As we prepare to step into the 30-day journey of VerseLove 2026, it feels important to pause here, before the first prompt is posted, before the first lines are written, and consider the people who are holding this space.
Because VerseLove does not simply happen.
It is made possible by a group of educators, writers, and poets who have said yes—quietly, generously—to showing up for a day in April. Each of them has volunteered to prepare and share a writing invitation. Each of them has agreed, in some way, to read, to witness, to listen.
And that matters.
These are not just facilitators. They are people who have participated in Open Writes and VerseLove alongside you. They know what it feels like to arrive at a blank page. They understand the hesitation, the uncertainty, the small courage it takes to write something and let it exist. They are not outside the experience—they are inside it.
And still, they have stepped forward to hold it for others.
What becomes visible, when you sit with their stories for a while, is not just a list of accomplishments—though those are certainly there—but a pattern of lives shaped by language, by teaching, and by a sustained commitment to other people. (See the full bios at the end of this post.)
Many of our hosts have spent decades in classrooms.
There are teachers here with 30, 38, 40 years of experience—people who have returned, day after day, to rooms full of young people and tried to make space for their voices. Susan Ahlbrand, now recently retired after 38 years of teaching middle school English. Sharon Roy retired from 31 years in Austin. Margaret Simon recently retired after 38 years and published several books this year. Stacey Joy, a National Board Certified Teacher with four decades in Los Angeles classrooms. Rita DiCarne, preparing to retire after 40 years in Catholic education, still gathering with her local poetry community and blogging about her practice. Glenda Funk, also a 38-year veteran, now leading restorative writing workshops in her community.
Even in retirement, they have not stepped away from the work of language. They have simply carried it into new spaces.
There is something steadying about that.
A sense that writing, for them, is not a phase or a profession alone—it is a way of being in the world.
Others are still deeply embedded in classrooms and schools, doing the daily, often invisible work of literacy.
Leilya Pitre, in Louisiana, prepares future English teachers, holding a vision that they will become caring, competent, and effective educators. Melissa Heaton, in Utah, draws from a family legacy of artists, describing poetry as a way to paint pictures with words for her students. Wendy Everard writes at the intersection of motherhood and teaching, finding material in the fullness of those roles. Linda Mitchell, a school librarian in Virginia, keeps a space where anything can happen—a place for tutoring, tinkering, emotional support, and creative play.
These are people who understand writing not just as a skill to be taught, but as a human practice to be lived.
They are shaping the conditions under which others come to see themselves as writers.
There are also those whose work extends beyond the classroom, into broader conversations about literacy, equity, and teacher education.
Bryan Ripley Crandall directs the Connecticut Writing Project and continues to advocate for diversity and equity in education. Dave Wooley and Kate Sjostrom work with future teachers, and Kate is serving as Writer in Residence at the Hemingway Foundation. Stefani Boutelier and Corinne Young are engaged in teacher preparation, thinking carefully about literacy, research, and instructional design.
What they bring to this space is not only experience, but perspective—a deep understanding of how writing lives within systems, and how it might be expanded, humanized, and reimagined.
And threaded throughout this group is a commitment to writing as a form of care.
Not performance. Not perfection. Care.
Jennifer Guyor Jowett describes herself as a “defender of fierce girls,” writing stories that make space for strength and voice. Ann E. Burg is drawn to the stories of the disenfranchised and forgotten, using historical fiction to broaden understanding and invite justice. Denise Krebs spends her time helping immigrant neighbors with legal petitions, while also finding hope and joy in writing during April. Barbara Edler writes with a belief in the healing power of poetry. Mo Daley has traveled the world for literacy.
These are people who understand that writing can hold what is difficult, what is unseen, what is in need of witness.
They are not writing only for themselves.
At the same time, there is a beautiful ordinariness to their lives—one that feels essential to name.
