington); Photo Credit: Mary Sawyer
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Acorns
By Sucheta Baichwal
Small little folks Ours to mold Starting as acorns Growing into strong oaks We shower them with care Give them a safe place To learn from mistakes And learn to be fair Our actions teach them Empathy and kindness Each new skill To help the oak grow
Reading Writing Math Other Academics will come Learning to live peacefully together Is what makes the oak mature
Listening to other opinions While defending their own
Broadens their world And seasons that oak
Today we only have an acorn With the right nutrients We can grow strong oak trees That will be able to stand tall
Stand united for justice
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Not bent by evil winds Mighty and proud Doing right by all
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Sowing and Reaping
By Tim Dewar
It is a cliché to say that teachers plant seeds, yet as a metaphor, it is pretty accurate. It furthers the cliché to say that teachers rarely see the fruits of their labor, yet the extended metaphor still holds true. Nearly two decades ago, I planted a seed. Only recently did I learn that it took root and flourished. Funny thing is, I didn’t know I was planting a seed. No, it’s not that I didn’t know. It’s that the “teaching” I was doing was more like casting seeds into the wind or unknowingly spreading seeds by walking through a field, more than planting them. This Spring I received an email from a former student, a college student I taught while a professor at SUNY New Paltz and affiliated with the Hudson Valley Writing Project. The email recounted how as an undergraduate, the writer, T., wanted to change from the Adolescent Education emphasis to the Creative Writing emphasis within the English major. T. came to me as her instructor and advisor. The final assignment, to write a teaching philosophy or lesson plans or some other very teaching-focused task made no sense to her, the next great American novelist. Since she was no longer going to pursue teaching, she couldn’t imagine lesson plans or teaching philosophies. She needed out of the class right now, but she also needed the credits. We struck a deal. If she would write a paper explaining why she would not be a quality teacher, she would escape the course with the necessary credits. T. recounted this bargain in the email she wrote me. The email also informed me that T. is now a middle school English teacher and loving it. In the intervening years, she has worked in other fields, but recently found her way to teaching. She thanked me for the space I gave her to make her own choices, and sees in her own teaching the “humorous empathy” I gave her. She wakes each day with “a reason to give [her students] the kindness they deserve.” T.’s path to the teaching side of the classroom was longer than many, but I feel confident that she will be a better teacher than most. Not because of me. No, my ego is not so grand. Because truth be told, I am not sure if I remember T. and
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this event. It sounds like something I would have offered - after failing to talk her out of changing her path. I wonder if my vague memories of this are real or the creation of my present self in order to make sense of this email. I am glad that T. has found her way to teaching and finds pleasure and meaning there. I am also glad to receive a note from a former student. A colleague once coined such notes the “crumbs of affection” that teachers live on. However, I know I was just one factor among innumerable ones that allowed T. to find her way to the classroom. The seeds of our teaching come in many forms: wind-blown, dropped from the cuffs of passing pedestrians, carefully nurtured. And yet, I do want to pat myself on the back. Of all the things I could have said during that conversation, I somehow landed on the right one. I think this is due to my long affiliation with writing project sites like Hudson Valley. It was while working with writing project teachers that I learned to keep my mouth shut when students were talking. I learned how to listen to what writers were almost saying . Or, as former UCLA WP Director Faye Pietzman says, how to “listen loudly,” or, as some other writing project fellow told me, “Listen with big ears, like jazz musicians.” The Writing Project also taught me to trust students. They were authors; they could be authorities. They were capable of making choices; they deserved to have choices to make. They knew their own lives. Listen and learn from them, with them. So, when T. said she didn’t want to be a teacher, I could gently pushback, prod a bit, then give her the space to use writing to make her case. Because that is the biggest lesson, isn’t it? That writing is the best tool we have for figuring out the world and our place in it. Wait, even as I write that line, I realize it doesn’t ring true. Not “our place in it.” That is too fixed, as if there is a single place we are bound to. Writing and learning show that we are not predetermined. We have agency. We make choices, live with them, then make new choices. We learn from our experience and those of others. With new knowledge, we do new things. We revise our lives. So, let me revise this text. Writing is the best tool we have for figuring out the world and ourselves. And revising what we’ve figured out. Yes, that, for now. That is the seed the Writing Project planted and nurtured in me, and the one I have profligately spread to students, colleagues, the world. At times, I have carefully planted this seed, nurturing a garden-like classroom.
