Program Advisory Committee

Our Program Advisory Committee is a committed team of veteran mentors and teaching artists who support the staff and manage the ground-level of operations for Girls Write Now. 

Morgan Baden, Communications Co-Chair, is a senior writer and internal communications manager at Scholastic, where she blogs on Ink Splot 26 and, occasionally, On Our Minds @ Scholastic. She cut her teeth in corporate communications by spending the first six years of her career at Reuters; outside of work, she’s deeply entrenched in several Young Adult fiction projects. Morgan holds a BA in English from The College of New Jersey (2001) and spends any spare time reading, running (or trying to, at least), escaping to the beach where she grew up, following celebrities on Twitter, and watching TV on DVD. This is her third year mentoring with Girls Write Now, and her second year as co-chair of Communications. 

Erin Baer, Talent Co-Chair, is having her first ‘back to school’ September in quite a few years as she begins study toward a Master’s in Social Work at Fordham University. The experience will be exhilarating for her as she finally sees her passion for social justice come into fruition. Formerly, she was professionally a publicist for a non-profit and privately a burgeoning fiction writer. She hopes to continue the latter even as her work takes on a whole new form. Erin has previously written for POZ magazine for the HIV positive community, Real Health magazine, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, among others. Her prolific writing for social change led her to Girls Write Now and largely informed her decision to become a social worker. Erin was inspired by her previous mentee’s talent and grace and can’t wait to meet this year’s mentee—who will doubtlessly be incredible as well. 

Kerri Davidson, Communications Co-Chair, is the assistant manager of course handbook content in the publishing division of Practising Law Institute. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Otterbein College, with a dual major in English/writing and dance/performance. Kerri loves to write poetry and has participated in poetry readings in the city as part of the Westside Poetry Workshop. A portion of her memoir will be published in the anthology Hope Whispers.  She is an active volunteer for New York Cares and is excited to begin her fourth season with Girls Write Now. 

Andrea Juncos, Board Liaison, works to connect the Program Advisory Committee with the Board of Directors as an active member of both groups. Andrea is the Director of Communications at New York Law School, where she serves as chief writer and editor for all publications. Previously, she worked for the New York City Department of Education as the Special Assistant to the Regional Superintendent of Region 2 in the Bronx; and as Associate Editor at Catalyst, a nonprofit research and consulting organization working to advance women in business. She received her B.A. in English Literature and Education from Swarthmore College, not far from her hometown of West Chester, Pennsylvania. Andrea was a mentor with Girls Write Now from 2002 to 2009 and served as Co-Chair of Enrollment on the Program Advisory Committee for the 2008–2009 season.

Anuja Madar, Talent Co-Chair, is one part of the talent team and is here to help ensure all mentor-mentee relationships run smoothly. Her love for writing stems from a childhood obsession with the newspaper editor-twin in the Sweet Valley Twins series, and after a few years of working at local Arizona publications, Anuja headed to the mecca of publishing—New York City. She has spent the last six years in Manhattan, where she received a master’s degree in magazine journalism from New York University and currently works as an editor for Frommer’s travel guides. She also holds a bachelor’s in print journalism from the Walter Cronkite School at Arizona State University. While she does freelance editing, writing, and public relations, her most productive free time is spent plotting different ways to travel around the globe. This is Anuja's third year with Girls Write Now. 

Maureen McNeil, Curriculum Co-Chair, a writer and arts educator, is currently the director of education at the Anne Frank Center USA, where she creates educational and public programs on literacy and tolerance. Prior to this, she was the director of the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute and during this tenure, became involved with a mentoring program at Washington Irving High School. She has also taught writing to elementary and middle-school students in New York City and upstate, and has worked in publishing. It was during her own high school years in Seattle that Maureen began to meet with a writing mentor who helped launch her career. Since then, her fiction and poetry has appeared in Mothering magazine, Home Planet News, the Literary Review, Rhino, the Woodstock Journal, Oxalis, Black Bear Review, and other literary journals. In the spring she published a collection, Red Hook Stories, about the Brooklyn neighborhood in the 1980s, and this fall is reading at venues in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Maureen is at work on a novel and looks forward to her second year with Girls Write Now. 

