Advisory Board

Our Advisory Board is a braintrust of professional women and men from the fields of education, literature, women's issues, non-profit development, media, and the arts who are dedicated to the growth and prosperity of Girls Write Now.

Caroline Berger has been involved with Girls Write Now since 2006. She has previously been a mentor, Program Advisory Committee member, and Development Director. She earned her MFA in creative writing with a concentration in fiction from The New School in 2002, and has a BA in English literature and writing from Hiram College. Her writing has been published in such literary journals as La Petite Zine, Pindeldyboz, Barrow Street, Vibrant Gray and the anthologies Hiram, U.S.A: Essays From the Hill; Best of Vibrant Gray; and Best of Stain. She co-curates the Sunday Salon, a monthly reading series in New York City, and has helped found sister series in Chicago and Nairobi. She is also the co-editor and founder of Salon Zine, an online literary journal.

Lisa Bowden is the co-founder and Publisher/Chief Executive of Kore Press, one of six remaining feminist presses in the country. Lisa has recently directed and produced Kore’s controversial new play about women’s lives in the military called Coming in Hot, which she considers to be the apex of her literary activism to date. Creator of Kore Press’ Grrls’ Literary Activism Workshop (an after school write-as-activism-program for teenage girls) she is also an editor, writer and designer. Lisa also works improvisationally with dancers and musicians. Last year she co-directed a multi-genre ensemble of 25 artists doing site-specific, improvisational work in Tucson's public spaces. Honors include an ADDY for a design collaborative for His Holiness the Dalai Lama. She is the editor of Autumnal: A Collection of Elegies, co-editor with Shannon Cain of Powder: Writing by Women in Ranks, from Vietnam to Iraq, and co-adaptor of Coming in Hot.

Tara Bracco is an activist, writer, and performance poet. Her writing has appeared in Cosmopolitan, American Theatre, Brooklyn Rail, Bitch, BUST, Clamor, and on The Huffington Post. In 2003, she founded Poetic People Power, an ongoing project that combines poetry and activism. Tara has been profiled in Time Out New York and has been awarded grants from the Puffin Foundation and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. She is on faculty at the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership, where she teaches public speaking to young women. For more information, please visit www.poeticpeoplepower.com.

Leslie Campisi is vice president and partner at Affect Strategies, a public relations, marketing, and social media firm specializing in technology. Prior to joining Affect, Leslie worked as a freelance interactive producer, creating online games for Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon brands. She also served as content manager at Bolt, one of the Internet's first online communities, and as marketing and sponsorships associate at The Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival. A proud Louisiana native, Leslie is an honors graduate of Loyola University New Orleans with a BA in Literature and Philosophy. She also holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School.

Paige Cerand is an assistant buyer specializing in designer handbags at Saks Fifth Avenue.  She is a graduate of Cornell University and was co-president of the school’s Circle K International club, a group focused on community service, leadership, and fellowship.  She also edits Monica Rose, a blog about fashion and style.

Celesti Colds Fechter is Associate Dean for Academic Services at The New School for General Studies where she is responsible for all aspects of academic services for undergraduate and graduate students in The New School's Bachelor's, Media Studies, International Affairs, MATESOL, and MFA Creative Writing programs, and for General Studies certificate and non-degree students.  Celesti has been at The New School since 1998, first on the staff of Lang College and, from 1999 to 2002, as assistant director of the Bachelor's Program.  In January 2003, she was appointed assistant dean for Academic Affairs and in 2005 she was appointed associate dean for Academic Services.  Celesti teaches psychology in the Department of Social Sciences, chairs the Diversity Committee and is the moderator of Women Writers of the Diaspora, a reading and discussion series that celebrates literature by women across the African Diaspora.  She holds a Ph.D. in social-cognitive psychology from The New School for Social Research.

Jenny Comita is a Senior Editor at W magazine, where she writes and edits features on topics including arts and culture, entertainment, books and food. Over the course of her career, she's worked as an editor and staff writer at Vogue, Marie Claire, Us Weekly, and Men's Journal.

Kathy Daneman is publicity manager at Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Previously, she was publicity director at Soho Press and publicist at Beacon Press in Boston.