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Other times, I have cast them widely and wildly, hoping they find the sun and soil and water they need to take root. I suppose this brief essay, too, is a seed, a reminder for us that though we can never know which seeds will take root, we must keep sowing the writing seed.
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Pinning Poems
By Tom Meyer
I chase after poems like butterflies
with my pen as a net and the poem just a glint streaking across a bluebird sky, I scribble its landing on a page.
The p o e m sits still.
While I read, write, and admire the saturated orange, black, and white flecked wings, I wall off doubts. I sing the poem fast, but it’s already different. New words wind themselves around first words and moth-eaten metaphors obscure precision.
The hope of a poem, barely alive, flutters away. And I thought I could pin its wings and classify what I saw and felt in my garden.
Instead I surrender.
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Photo credit: Lucía Brea
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Fatal Flaw
By Kait Rosenfeld
I cannot keep a garden — My thumb is frost-bitten, A killer of life, A slayer of seeds And sprouts. This fatal flaw That stifles the soil, Makes the vegetables shrivel, Makes the petals wilt, And makes the air turn sour With decay.
But I can plant Words Line By Line
Column by column — I can write a garden for you.
I can pen testimony of Our love, Instead of planting tomatoes, Track how it grew, How we climbed our vine And stretched into the sunlight Together.
I can transcribe the onset of Your laughter,
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Instead of trimming leaves, Chronicle the way your lips Curl into a smile, The way the corners of your eyes Crease and lift Before the beautiful sound even begins. I can capture the smell That lives at the spot Where your collar bone Meets your neck, Instead of picking bouquets From carefully cultivated Flowerbeds, Mix ink with the sweet scent Of serenity.
And I can promise With certainty That this harvest
Will never rot.
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Photo credit: Lucía Brea
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Abecedarian: Inverse Universe
By Michelle Bulla
A is for apples and adversaries and advocacy, and best maybe for action Because action is Central to hope. Dividend–paying hope is hard to come by these days what with greed and I swear lately Even evil seems a common consequence, itself sowing seeds of Fear–– Haven’t we long known that Greed and gluttony serve only as gateways to Hell? If we’re lucky, sometimes also to intimate encounters that warrant Just initiatives, justice-seekers, justice-needers, Keepers of more optimism than hope, perhaps. bell hooks preached Love. A Magnificent and Necessary Orientation for Pedagogy that could––in fact–– Quiet the Roiling, boiling Sweat that pours from my Tender heart Until I feel empty. Both Voracious and vacuous, Xenophobic greed breeds sycophancy and I want to scream, “Yellow-bellied cowardly Zealot!” with zest and zeal for the amorphous and lately anomalous aspirations for, well, for action. For hope. Zenithal emotions notwithstanding, I Yearn for the simplicity of the rainbow-colored pull-along Xylophone gifted by some kind and
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Venerable aunt. I am sure at the time it all seemed colorfully Unremarkable; That life seemed So simple. Sadly, almost Reliably, my mind skips over the Quickening of hope all too often, forgetting the Pensiveness required for the patience and plodding Of calming glacial pacing, a reminder that slow Nature, slow Movements, are the crux of Life: Hope, manifested. The sweetest Kisses, too, — like strawberry Jam that touches the tongue and Intercepts the Halting beauty felt deep in the Gut for
Fervent and Enthusiastic Devotion to the Catalyst, sweeten the Beauty of the initial Aspiration —— honor the cherished, beloved affirmation: the poet’s heart-felt desire for hope in action.