They bake. They travel. They visit grandchildren. They walk dogs. They ride bikes and watch birds and attend theater. They gather words “like a rock collection.” They blog daily. They write between the responsibilities of teaching, parenting, and living.
Nothing about their lives suggests distance or exclusivity.
Instead, they are practicing the very thing VerseLove invites:
To notice.
To pay attention.
To write from within the life you already have.
VerseLove is also, quite literally, a global community.
We are joined by educators in Mauritius, like Kratijah Khodabux and Angie Braaten, whose international teaching experiences have shaped how they understand language, identity, and learning. Angie speaks of how teaching across countries has influenced not just her practice, but her personhood. Kratijah focuses on nurturing confident communicators and thoughtful readers in an international school setting.
Across the United States—from Louisiana to Utah, from Georgia to Michigan, from California to New York—this community stretches across regions, contexts, and experiences. (Google Map.)
Jessica Shernburn from Chicago is part of an advocacy group for the Zekelman Holocaust Memorial Center. Erica Johnson, from Arkansas, hosts a teacher writer group. Scott McCloskey, from Michigan, with over thirty years of experience, and Ashley Valencia-Pate, from Florida, were with us during the pandemic and shared their stories in our oral history project. Clayton Moon teaches in Georgia and hosts poetry readings and book discussions in his community.
And within that, there is also a wide span of time.
First-year teachers and second-career educators like Luke Bensing, who entered the classroom in his 40s, sit alongside those who have spent a lifetime in education. University professors, librarians, literacy coaches, and retirees all share this space.
It is rare to find a community that is both intergenerational and interconnected in this way.
And perhaps most importantly, all of this is offered freely.
No one here is required to do this work.
Each host has volunteered their time to prepare a prompt, to show up for a day, to read what others write, to respond, to witness.
In a time when so much of our work is measured, compensated, or scheduled, there is something quietly radical about that kind of generosity.
It is easy to overlook, but it is the very thing that makes VerseLove possible.
The month begins with me on April 1st, and it will end with me again on April 30th.
In between, this circle is held by these voices—each one distinct, each one bringing their own history, their own commitments, their own way of seeing the world through language.
What they share is not a single definition of writing, but a shared belief:
That writing belongs to people.
That it can be small. Imperfect. Ongoing.
That it can hold joy and grief, memory and imagination, the ordinary and the extraordinary.
That it is, at its core, a way of paying attention to a life.
So before we begin, it feels right to say this clearly:
If you join VerseLove this April, you are not entering a random online challenge.
You are stepping into a space held by people who have spent their lives making room for others to speak, to write, and to be heard.
People who are still, even now, choosing to show up for that work.
We are grateful they are here.
And we look forward to writing with you.
Our Host for VerseLove 2026
(in the order of hosting)
Leilya lives in Ponchatoula, LA, a small town celebrated for its strawberries and kind, generous people. She teaches and coordinates the English Education Program at Southeastern Louisiana University. Preparing future English teachers, she hopes they become caring, competent, and effective educators. She is an editor and contributing author of Where Stars Meet People: Teaching and Writing Poetry in Conversation. Her other books are devoted to teaching young adult literature in high school. Leilya loves people, cultures, and their rich traditions. She reads, writes, listens to music, visits her children and grandchildren, and enjoys traveling with her husband.
Melissa lives in Springville, Utah–a town nestled in the foothills of the Wasatch Range of the Rocky Mountains. Springville is also known as Art City because of its artistic heritage and dedication to the visual arts. Melissa comes from a family of very talented artists. Even though she didn’t inherit that family trait, she feels that she can still paint pictures with words. Melissa graduated with a BA from Brigham Young University and has taught ELA for 26 years in the Nebo School District. In addition to teaching, Melissa enjoys baking, reading, dancing, interior design, and visiting national parks. It’s Melissa’s goal to visit all of the US national parks. There are 63 national parks, and so far Melissa has visited 27.