Dimitra DeFotis has been a journalist for two decades and is a staff writer at Barron’s magazine. Her stories about investing and other financial themes appear in print, video and online. She previously was a staff writer at the Chicago Tribune, where she was an early innovator in online journalism and cross-media experiments. Dimitra was born and raised in Chicago, where she developed her love of languages, music and photography. She completed a Knight-Bagehot Fellowship in finance, economics and journalism at Columbia University in 2008. At Columbia, she was selected to participate in a social enterprise research trip to India, and was awarded by the Chazen Institute at the Columbia Graduate School of Business for a paper she wrote about for-profit projects addressing India's poverty. Dimitra was a mentor with Girls Write Now for two seasons. Visit dimitradefotis.blogspot.com for updates on travels and for her India diary.

Allison Devers is a writer and editor living in Brooklyn. Her articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in magazines and newspapers including the Brooklyn Rail, Bust, Time Out New York, Time Out New York Kids, Tin House, and The Washington Post. A graduate of the University of Virgina, she is an Adjunct Professor at Adelphi University and an Assistant Editor at Pen America: A Journal for Writers and Readers. Before returning to graduate school for her MFA in Fiction at the Bennington Writing Seminars, Allison gained more than a decade of experience in development and marketing capacities for non-profit organizations. She last served as communications director at the Brooklyn Children's Museum.

Sandra Fathi, president and founder of Affect Strategies, has spent the past 15 years helping technology companies achieve their communications goals. Prior to founding Affect Strategies in 2002, Sandra led corporate communications and investor relations for RADVISION, and before that, she was on the technology team at Edelman Public Relations Worldwide and the marketing team at Nokia. Sandra is the current chair of PRSA's Technology Section and the New Media and Technology Committee Chair for PRSA NY. Her commentary has appeared in PR Week, Marketing Profs, Bulldog Reporter and DM News, and she has speaks frequently at industry events. A New York native, Sandra attended New York University and graduated from Hebrew University of Jerusalem with a degree in International Relations.

Anne Fernald is Associate Professor of English and Women's Studies at Fordham University. She is also the Director of Writing and Composition at Fordham's Lincoln Center Campus. Anne is a Virginia Woolf scholar and the author of a scholarly book on how Woolf's reading shaped her feminism (Palgrave 2006) as well as many articles and book reviews on Woolf, feminism, and modernist literature. She was raised in Seattle, where she attended Garfield High School, which counts Quincy Jones, Jimi Hendrix, and Mary McCarthy among its alums. She is a graduate of Wellesley College and Yale University. She lives in Jersey City with her husband and two young daughters.

Jennifer Fondiller has been Dean of Admissions at Barnard College since August 2000. She was formerly Director of Admissions and Associate Dean for Enrollment Management at Eugene Lang College at New School University in Manhattan for six years. Jennifer also previously served as an Assistant Dean of Admissions at Wesleyan University; an academic adviser to the Council on International Educational Exchange in Berlin; and as a volunteer college counselor at the John F. Kennedy High School in Berlin. A graduate of Barnard College with a degree in French, she holds a Master of Arts in Higher Education Administration from Teachers College, Columbia University. Jennifer has sponsored the Girls College Bound Seminar at Barnard College for the past five years.

Rigoberto Gonazlez is the author of two poetry books, So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water until It Breaks, a National Poetry Series selection, and Other Fugitives and Other Strangers, winner of San Francisco State University's Poetry Center Book Award; two bilingual children's books: Soledad Sigh-Sighs/Soledad Suspiros and Antonia's Card/La tarjeta de Antonio, which was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award; the novel Crossing Vines, winner of ForeWord Magazine's Fiction Book of the Year Ward; the story collection Men without Bliss; and a memoir, Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa, winner of the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. The recipient of Guggenhim and NEA fellowships, and of various international artist residencies, including stays in Spain, Brazil, Costa Rica, Scotland and Switzerland, he is a contributing editor for Poets and Writers Magazine, on the Board of Directors of the National Book Critics Circle, and is on the Advisory Circle of Con Tinta, a collective of Chicano/Latino activist writers. His monthly book review column with the El Paso Times of Texas is now entering its seventh year. He is Associate Professor of English at Rutgers University at Newark.

Catherine Greenman is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Money, Family PC, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, More, and other publications. Over the years she's mentored and worked with such organizations as New York Cares, Learning Leaders, and The New York Public Library. She is a native New Yorker, and lives in lower Manhattan with her husband and three children. She is currently finishing her first novel.