Maggie Pouncey, Curriculum Co-Chair, develops and coordinates Girls Write Now monthly genre-based workshops. Maggie received her BA and MFA from Columbia University. She has taught writing there, and through the Bard Prison Initiative. Her first novel will be published in May 2010.  This is her third year on the Program Advisory Committee and her second year as the Curriculum Co-Chair. 

Naz Riahi, Enrollment Co-Chair, is the Director of Development and Communications at ArteEast. Originally from Iran, she moved to Seattle at the age of ten and has lived in Brooklyn for the past six years. She holds an MFA in fiction from the New School and is working on a novel. When not writing and reading, she enjoys adventurous-baking, discovering new spices, playing catch with her dog, Thurston, traveling and swimming. This is her third year as a mentor with Girls Write Now.

Maria Teresa Romano, Curriculum Co-Chair, holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the New School and a BA in English from Yale University.  She teaches creative writing at the Fordham University Science and Technology Entry Program and is the Director of the Bronx Writers' Center, where she creates programming that encourages writing and reading in her home borough.  An award-winning author of short stories, Maria is working on a novel.  This is her second year as the Curriculum Co-Chair. 

Erica Silberman, Public Events Co-Chair, is a playwright and essayist. Her work is published in Playscripts, Sunday Salon-zine, and Teachers and Writers. She has written for theAtrainplays (a twenty-four hour theater project) fifteen times. Her plays have been produced or developed at New World Stages, Playwrights Horizon, The Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Metropolitan Playhouse, the Stonington Opera House, and HERE. She directs and develops solo work with actors, and is the co-president of The New York Coalition of Professional Women in the Arts & Media. Erica is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America. Erica was a mentor from 2006-2009. 

Heather Smith, Enrollment Co-Chair, is Managing Editor of Drumhead Magazine, an internationally distributed magazine about drums and drummers. Working in the music industry has given her a unique perspective on the accelerating changes in technology and the delivery of recorded media. Born in Caracas, Venezuela, she finished high school at Tokyo’s American School in Japan. A graduate of Texas A&M University with a B.A. in Anthropology, Heather lived in Mali, West Africa, while doing research on childhood growth and development. This is Heather’s third year with Girls Write Now. 

Nicole Summer, Girls College Bound Chair, works in media relations for an international law firm. After "making" her own magazine when she was eight years old, she knew she wanted to be a writer and went on to study journalism at the University of Illinois. She worked as a general assignment newspaper writer in suburban Chicago but then took a detour to law school in New York. After practicing law for almost four years, she returned to writing and is now focusing on literary nonfiction and personal essays, as well as her new career in public relations. She recently wrote a feature story about female magicians for BUST magazine. Nicole loves to travel, talk politics, play with her dog and eat any kind of cheese. This is her third year with Girls Write Now and her second year as a mentor.

Josleen Wilson, Public Events Co-Chair, started writing as a child and has never stopped. She is author of more than thirty definitive nonfiction books illuminating contemporary issues in American life. Many have set the standard in their field, including such groundbreaking works as Woman: Your Body, Your Health, Surviving Family Life, and Good Health for African Americans. She also has written and produced several award-winning short documentaries, among them Own Your Own Future, a film about HIV+ women in prison. Founding a successful after-school writing program for Harlem RBI, she taught and mentored young girls toward developing more fully realized lives. A former creative director for a major advertising agency (her "second career"), Josleen has been a force in developing talented newcomers in that industry. She continues to write under the banner of her own consulting firm, Sparks Fly Up Creative Solutions. This is Josleen’s second year mentoring with Girls Write Now.