Kim Johnson lives in rural Georgia and is the District Literacy Specialist for Pike County Schools. She is the author of Father, Forgive Me: Confessions of a Southern Baptist Preacher’s Kid (Tate Publishing, 2012); and a contributing author of Words that Mend: The Transformative Power of Writing Poetry for Teachers, Students, and Community Wellbeing (Seela Books, 2024) and two other books written with EthicalELA writers. She blogs daily at www.kimhaynesjohnson.com.
Jennifer Guyor Jowett teases stories and writers into being. She is the author of Into the Shadows, a middle grade historical fiction based on true-life events, the creator of the #dogearedbookaward, and a defender of fierce girls. Jennifer is a 7th/8th ELA teacher in the mitten state.
Wendy Everard is a high school English teacher and writer living in central New York. Her role as mother and teacher has given her plenty to write about since she started writing personal narrative and poetry, lifelong hobbies that were reignited when she joined a summer institute with the Seven Valleys branch of the National Writing Project a few years ago and began mentoring student teachers. Recently, she was delighted and honored to receive an Educator of Excellence Award from the New York State English Council. She teaches in Cazenovia, New York.
Luke Bensing is a husband, father, musician, writer, and teacher. He lives in Valparaiso, IN and teaches 9th Grade English in Merrillville, IN. After working in the wrong vocation for nearly two decades, he earned his BA in English from Purdue University Northwest. (A first year teacher in his 40s.) He went directly into the high school classroom to share his perspectives with students and attempt to apply his love of language and the importance of communication and critical thinking to future members and leaders of society.
Linda lives in Virginia, where she teaches from a middle school library. As a school librarian, she tries to expect nothing while simultaneously being prepared for anything. Anyone can walk through the door of her library for tutoring, emotional support, the laminator, collaborative planning, space to hold an event, time to tinker at a maker station or a whole group lesson on how patchwork poetry can be good practice for citing sources. Linda also serves on the Intellectual Freedom Committee of her state’s chapter of the American Association of School Librarians. She believes in whole-hearted teaching, learning from mistakes, and creative play as a learning style. She lives with her husband, two sweety-boy brother cats, Dolly the dog and some of her adult children. Linda has published poems in various Ethical ELA collections and weekly on her ‘Another Word Edgewise,’ substack.
Bryan Ripley Crandall lives in Stratford, Connecticut, where he directs the Connecticut Writing Project and is Professor of English Education at Fairfield University. He gained his teaching legs at the J. Graham Brown School in Louisville, Kentucky, a K-12 public school with a mission for diversity, inclusivity, and equity, and is a proud teacher-leader inspired by LWP XXI. He co-hosts National Writing Project’s The Write Time.
Susan Ahlbrand is a recent retiree after teaching eighth-grade English language arts for 38 years. In her new found leisure, she has found passion for pickleball, while continuing to read and write regularly. She and her husband (a rabid Purdue fan shown in the picture) of 31 years spend a lot of time traveling to visit their four kids scattered across the country. She was blessed to turn 60 in December, and seeing her Hoosiers make history as the only undefeated football national championship (adding to the lore of being the only undefeated basketball national champions) was a great way to start 2026.
A former high school English teacher, Kate Sjostrom is a teacher educator at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Writer in Residence at the Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park.
Rita DiCarne lives outside of Philadelphia, PA, where she teaches 7th-grade ELA at Our Lady of Mercy Regional Catholic School. After 40 years of Catholic Education, she will be retiring in June. Rita has been a fellow and teacher consultant with the West Chester Writing Project for the past 25 years. When not teaching, she loves meeting monthly with a community poetry writing group at her local library, gathering with her book club friends, The Chapter Chicks, and blogging at Practicing What I Teach. Rita’s favorite thing is spending time with her four grandchildren, who bring sunshine to her life.