Catherine Hardee is a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. She specializes in corporate and securities litigation, including mergers and acquisitions litigation and government investigative proceedings. Previously, Catherine clerked for the Honorable Kim McLane Wardlaw of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, California. In law school she published “Balancing Acts: The Rights of Women and Cultural Minorities in Kenyan Marital Law” in the New York University Law Review, which was inspired by her work at a legal aid clinic for women in Nairobi, Kenya. Prior to attending law school, Catherine served as a volunteer in the United States Peace Corps in Armenia. Originally from Olympia, Washington, Catherine now lives in Brooklyn with her two rescue dogs.

Allison Heiny was a Girls Write Now mentor for four years and was then on the Program Advisory Committee of Girls Write Now for three years. For the first year she was the Development Director, and then she served for two years as the Enrollment Director. The community of Girls Write Now has become like a family to Allison, and she believes very passionately in their mission and desire to grow the program. Allison has worked in the children's publishing industry for eight years, and she is currently selling translation rights for Rights People, which is based in the UK and owned by Working Partners. She lives in Brooklyn with her fiancé and her dog Jonesy.

Susanna Horng teaches writing and cultural studies to undergraduates at New York University in the Liberal Studies Program. After studying literature at UVA and cinema studies at NYU, she earned an MFA at Sarah Lawrence College.  She has been an Artist-in-Residence at the Hall Farm Center in Vermont and a Writer-in-Residence with Teachers & Writers Collaborative in NYC.  Having grown up in the Shenandoah Valley, she is working on a novel set in Virginia. Susanna was a mentor with Girls Write Now for two years.

Noelle Howey is the deputy editor at Real Simple magazine, where she oversees all of the magazine’s literary essays, and the former editor in chief of Time Out New York Kids. She is also the author of Dress Codes, a memoir that was the recipient of an American Library Association award, a Lambda Literary Award, finalist for a Books for a Better Life Award, and selected for inclusion by Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers, Borders Original Voices and the Good Morning America! book club. She is also the coeditor of the anthology Out of the Ordinary, which won two Lambda Literary Awards. She lives with her husband and kids in Maplewood, New Jersey.

Gloria Jacobs is Executive Director of the Feminist Press at CUNY. A journalist, editor, and author, Gloria was for many years the Executive Editor of Ms. magazine. Along with her executive responsibilities, she was also the Arts Editor for the magazine, covering the fine arts, literature, film, theater, and dance. Gloria has worked with many major literary authors both at Ms. and at the Feminist Press, including Marilyn French, Jessica Hagedorn, bell hooks, Barbara Kingsolver, Toni Morrison, Robin Morgan, Taslima Nasrin, and Arundhati Roy. Gloria is the co-author, with Barbara Ehrenreich and Elizabeth Hess, of Re-making Love: The Feminization of Sex (Doubleday 1986, Anchor 1987), which tracked the convergence of the women's movement and the sexual revolution in the 1970s and 1980s. Her articles have appeared in many publications, including The New York Times, the New York Daily News, The Guardian (UK), Mother Jones, Working Mother, and New York Woman. Gloria has a Master’s degree in International Affairs from Columbia University, with a specialty in African Studies. She lived in Ethiopia for nearly four years in the 1970s, and traveled extensively throughout eastern and southern Africa; Africa remains her other “love” in her working life, along with women’s issues. She has been a consultant for the United Nations, where she worked with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the current president of Liberia on a report, “Women, War, Peace,” for the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). She also wrote “Women and HIV/AIDS: Confronting the Crisis” for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which looks at the impact of gender discrimination on women’s rising HIV infection rates around the world, with a special emphasis on the crisis in Africa. She is a former Chair of the Board of Women’s eNews, an internet news service that covers women’s issues around the world, and serves on the Committee for the Women of Achievement Award for Women in Periodic Publishing and on the Small and Independent Press Committee of the American Association of Publishers.

Min Jin Lee has received the NYFA Fellowship for Fiction, the Peden Prize from The Missouri Review for Best Story, and the Narrative Prize for New and Emerging Writer. Her fiction has been featured on NPR’s Selected Shorts. Her writings have appeared in Conde Nast Traveler, The Times of London, Vogue, Travel + Leisure (SEA), and Food & Wine. An essay is forthcoming in Gourmet. Her personal essays have been anthologized in To Be Real, Breeder and One Big Happy Family. She is serving her second season as a Morning Forum columnist of the Chosun Ilbo. Her debut novel Free Food for Millionaires was a No. 1 Book Sense Pick, a New York Times Editor’s Choice, a Wall Street Journal Juggle Book Club selection, and a national bestseller; it was a Top 10 Novels of the Year for The Times of London, NPR’s Fresh Air and USA Today. It was also published in the U.K. (Random House, 2007), South Korea (Image Box Publishing), and Italy (Einaudi). She lives with her husband and son in Tokyo, where she is working on her second novel, Pachinko.

