Laura Shovan is a children’s author, educator, and Pushcart Prize-nominated poet. Her chapbook, Mountain, Log, Salt, and Stone, won the inaugural Harriss Poetry Prize. She has worked as an editor of literary journals and poetry anthologies. Laura's debut novel-in-verse, The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary, won several awards, including NCTE Notable Verse Novel. Her novel Takedown was selected for Junior Library Guild, PJ Our Way, and the ALA’s Amelia Bloomer Project. Her most recent work is Sydney Taylor Notable A Place at the Table, co-written with Saadia Faruqi.
Katherine Lyons is a Master Teaching Artist for the Wolf Trap Foundation conducting workshops and residencies for teachers and children in the Maryland/Virginia/ DC area and across the US. As a Teaching Artist, she has worked with children Pre-K through High School for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Walters Art Gallery, Peabody Institute and Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts.
Brown Box is a theatre and education collaborative founded on the belief that theatre is for all people and that all communities have the right to easy access to the arts. Brown Box has distinguished itself as a professional, touring theatre company dedicated to producing a diverse array of theatre year-round in order to eliminate the barriers of geography, cost, and racial inequity for the traditional and new theatre patron.
Renée Collins Georges was one of the last Raelettes to “hit the road” with Ray Charles and His Orchestra in a singing career that has taken her all over the world. Renée is a vocalist and children’s songwriter with a passion for kids and Jazz.
Adele is a poet/teacher living in Silver Spring, MD. She received her BA & MFA in English Literature/Creative Writing at the University of Maryland. She's a professor at Montgomery College, Teaching evening classes for UMGC, and is a poet in at the Arts in Education Program with the Maryland State Arts Council. She's been published in Gargoyle, So to Speak, The Maryland Poetry Review, Smartish Pace, The Lucid Stone, Scribble, and more. Books: Refracted Love, Freshwater Pearls, The Moon Lighting, & Look Ma, "Hands" on Poetry (collection of creative writing workshops for students).
Alden Phelps is an artist, songwriter, and musician with over 20 years years of experience performing for audiences of all kinds across the region. Alden’s zany songs, zippy guitar-ifications, and sing-along choruses delight folks of all ages, and his arts-integrated interactive workshops inspire a love of language and the joy of playing with words.
Between 1986 to 1994, MEAC toured worldwide as an Arts Ambassador on behalf of the British Council. Its ground-breaking performances were acclaimed as the first Art form that could truly allow the severely disabled child an opportunity to become part of the theater community. In 1994 the troupe re-located to the United States of America. Beginning in 1994 MEAC conducted a school residency at The Maryland School for the Blind, which continued for 21 years.
Leila Cabib is a professional cartoonist, illustrator, and animator. Her clients include The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Gannett newspapers, Time-Life Books, and many other publications and organizations. She has written and illustrated two nationally syndicated comic strips. She has been teaching cartooning in after-school programs for 29 years and cartooning and animation as an artist in residence in elementary, middle, and high schools (grades 2-12) for 20 years. Her students’ animated videos have been honored with several national awards and shown at international film f
John Morogiello has been a teaching artist in Maryland since 1997, offering residencies in playwriting for students in grades 3 and above that integrate curricular subject matter with performance and dramatic story-telling. His plays (including Engaging Shaw, Blame It On Beckett, and The Consul, The Tramp, and America's Sweetheart) have been produced off-Broadway, in Europe, and at some of America's premier regional theaters. John is also the artistic director of Best Medicine Rep Theater Company in Gaithersburg.