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Shingles
By Chris Gabryszewski
You’re not supposed to sit on a roof, but it’s usually harmless if you do, so long as the roof is built well and you don’t teeter off the edge. We’re not supposed to go on the roof. It’s bad for the shingles. But it’s the perfect spot to have a beer with your brother as your cousin pisses off the ledge. To look up at the stars that are clearer here than anywhere else on Earth. To feel smaller than it all. To feel bigger than it all. We’re not supposed to go on the roof. It’s bad for the shingles. Who designed shingles to be so shitty? Roofs are for sitting and laughing and betting that we can make it to the ground without breaking anything. Roofs are for nailing your brother’s shirt to when he falls asleep during shingle repairs.
For feeling mightier than pine trees and brighter than lightning bugs.
For not needing to say anything between brothers and cousins.
We never fell off. We never fell through.
My younger brother snuck out onto the roof to escape trombone practice. I climbed a tree to chase him, but he scampered back inside and locked all the doors and windows. I didn’t tell mom. She would’ve said something about the shingles.
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Family Grown
By Kira Lamarre Herbert
Dedicated to my grandmother, Venelda Clement Lamarre
Their house was shaded by Two enormous sugar maples Burying the fluctuating truth In autumn’s leaves. Still golden treasure grew. His house was rickety with Seeds he sowed over her Whilst never forecasting care-less arrivals and departures. She alone stood building roots. Her house was sheltered By limbs, then branches, reaching forth Diligently building lives Connected, kind, and shining bright Despite past shadows. Their houses were far reaching. Her roots nurtured growing families. Beyond the shade, he cast. Respected. Renowned. Remarkable. Rooted golden family grown.
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Venelda Clement Lamarre pictured with my grandfather, Ovila Lamarre.
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A Place at the Table
By Monica Freitas Argentina
The sunflower tablecloth in the center of the table, bright and vibrant, lights up the household. It’s the first thing your eyes latch onto when walking into the kitchen that welcomes everyone back together at the end of a long day. That shiny vinyl tablecloth has been through it all too, a constant in their everyday lives. When they get home from work, tired yet holding a place for them, silently hailing them to come sit down for a meal. The tablecloth that rests their elbows still covered in dirt from the repetitive, backbreaking action of bending and picking crops every day. The inviting tablecloth that says “A comer!” when it’s time to eat and families gather around to enjoy their cena . It holds up the pots and plates of food, catching the grains of rice that fall off to the side once they finally sit down, take a big sigh of relief, and begin to eat. It feels the inviting warmth of the tortillero as hands snatch the tortillas inside one by one. It becomes the one place where, for just a moment each day, everyone is together. The sunflower tablecloth lives through it all, capturing the shouts of joy and laughter with the family all together, cackling and reminiscing about a funny story from back in the day. The sunflower tablecloth embraces them as tears fall from their cheeks during phone calls with families that are thousands of miles away. The countless sacrifices they have to make on a daily basis, just to feel that they are barely able to stay afloat. That tablecloth listens to all the conversations and comforts them at all hours of the day. It wakes up with them at 4 am when it is time to get ready for their long day ahead. It holds the bandana that she later puts on as she looks in the mirror, pulling her hair tightly into a colita . The thick, oversized sweaters and black puffer jackets that they wear as armor to protect themselves from the
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unforgiving elements of nature which powers them to trudge through the endless rows of mud and fiery glares of the sun. The sunflower tablecloth that feels the daily sentimientos of desperation and exhaustion. Unseen by those who pass by them, unaware of the weight they carry, the depth of who they are, or the value they hold. Every day, fresh fruit, but picked with broken bodies. The sunflower tablecloth that holds and shares those same feelings of uncertainty and fear of what that next day may or may not bring them. That shiny vinyl tablecloth has been through it all, a constant in their everyday lives.