Elizabeth MacCrellish is the director and founder of Squam Art Workshops.   As a high school student, she was awarded a writing fellowship to the Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Arts which was a seminal event in her life and fuels her commitment to helping girls find their voice through the written word.

Courtney E. Martin is the author of Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: How the Quest for Perfection is Harming Young Women. She is also a widely read freelance journalist and regular blogger for Feministing. She is a Senior Correspondent for The American Prospect Online and her work has appeared in the Washington Post, Newsweek, and The Christian Science Monitor, among others. Courtney also co-wrote the life story of AIDS activist Marvelyn Brown, called The Naked Truth: Young, Beautiful and (HIV) Positive, and is currently at work on a book for Beacon Press about ten people under 35 creating innovative social change and an anthology for Seal Press on young feminists “click” moments with fellow advisory board member, J. Courtney Sullivan.  

Julie May is a psychoanalyst and creative arts therapist with a private practice in Brooklyn and Manhattan. She has worked in a variety of clinical settings integrating the modalities of art, writing, and music into the group therapy process. Julie maintains a private practice in Brooklyn and Manhattan. She works with adolescents and adults both individually and in group and family therapy. She has been working as a consultant with Girls Write Now and leading mentor trainings on issues relating to mental health for several years.

Bruce Morrow is Associate Director of Institutional Giving at the Bank Street College of Education in New York City. For 12 years he was the Associate Director of Teachers & Writers Collaborative. In 2007, he received a Revson Fellowship for Mid-Career New York City Civic Leaders at Columbia University.  His work has appeared in numerous publications, including Callaloo, The New York Times, Speak My Name (Beacon Press), Step Into a World (Wiley), and Voices Rising (Redbone Press).

Nancy K. Miller is Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Her most recent book is But Enough About Me: Why We Read Other People’s Lives (Columbia University Press). Her memoir, I Found My Family in a Drawer, is forthcoming from University of Nebraska Press in 2010. She is the author of several books and many articles about women’s writing and autobiography.

Hope Pordy has served as Girls Write Now’s pro bono general counsel for six years, playing a vital role in transitioning the organization to an official non-profit organization and assisting with various legal issues as the organization has expanded its programming and outreach. During her legal career, Hope was worked for a number of not-for-profit legal services organizations and currently is a partner at the labor and employment law firm of Spivak Lipton LLP. Her clients include a variety of labor unions, primarily in the entertainment and health care industries, as well as individual employees who have suffered discrimination, harassment, and/or other unlawful employment actions in the workplace. Hope has previously acted as a mentor for at-risk students while an undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, tutored students at a public elementary school in Washington, D.C., and escorted teens on cultural and recreational excursions with New York Cares.

Cindy Pound has been working for innovative software, design, and technology companies since 1992. As Senior Vice President of Client Services at netomat, Inc. (www.netomat.net), Cindy produces integrated web/mobile experiences that focus on community, user-generated content and streaming video services. Her customers include Electronic Arts, Isabella Products, Island Def Jam Records, Warner Music Group, and NYC and Company, among others. As a founding partner of Razorfish, a pioneer and leader in the Internet consulting space, Cindy was the Executive Producer of Client Services for the New York office where she oversaw engagements with Fortune 500 clients and produced projects for Charles Schwab, CBS, Sony, Smithsonian, Microsoft, and others. As Vice President and Executive Director of Global Programs, Cindy was responsible for all development, deployment, and support of the company's Intranet. She also served as Executive Director of Catapult, an emerging leader development program that trained over 60 employees worldwide in cutting edge leadership methodologies. Prior to joining Razorfish Cindy spent three years at Microsoft, where she managed beta software testing programs and conducted quality assurance of localized software products. Cindy is a national board member of the Producers Guild of America New Media Council and serves as the board’s secretary. She is an active member of the New York chapter and has been producing thought leadership and industry networking events (www.scribemedia.org/pga) for the Guild since 2004. She holds a BA with distinction in French Language and Literature with a minor in Spanish from Whitman College and a professional certificate in Finance from NYU. She is currently pursuing a masters in Media Studies at The New School in New York.

