BIO:

I have recently retired from 35 years of teaching. I have both a bilingual elementary credential (Spanish/English) as well as a secondary English credential. My first decade of teaching was primarily K-5, but I found my "people" teaching 8th grade for over the last two decades. In middle school I taught English Language Arts, ELD (English Language Development) and the AVID elective. AVID is an international program with the mission to make a university education possible for ALL students. As I am a first-generation college graduate, it was my honor to be the AVID Coordinator in my district. I became a South Coast Writing Project Fellow at UCSB in 2004 and have taught Young Writing Camps almost every year since that time. Some of my poems, short stories and essays have been published in PostSCWriP, their seasonal online literary journal, as well as annual anthologies. I have also led numerous workshops for educators in my district as well as for local and state conferences. I am a member of SCBWI and attend their webinars and conferences. I love reading, especially MG and YA fiction, playing with my dog, traveling, and learning languages. My daughter is an Editor-in-Chief in publishing and lives with her husband who is a writer/translator in Brooklyn. My husband is a family doctor and an activist.

Kristin Jensen Dodge