Carpoolers, Alejandro Cartagena, 2011-2012
PROSCENIUM Rebirth , Kevin Beasly, 2024-2025
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Drawing Out the One in There
By Joan Ottulich
There is a young man named Jaiden. I first met Jaiden when he was in kindergarten; he simply sat and stared. Finally, his teacher took his hand to write his name; it may have been a profound moment. He began to grow intellectually, in ability, slowly, slowly with much effort. For several years, all of his academic years, I have been in the Special Education classes he has been in and have been able to observe his progress. Inside these children is a mind that functions well and teachers work hard to draw it forth. Some teachers are growing wings; angels in disguise. Sweet and gentle, no tics, repetition works well with Jaiden and when he gets it, he gets it. There are so many that one-on-one would do wonders for; he is one. His teacher always whispers “come back” when I get the opportunity to be in their room and work with Jaiden. This summer, I worked six weeks with autistic children. Their problems go even deeper. Unlike Jaiden, there is the OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder) and ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder). Children trapped in their minds and bodies. There I met Nicholus with the IQ of a rocket scientist and degenerative eye disease. Already he puts his face down to the table to see the paper and rubs his eyes because it hurts. It will break your heart. I suggested his family begin to teach him Braille, as it would enhance his learning. Every little bit of learning or training is so valuable to their lives. We cannot let lives be stolen by what they suffer, and they do suffer. It takes very special people, very special teachers, to help these students. There are many others; Maia who has no words. There are words there if she could get them out: But when she uses her hands, she creates with beautiful artistic ability what looks like an underwater flower arrangement. She is very particular about the colors and way she puts it together. Her gifts and intelligence show through in a girl that sits and rocks back and forth and makes garbled sounds. These are the children it takes a community to raise; an army of teachers who love to see a life bloom when you almost lose hope. I am not ashamed to say I
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add prayer. Prayer and hard work work together like prayer and medicine; one can get a miracle sometimes. Never give up on that miracle.
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Teaching (about Teaching): Haikus
By Meg Davis Roberts
The breakroom Folgers coffee pot Knows more about teaching Than any dissertation What’s the word for the kind Of dry your hands get after Cutting too many tiny discussion prompt slips?
Funeral holdings We pass from hand to hand His latest essay
That sacred kind of Friday in June tired Erasing the whiteboard The students circle the student Training to be a teacher She leads Period six I wonder how many times I’ve read it— This projected poem
Can Wiggins and McTighe Backward design for love?
How do I explain that the Learning target is a bullseye Around your entire being?
I understand better How the priest must feel Teaching about teaching
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Part I: The Flapping of Wings in an Unwelcome Space
By Kasey Stecher
It is ok. It is what I was put here to do. It is my baby bird flapping his wings frantically so someone will listen. It is the adults in the room hearing the flapping And thinking of fight and rebellion, Instead of struggle or a cry for help from what he does not yet understand- about his own brain. This is NOT ok. But this is what I was put here to do. This is why he is mine. So I can swoop in- strong and with warning. So I can keep my beautiful baby bird from being thrown from this nest By an imposter.
He WILL learn to fly- brave and strong And entirely on his own. His call may not always harmonize but will, anyways, lead him to success and clear skies. Despite the
Chaotic rooms, year after year, built on a bed of False branches, And thin yarn. All masking as strong fibers of learning.
My boy is a bird made of birds With a heart so big that I will stand up inside of him
And create a windstorm That will not be ignored.
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Part II: The Graceful Flight in a Field that feels like Home
By Kasey Stecher
Behind the metal fence You’ll find him: my golden-eyed child. Dirt-scuffed and sweaty.
Throw and retrieve. Throw and retrieve. Throw and retrieve. Leather scented left hand-callus worn right hand. My golden-eyed child Graceful and fast. Bright smile and determined brow. Devices discarded- forgotten for the sun’s call of the bat and the ball. Of the hand me down glove. Of the worn and tattered “fast shoes”.