Ann lives in upstate New York with her husband and her scarededy-cat dog. She was a teacher for ten years and is now a mostly-middle-grade author. Drawn to stories of the disenfranchised and voiceless, she usually finds inspiration in little known or too-soon-forgotten historical incidents. Though she’s no longer teaching, Ann continues to be interested in the challenges children and young adults face. Her books reflect her sincere desire to engage readers in stories that will broaden their worldview and help create a more just society.
Mo lives in the Chicago suburbs, where she enjoys spending time with her enormous family. She is a retired middle school reading teacher who enjoys reading, traveling, practicing yoga, and attending Chicago theater. Mo likes to think of herself as a worldwide literacy advocate. She also spends a great deal of time trying to convince her husband that they need a couple of dogs.
Erica Johnson’s 14 years of working with students and a lifetime of writing have shaped her into the passionate writing teacher of 2026. Her poems were recently published in the Chaos Section Poetry Project’s collection What We Hold On To: Poems of Coping, Connection, and Carrying On. When she isn’t gathering words like they were a rock collection, Erica can be found engaging in D&D campaigns and planning the next exciting adventure into the unknown!
Stacey Joy is a National Board Certified Teacher, Google Certified Educator, and 2013 L.A. County Teacher of the Year. Stacey has taught elementary school for 40 years in Los Angeles Unified School District, and she is imagining life in retirement at the end of this school year. Stacey is a UCLA Writing Project fellow and a dedicated writer here with the phenomenal teacher-poets of Ethical ELA. Stacey has poems published in various anthologies: Out of Anonymity, Savant Poetry Anthologies, Teacher Poets Writing to Bridge the Distance, and Rhythm and Rhyme: Poems for Student Athletes, and more. Stacey enjoys traveling, spending time at the beach, and capturing pictures in nature while taking mindful walks.
Kratijah lives in Mauritius, where she teaches English Language Acquisition and Language & Literature at Le Bocage International School. She is passionate about nurturing confident communicators and thoughtful readers through meaningful engagement with language and texts.
Angie has been teaching English since 2013. She started her teaching career in Louisiana for five years, then moved overseas and taught in Bangladesh and Kuwait. She currently teaches in Mauritius. Her overseas experiences have opened her mind in ways that may have never happened if she had stayed in the states. She has taught grades 6-11 but her favorite would probably be 8th, a grade that will always hold a special place in her heart, being the year she realized she wanted to be an English teacher herself. She is grateful for this community of writers and to have monthly opportunities to write, read, and share poetry. It has influenced who she is as a teacher, and person in general, in many ways.
Stefani is an Associate Professor of Education at Aquinas College in Michigan. She teaches courses for pre-service and in-service teachers in instructional design, literacy, ed tech, and research methods. Her K-12 teaching was in California prior to moving into teacher preparation.
Corinne lives in Detroit, Michigan, teaching in Detroit Public Schools Community District. She is an Education Specialist Student at Wayne State University. Corinne is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Eta Iota Omega Chapter and the National Sorority of Phi Delta Kappa, Inc. Chi Chapter.
In May of 2025, Sharon Roy retired from 31 years of teaching middle school in Austin, TX where she lives with her husband. Now she enjoys riding her bike to take herself on field trips to swim at Barton Springs, bird with Travis Audubon Society, admire the art at local museums, read outside in parks and take classes with a local lifelong learning institute. She volunteers with Travis Audubon Society, leading a monthly poetry-writing and birding walk. She’s enjoying more time to write poetry which she shares at her blog, Pedaling Poet: Riding to Find the Strange and the Sublime.
Margaret Simon lives on the Bayou Teche in New Iberia, Louisiana. Margaret has been an elementary school teacher for 38 years, most recently retired and teaching periodically as a teaching artist in the schools. Her first book of children’s poetry was published in 2018 by UL Press, Bayou Song: Creative Explorations of the South Louisiana Landscape. In April 2025, she released Were You There: A Biography of Emma Wakefield Paillet; Margaret wrote poems in Emma’s voice as she worked through trials and tribulations of Reconstruction and a Jim Crow South to become the first African American woman in the state of Louisiana to receive a medical degree. Her latest book is a baby board book What’s That Sound? Birds of the Bayou. Margaret’s poems have appeared in anthologies including The Poetry of US by National Geographic and Rhyme & Rhythm: Poems for Student Athletes. Margaret writes a blog regularly athttp://reflectionsontheteche.com.