Sara Reistad-Long is a writer and reporter based in New York City. A graduate of Harvard University, she started her career on staff at ELLE magazine, where she worked on the health desk and wrote a monthly money column. Since then, she's taken on a variety of topics, for a range of news and lifestyle publications—from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal to Esquire and O, The Oprah Magazine. She is currently a member of the American Society for Journalists and Authors, and has served on the executive board of the Newswomen's Club of New York. Sara also co-writes a food-and-health blog, www.sveltegourmand.com, and pens a biweekly fitness column for AOL.com

Lyla Rose is the Visual, Performing & Literary Arts Manager at Casita Maria Center for Arts and Education in the South Bronx. Raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, she received a B.A. in Fine Arts from University of Southern California, with a minor in Journalism. She worked as Assistant to the Director of the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills, and most recently as Communications Coordinator at the Armory Center for the Arts. After nine years in Los Angeles, Lyla recently moved to New York to help run the NYC Regional Affiliate of the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.

Eunice Salton's career has focused on communications in the financial services industry, where she led efforts in marketing and sales at Chase and at the financial publishing unit of Simon & Schuster, an arm of Viacom, Inc. During the past several years, she has assumed the role of National Executive Director of Plays for Living, Inc., an award-winning non-profit organization that utilizes theater techniques to raise awareness and develop skills around compelling workplace issues for businesses and creates and implements educational workshops and yearlong, in-school residencies to engage high-school students in learning. Her current role as a consultant to the Americans for the Arts (AFTA), a Washington, D.C.–based non-profit dedicated to advancing the arts in America, has allowed her to fuse her expertise in business with her commitment to community servic

Margaret Leigh Schmidt is Senior Vice President of Publicity, Worldwide Marketing for CBS Films. Former Vice President of East Coast Publicity for Warner Bros. Pictures, Margaret began her career at HBO while attending the American Film Institute as a screenwriting fellow. At HBO she designed and implemented national publicity campaigns on such award-winning/nominated films as Barbarians at the Gate, The Tuskegee Airmen, and The Late Shift. In 1996 Schmidt was employed to oversee all publicity, promotion, and marketing efforts at the feature film company Phoenix Pictures. Some of the films she worked on include The Thin Red Line, Apt Pupil, Dick, and U-Turn. Margaret was then hired by Warner Bros. Pictures as a Vice President in the publicity department in Burbank. She designed and implemented publicity campaigns on such titles as White Oleander, Insomnia, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, and The Last Samurai. In addition to her accomplishments in publicity, promotion, and marketing, she is an accomplished playwright. Crooks, a two-act comedy, was produced at the Tiffany Theatre in Los Angeles, and The Dress at the Wyo Theatre in Sheridan, Wyoming. She was educated at Rider University, Circle-in-the-Square Theatre School, The American Film Institute, and The New School.

Nancy Larson Shapiro was director of Teachers & Writers Collaborative (T&W) for almost 30 years, and she currently serves as co-chair of T&W’s board. At T&W she had exciting opportunities connected to writing and teaching: e.g., working with authors (such as Grace Paley, John Ashbery, Yusef Komunyakaa, Victor Hernandez-Cruz, and Sharon Olds) to set up workshops and readings; producing events to celebrate writers (such as Walt Whitman, Etheridge Knight, William Carlos Williams, Kenneth Koch, and June Jordan), and developing numerous projects and publications with T&W’s staff of writers. She has written hundreds of proposals and final reports and has been an English teacher in Boston, Minneapolis, and the Chicago area, so she’s familiar with the demands of school projects. She also taught creative writing and served as an editor for numerous publications. She has a BA in English literature from the University of Minnesota and an MAT in English from Northwestern University. This is Nancy’s third year as a mentor for Girls Write Now.