My golden-eyed child. Learning to love Competition. Growing to understand Perseverance. Feeling through that frustration to patience.
Outside the kitchen window You’ll find him.
Wait and connect. Wait and connect. Wait and connect.
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Spiked soles dug in and grass-covered. Warm fingers gripped tight. Poised and positioned Relaxed shoulders. My golden-eyed child.
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Algonquin
By Paul Lander
Constant and powerful, its rage pounds on the surface below
leaving a beard of white, only to quickly escape; to hitch a ride along the current weaving and bobbing around and over sticks and stones; foaming traces on white ripples that force their way back to the current; rushing underneath a trestle only to form more rage; pierced by a helpless branch sending the current here and there, foaming against the undertow, brave enough to flow through and rejoin the current before dissipating into a bubbly residue swirling to the serene edge,
almost stroked by weeping fingertips, settling along the fallen and forgotten; most, however, flowing to a calm, steady stream that empties into a pool, revealing the sandy underbottom littered
with twigs and stones and weeds; deepening the expansive reservoir
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for the coy and sunny to frolick; accelerating as it ripples to its next descent, where once again, constant and powerful, its rage pounds on the surface below
leaving a beard of white only to quickly escape, to hitch a ride along the current.
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My Little Cheetah Boy
By Mayra Rivera
My little cheetah boy did not sit in a chair or use walking feet. When he started so many years ago, he had no words, Understanding only words spoken in Spanish. He moved on all fours, climbing the furniture like the mountains, Eating with his hands and making gestures for his needs and wants. My little cheetah boy playing alone.
By the next year, my little cheetah boy had grown by leaps and bounds. He walked on two feet and used his words and his voice to express himself. Building relationships, having crushes, and making sure to sit next to his friends. He laughed and talked about his beautiful mama with love in his voice. But every now and then, I still see my little Cheetah boy with his mischievous smile. On all fours, he runs to his teacher and gives her a hug and runs off laughing to join with his friends on adventures imagined by my little cheetah boy.
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Garden Party
By Mary Sawyer
Burning forests Send smoke down the mountains Settling in valleys and spilling into ocean channels filling the air with white haze
The red sun a flaming berry at first I took pictures how pretty
“The world’s seas have hit the hottest temperature on record for July,” reports The Guardian. Another headline states, “2026 may be the hottest year in human record.” A reader comments, “That is, until 2027.”
The Pacific Northwest is cedar and hemlocks and Douglas Fir Vast forests reach for the sun. A raven’s call. The whoosh of black wings high up Beneath the boughs a glowing fairy garden mushrooms and moss
Trees soak up carbon and cool the earth. Or do they explode like a thousand torches Do they roar and choke? Do screaming wings fall from the sky?
Inside the restaurant overlooking the harbor Next to the white arbors hanging with wisteria’s lacey purple bouquets near the sunken garden with dahlias the size of dinner plates their magenta petals exploding like a royal salute to the sky Hangs a grand painting honoring a July 13, 1906 visit from US President Teddy Roosevelt
A garden party. Colorful lanterns hang on string between the trees
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Roosevelt stands flanked by two local lime barons Next to them at banquet tables sit men in frock coats and women with fur stoles It is late afternoon. Dessert has been served. On the white tablecloth are pieces of chocolate cake with whip cream Coffee in white mugs, milk and sugar. In the background a stone fireplace with orange flames Madrone trees glow like amber
How strange that no one smiles. Stern. They stare at us into the future. Do they know of our destruction?
The dog curled beneath the table won’t say a word.
