Staff

Teaching Artists

Carrie Leilam Love is a writer and teacher from Oakland. She has an MFA in fiction from San Francisco State University and has been published by Drunk N Sailor Press and Intersection for the Arts. She writes about fashion and society at the Ironing Board Collective. Carrie rides a magenta bike most places she goes, and plays roller derby with the B.ay A.rea D.erby Girls when she is not too busy curating her soon-to-be-renowned ’80s boot collection.

Rick D’Elia is a poet and teacher. He was raised in Massachusetts and now lives in San Francisco. He received an MFA in creative writing from San Francisco State University and was the co-founder and co-curator of the Living Room Reading Series. His work has most recently appeared in We Still Like, The Chiron Review, and Switchback.

Roseli Ilano has eight years of community organizing and youth development experience with an emphasis on integrating creative writing, storytelling and arts into youth-led social justice campaigns. She has worked with several Bay Area youth development and media organizations including Independent Television Service, The Ella Baker Center For Human Rights, and Asian Pacific Islander Youth Promoting Advocacy and Leadership. She is co-editor of “Walang Hiya,” an anthology of Filipino and Filipino American writers and poets (Carayan Press, 2010).

Anhvu Buchanan is the recipient of the 2010 James Duval Phelan Award for his poetry manuscript “The Disorder Index.” His poems have also appeared or are forthcoming in 580 Split, Cream City Review, La Fovea, The Minnesota Review, Parthenon West Review, The Sand Canyon Review, and word for/ word. He received an MFA in creative writing from San Francisco State University and blogs for the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network.

Minna Dubin is a writer, performer and teacher. She has written and starred in a one-woman show, produced plays written by pregnant and parenting teens, and is the recipient of an artist enrichment grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women. She is working on her first book-length manuscript, a series of essays on the theme of coming of age. In her free time, she enjoys mastering the art of matzah balls, watching movies, and attempting soul-crushingly difficult crossword puzzles.

harold terezón was born in Los Angeles and studied at the University of California, Berkeley and at San Francisco State University. He was awarded the PEN Rosenthal Emerging Voices Fellowship in 2006. His work has appeared in Blue Print Review, Amistad, Borderlands, Puerto del Sol, and Palabra. He most recently taught poetry and the importance of higher education to students in the Salvadoran Corridor. He is working on his first collection of poetry, “13816 Judd St.”

Staff

Melissa Hung, program manager, is a writer, editor and native Texan. Prior to joining WritersCorps, she worked as a journalist, writing stories about people, social issues and criminal justice. In 2002, she co-founded Hyphen, an award-winning magazine about Asian American culture, and led the publication for more than five years as its editor in chief. Melissa is a graduate of Northwestern University’s creative writing and journalism programs.

Judith Tannenbaum, training coordinator, has served on the training staff of WritersCorps since the program’s inception. A keynote speaker on prison arts and education, she has taught in public schools and prisons for 35 years. Her books include “Teeth, Wiggly as Earthquakes: Writing Poetry in the Primary Grades;” “Disguised as A Poem: My Years Teaching Poetry at San Quentin;” and “By Heart: Poetry, Prison, and Two Lives” (New Village Press, April 2010). Read Judith’s blog and learn more about her work and about teaching arts and prison arts at her website or Redroom.

Emeritus Staff

Janet Heller is the founding director of San Francisco WritersCorps and led it for more than 15 years. She has taught English in high school, colleges and community settings in Louisiana and Florida. She is the co-founder of Runaway with Words, a creative writing program for runaway and homeless youth in Florida. Janet graduated with an MA in creative writing from Florida State University and is the recipient of an Arts Administration Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.