David Shuff has, over the past 10 years, freelanced independently and with agencies Digitas, AKQA, Atmosphere BBDO, McCann-Erickson, and Deep Focus; creating work for clients such as TED conference, Absolut Vodka, FedEx, Samsung, American Express, Nike, IBM, L'Oréal, HBO, Pfizer, Sanofi Aventis, Dewar's, Mattel and Sesame Workshop. In addition, he has also been a staff editor and director at the acclaimed agency R/GA, on accounts such as Nike, IBM, Verizon, Nokia, Target, L'Oréal, Subaru, Bank of America, Purina, J&J, and Avaya. David received a BFA in film from SUNY Purchase and shortly thereafter co-formed Professor Bright Films, a production company originally focused in concept videos for toy inventors that has since moved on to produce dynamic corporate work and award winning independent films. David’s films have screened in more than 40 festivals—Alone at Last at the Tribeca Film Festival—and his editorial credits include the feature films Men Without Jobs (Planet Brooklyn) and Zero Day; both of which secured national distribution and are currently available on Netflix. David's other creative outlets include experimental shorts, video installations, audio documentaries, a transnational collaborative photo blog, and participating in a yearly exquisite corpse video project invited to screen at MoMA. He created the cult sensation site 20kride.com; featured on BoingBoing and a Yahoo! Picks. David is charged with recording for posterity the explosive demolition of model boats every July 4th; an anthology of which screened at the Brooklyn media space Monkeytown. Additionally David serves as official videographer for Girls Write Now.

J. Courtney Sullivan is the author of the best-selling novel Commencement, which The New York Times called "one of this year's most inviting summer novels" and Gloria Steinem described as "generous-hearted, brave...Commencement makes clear that the feminist revolution is just beginning." Courtney is a Brooklyn-based writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, New York, Elle, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Allure, In Style, Men’s Vogue, the New York Observer, Tango, and in the essay anthology The Secret Currency of Love (Morrow). She contributes to the website someecards.com, and is co-editing an anthology about young women and feminism with Courtney E. Martin. She is a graduate of Smith College, and works in the editorial department of The New York Times. Read more about her at www.jcourtneysullivan.com.

Kathleen Sweeney has worked extensively with youth education organizations developing innovative multimedia arts and creative writing curricula, community-building workshops, screenings, exhibitions, branding, and marketing concepts. She has served multiple times as NEA-funded Artist-in-Residence at Reel Grrls, Seattle; and at DIA: Beacon, New York. As a consulting Content Editor for the Girl Scouts USA, she recently collaborated on a series of books for girls on environmental leadership, It’s Your Planet—Love It! featuring profiles of female visionaries from across the country. As a freelance videographer/editor, she collaborated with artist Liliana Porter on “Fox in the Mirror” (2007), now included in the collection at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Kathleen currently teaches courses on pop culture, gender, and creativity at The New School, and is researching a new book, Positively Viral! about social networks and social change.

Leslie Taylor graduated from Cornell University in 1979 with a BS in Animal Science and the goal of becoming a veterinarian. She now works for the Queens Public Library, where she coordinates the after-school program BOOST. She manages a staff of 40, negotiates contracts, partners with outside agencies—all with the goal of enriching the lives of youth. It’s her job to make sure that these youth are filled with the beauty of knowledge and that they have fun, too! Leslie’s daugher, Lauren, was a Girls Write Now mentee for three years, and Leslie is now excited by this opportunity to serve on the Advisory Board.

Moira Taylor is a teaching artist—currently working with teachers in the Adult Literacy Program of the City University of New York Adult Literacy Programs. Writing and editing have been a part of her life from a very young age. She does her own non-fiction writing in her free time. She is thrilled to be working with Girls Write Now for her third year, this year focusing on college preparation.

Michele Thomas is a curriculum editor at the French Culinary Institute. A GWN mentor since 2006, she has a wide range of writing experience, which includes covering health and nutrition as a freelance writer; writing and editing for a national newspaper service; and writing and editing K–12 textbooks and teaching materials for Macmillan/McGraw-Hill, Harcourt School Publishers, Pearson Education, and Houghton Mifflin, among others. She has also authored two science books for middle-school children. Since joining the GWN community, Michele has served on the organization’s Board of Directors and its Program Advisory Committee. The Brooklyn native, knitting nut, and avid foodie can usually cook or knit her way out of trouble and enjoys sharing her crafty ways whenever possible. Michele lives in Brooklyn with her cat Stitches and several spatulas.

Timothy Travaglini is senior editor for G. P. Putnam's Sons, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group.  He has worked as a bookseller for Books of Wonder, the all-children's bookstore in Manhattan; in trade marketing for Scholastic; and since 1996 as an editor, with Henry Holt, Walker, and now Putnam.  He is the editor of Goodnight, Goon and The Runaway Mummy by Michael Rex; the Monster Blood Tattoo trilogy by D. M. Cornish; Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith; the Dreamdark series by Laini Taylor; many of the novels of Janette Rallison; and Earth Mother by Ellen Jackson, illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon. Of all the books he has acquired, however, he is most honored to have edited both All Made Up: A Girl's Guide to Seeing Through Celebrity Hype to Celebrate Real Beauty by Audrey D. Brashich; and Uncle Bobby's Wedding by Sarah S. Brannen.