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Contributors
Monica Freitas Argentina is an ENL teacher in New Rochelle. She became an HVWP teacher consultant in May 2026. Sucheta Baichwal is an ENL teacher. She was part of the HVWP summer program in 2017. Lucía Brea is an ENL and STEAM teacher at Jefferson Elementary School in New Rochelle, New York. Originally from the Dominican Republic, she currently resides in Stamford, Connecticut, with her husband, Ramfis, and their cat, Theo. Outside the classroom, Lucía enjoys traveling, cooking, and gardening. Lucía was in the 2023-24 HVWP Leadership in the Teaching of Writing cohort. Michelle Bulla is a 9-12 English teacher & department chair at Monroe-Woodbury HS, and adjunct in Adolescent Education at SUNY New Paltz. A teacher consultant with the Hudson Valley Writing Project and former president of NYSEC (NCTE-NY), her focal areas include leading for innovation, meaningful learning adventures, climate literacy, & trying to write something worth reading. Creator of TranscendingPedagogy.com, you can find more of her writing there & on Substack @mgbulla. Tim Dewar is currently a Teaching Professor and the Director of the South Coast Writing Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the Executive Director of the California Writing Project. He previously taught at SUNY New Paltz, 2007-2010, teaching undergraduates and graduate students, drawing upon his experience as a secondary English language arts teacher, research, and, most importantly, the expertise of writing project teachers. Gaby DiMuro loves teaming up with others to read, write, speak, and listen on both coasts. She joined HVWP in 2026 and was inspired to write a tribute to the bonds and genetic traits she shares with her dad, mom, and sisters after listening to Joy Harjo read her poem “Remember.” Chris Gabryszewski joined the HVWP program in 2026 and teaches first-year writing at Dutchess Community College with the goal of helping students find joy in writing. He is a writer, game designer, and the world's worst cowboy.
Kira Lamarre Herbert is a retired NYS grade 5 and grade 6 middle school teacher who continues to learn, to teach, and to lead in a wide
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range of professional settings. While Kira holds her family closest to her heart, she also enjoys gardening, skiing, reading, writing, travel, and new adventures. Kira is a participant in the 2026 Leadership Institute of HVWP. Paul Lander, a sixth-grade ELA teacher at Oak Grove Elementary School in the Wappingers Central School District, has been a teaching consultant with the HVWP since 2010. Prior to teaching, he worked for 15 years as a reporter, columnist, and editor for The Times-Herald Record, New York Post, Newburgh Evening News, and the Poughkeepsie Journal. Tom Meyer enjoyed HVWP’s 2002 Summer Institute and many others after that one. He likes to garden, bodysurf in the ocean, and go on daily walks with his two dogs and his amazing wife, Julie. He also likes reading and writing poetry and riding his bicycle.
Joan Ottulich graduated in 2019 with a Master's in Education as a K-6 teacher. This is a second career and a very lovely one.
Mayra Rivera is a Teacher Consultant who participated in the Year Round Institute 2020-2021 and co-taught in the Young Writers Program for several summers. She currently is a preschool teacher at Head Start of Eastern County, where she encourages her students to use drawing to tell their stories.
Meg Davis Roberts is an assistant professor of English education at SUNY New Paltz. She joined HVWP in 2024 and serves as co-director.
Kait Rosenfeld teaches English at Monroe-Woodbury High School, and joined HVWP as a fellow in the Year Round Institute in 2025. She loves living life with her husband, David, and cat, Portia, and enjoys spooky books, arts and crafts, baking delicious treats, and writing within community. Mary Sawyer is a founding co-director of HVWP (in 2001) and a SUNY New Paltz professor emeritus. She lives part-time in the Pacific Northwest. Kasey Stecher is a HS English teacher in the Pawling Central School District who has been a part of HVWP since 2021. She is a reader, gardener, traveler, runner, and most recently, a newly certified school administrator.
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Sarah Wheeler teaches writing for the Bard Prison Initiative, as well as English and Education courses for SUNY New Paltz. She joined HVWP’s Leadership in the Teaching of Writing in 2024.
Photo credit: Lucía Brea
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Write on!
And share the fruits of your labor with your fellow readers and writers of the Hudson Valley Writing Project’s e-zine, Commonplace .
Stay tuned for the next “harvest.”
Please contact Sarah Wheeler with questions and suggestions: hvwpcommonplace@gmail.com.
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