Denise Krebs lives in Yucca Valley, California, near Joshua Tree National Park. She is busy learning to write habeas corpus petitions and briefs to help immigrant neighbors, campaigning for a new congress person, and stocking the shelves of the best Friends of the Library bookshop in our area. Denise is a retired elementary and TESOL teacher. Her most hopeful and joyful experiences are being with her two grandsons. Being here in April is another experience of hope and joy. She blogs at Dare to Care.
Hi, folks, I’m Scott, and I’m at a loss for what new information to tell you about myself. So, I’ll simply say that I’ve been teaching high school ELA in Michigan for over thirty years, and I’ve been reading and enjoying poetry for even longer.
Ashley lives in Titusville, Florida where she works as a high school English teacher. She believes in learning as a partnership between teachers and students. In her free time, she enjoys relaxing with her husband, three children, and three dogs.
Clayton Moon lives in Thomaston, Georgia and teaches for the Pike County School System. He is happily married to Melinda Moon. They have three children, Seth, Greylen, and Sara. Clayton and his daughter, Sara Moon, published a children’s book, Where Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches Come From, in 2020. He also has self-published multiple short stories and poem collections. His short story Oglethorpe Estates was mentioned in the Georgia Outdoor Magazine in 2022. He has hosted multiple book discussions and signings in local libraries, coffee shops and art galleries.
Dave lives in State College, Pennsylvania, and he’s not exactly sure how he got there! But, since he’s there, he’s working with pre-service teachers at Penn State University as they prepare to be high school and middle school teachers. He does some rapping, writing, and he’s recently gotten back on skis after a 20 year (or so) hiatus so that he can chase his 11-year-old down mountains. He lives with his wife and their youngest son and looks forward to when the other siblings are able to come home from college and get the band back together!
Jessica lives in Chicago, Illinois where she teaches English at Mather High School. She is currently a teacher-consultant with the Chicago Area Writing Project. She has served as a Representative-at-Large within the Michigan Council of Teachers of English and a Teacher Advisory Group Member for the Zekelman Holocaust Memorial Center. In addition to writing poetry, Jessica enjoys hiking, kayaking, and penning sarcastic quips. She is a proud mother to two cats, Ollie and Davie, who enjoy long naps and knocking over mugs of black tea.
Barbara Edler is a talented and gifted instructor for Keokuk High School, located in southeast Iowa. She is a veteran language arts and college composition instructor who loves to write flash fiction and poetry. Her poetry has been published in Words that Mend, The Cities of the Plains: An Anthology of Iowa Artists and Poets, the NFSPS Encore 2025 Prize Poems, and issues of the Grant Wood Country Chronicle and Lyrical Iowa. She is also a contributing author to the 2025 Routledge publication: Assessing Students with Poetry Writing Across Content Areas: Humanizing Formative Assessment for Grades 6-12. Each month she joins the Ethical ELA community’s Open Writes and believes in the healing power of poetry.
Glenda retired from teaching in 2019 after a 38 year career. She now volunteers at the Restorative Center in Pocatello, Idaho where she leads a Restorative Writing Workshop. In addition to being a dog and cat mom, Glenda loves to travel and is a doting grandmother to Ezra, a budding reader, and a granddaughter, Aliannah. Glenda serves on the NCTE Children’s Poetry Awards Committee and is participating in the Stafford Poetry Challenge to write a poem a day for a year. Her poetry has been included in several anthologies. Glenda blogs at Swirl & Swing:www.glendafunk.wordpress.com