Christina Wang is the Director of Education and the Director of Consulting Services & Special Projects for The French Culinary Institute (The FCI) and The Italian Culinary Academy (The ICA), both of which reside in New York City’s International Culinary Center. In her dual roles, she is responsible for faculty training, curriculum development, new program development, consulting projects, as well as overseeing the delivery of a consistent educational standard throughout the school. Prior to joining the FCI in 2005 as an instructor in the Bread program, Christina worked in both the investment banking and management consulting industries for more than 8 years. While at JP Morgan, she helped domestic and international corporations realize financial goals through targeted research and capital markets transactions. At Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. (Booz & Co), she worked with senior management teams on a broad spectrum of projects such as defining strategic objectives and implementing organizational changes. Her clients included some of the larger private and public companies in the US, as well as various federal government agencies. Christina holds a Master’s degree from Harvard University, where she studied public policy. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Relations and Economics from Wellesley College, and is also a graduate of The French Culinary Institute.

Renée Watson is the author of a middle grade novel, What Momma Left Me, (Bloomsbury, Spring 2010), and a children’s picture book, A Place Where Hurricanes Happen, (Random House, June 2010). Her one-woman show, Roses are Red, Women are Blue, debuted at Lincoln Center at a showcase for emerging artists. Her poetry and articles have been published in Rethinking Schools, Theatre of the Mind and With Hearts Ablaze. Renée is a teaching artist in NYC public schools, teaching theater and creative writing to middle and high school students. She has also taught poetry workshops in New Orleans with children coping with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Renée’s involvement with Girls Write Now began in 2006, when she volunteered as an intern and began leading a session at Mentor Training. Soon after, she began assisting the development department by writing grants for the organization. Renée graduated from The New School, where she studied creative writing and earned a certificate in Drama Therapy.

Kamy Wicoff is the founder and CEO of She Writes, a social networking site for women writers dedicated to offering the services, support, and expertise modern authors need. She is the co-founder, with Nancy K. Miller, of the New York Salon of Women Writers, and the best-selling author of I Do But I Don’t: Why The Way We Marry Matters (Da Capo Press, March 2007). She serves on the Advisory Council of Stanford University’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research, and was the first fiction/nonfiction editor of Women’s Studies Quarterly. Her work has appeared in Salon.com, and has been anthologized in Why I’m Still Married: Women Write Their Hearts Out on Love, Loss, Sex and Who Does the Dishes (Hudson Press, February 2006), and About Face: Women Write About What They See When They Look In The Mirror (Seal Press, June 2008). She has appeared on NPR, CBS Sunday Morning, and in The New York Times. Kamy lives in New York with her sons, Max and Jed.

Tiffany Winbush currently serves as a Senior Account Executive with Bridge Global Strategies, a NYC based public relations firm representing international clients within the U.S. market. Tiffany has also worked with non-profit organizations, educational institutions, and major media companies. A strong advocate of women and girls, Tiffany is the creator of Women Making Moves, a blog dedicated to highlighting the outstanding accomplishments of women. Her writings have also appeared on the online magazine Guts, Glam & Grace and FeministReview.com. Tiffany attended Louisiana State University, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communications with a concentration in Public Relations. In addition to Tiffany’s professional interests, she is active in a number of community organizations including Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., a community serve-based organization founded in 1913, and serves as a board member for Manhattan’s Community Board #1. Tiffany also mentors high-school girls in the Harlem community and is a member of the Public Relations Society of NY’s New Professionals committee.

Cindy Yang is an associate in the Intellectual Property Division of Dickstein Shapiro LLP. Her practice focuses on patent, trademark, and copyright litigation; U.S. and foreign patent prosecution; patent interferences and oppositions; intellectual property licensing; due diligence investigations; and client counseling regarding the procurement and enforcement of intellectual property rights worldwide. Her litigation and counseling experience has involved a variety of products and technologies, including light-emitting diode modular video panels, stem cell therapies, radio frequency identification systems for pets, pharmaceuticals, teleconferencing systems, cancer vaccines, and plaid fabric designs. Cindy has had the distinct pleasure of assisting Girls Write Now with its intellectual property endeavors, and looks forward to further assisting the organization as a member of its distinguished Advisory Board.