Peter Finch is news director and morning-news anchor at KFOG-FM in San Francisco. He has also worked as a reporter covering three Super Bowls, two national political conventions (one Democrat; one Republican), and was sent to Nicaragua during that country’s civil war. He has a master’s degree in journalism and mass communication from the University of Colorado, and a bachelor’s degree in broadcast communication arts from San Francisco State University. He has taught courses in broadcast journalism at both.

Al Madrigal is a native of San Francisco’s Inner Sunset District. He started doing stand-up in 1997 and hasn’t stopped since. He performs regularly at The SF Punchline, Cobb’s, and The Comedy Underground in Seattle. He also does sketch comedy with the popular San Francisco group “The Fresh Robots.” Al’s awards include being a semi-finalist in the 1999 San Francisco Comedy Competition, a semi-finalist in Comedy Central’s Laugh Riots in 2001, a winner of the esteemed 2000 Brainwash Comedy Competition, and others. For more information about Al, visit his website at www.almadrigal.com.

Tom Molanphy is English Coordinator for the Academy of Art College in San Francisco. His fiction has been published by Colorado College Press, and his memoir on his two years in Belize teaching Mayans, Following Mateo, is available at www.followingmateo.com.

Amie E. Nenninger loves reading, writing, and problem solving, and she puts these skills to use daily as an educational and developmental tutor and 826 volunteer. Amie graduated from the University of Illinois, spent a year volunteering in school with AmeriCorps, and studied Australian literature as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar. She has been at 826 Valencia since the days when Karl was king, and she enjoys training junior detectives and spreading the good work of 826 to far flung states in the nation.

Jessica Partch has been a volunteer at 826 almost since the beginning. She has been a workshop leader, a drop-in tutoring point person, a classroom tutor, an event planner, a grant writer, and a wall painter. Most recently, Jessica has been focusing her work at 826 on the Development Committee, introducing new friends to this incredible organization. Also a fundraiser in her day job, Jessica works for The Trust for Public Land.

Andrew Strickman has been a critic since age 8, when he documented the quality of bathroom facilities during family trips. His feature writing has been seen in Rolling Stone, ReadyMade, Details and Business 2.0 among other publications. More of his arts criticism can be seen on or in RollingStone.com, Salon.com, SOMA, URB and SF Weekly. He sits on the Development Committee at 826 and co-hosts weekend drop-in tutoring for those who can’t get enough during the week.

Jenny Traig has a doctorate from Brandeis, where she studied literature and lady swashbucklers. She is the author of Devil in the Details (Little, Brown & Co.) as well as Judaikitsch and the Crafty Girl series (Chronicle Books).

Vendela Vida is a workshop teacher at 826 Valencia, in addition to being the president of the 826 Valencia Board. She received her MFA in writing from Columbia University, and she is the author of Girls on the Verge (St. Martin’s Press, 1999), And Now You Can Go (Knopf, 2003), and Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name (Ecco, 2007). Vendela also founded the award-winning Believer magazine.

Cynthia Wood is a publishing industry veteran with an M.A. in French and an almost-Ph.D. in French Literature from UC Berkeley. While there she focused on early 20th century autobiography and, more specifically, the self-obsessed work of Michel Leiris. Cynthia’s own work has been published as well as performed—in the literary journal Délire, and by the UCSD Feminist Theatre Ensemble respectively. In her dreams she is a successful writer of urban rants. In a previous life she was a knight in the Land of Gaul wherein she suffered a severe injury to her left hip during a jousting incident. She loves music and meandering road trips to vague destinations.

Matt Yeoman worked professionally as an actor, director, and producer in theaters in Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Indiana, and Texas, before settling in San Francisco. A graduate of the Juilliard School, Matt writes screenplays and works for the last surviving dotcom.

Jon Adams is a freelance illustrator, designer and writer who prefers making stuff to sleeping. He's the creator of Truth Serum – the Eisner-nominated series of graphic novels and a weekly comic which you can read at Citycyclops.com. He's also done work for clients like Wired, McSweeney's and the San Francisco Chronicle. Check out his portfolio at Hisportfolio.com

Norman Patrick Doyle grew up in Dublin, Ireland where his family includes an Oscar winner and numerous nuns. His career as a child actor on national radio ended when his voice broke, but not before he finished sixteen weeks as Jim Hawkins in the serialization of Treasure Island (yar). Following a couple of years with the BBC in London, he entered a witless protection program in Silicon Valley from which he recently graduated. Norman has become totally addicted to tutoring with 826, especially with the in-schools programs. He has been lost in more San Francisco high schools than many people have had hot dinners.

Stephen Elliott is the author of six books including Happy Baby, a finalist for the New York Public Library's Young Lion Award as well as a best book of 2004 in Salon.com, Newsday, Chicago New City, The Journal News, and the Village Voice. Elliott's writing has been featured in Esquire, The New York Times, GQ, and Best American Non-Required Reading 2005 and 2007. He is also the founder of the Progressive Reading Series, which helps authors raise money and participate on behalf of progressive candidates across the country.

Tracy Clark-Flory is proudly the product of two Berkeley hippies. She grew up in the Bay Area and hasn't yet found reason to leave. She is an assistant editor at Salon.com and writes for the magazine's feminist blog, Broadsheet. Her elusive alter ego co-founded a series of charmingly unhinged websites. In her free time, Tracy attempts to salsa dance, watches ‘80s sitcoms, and arranges reader hate mail on her refrigerator. Her life goals include: Selling her soul to a major book publisher, renting an apartment with more than one room, owning a dish-washing machine, and most importantly, arranging a "Full House" cast reunion.

Lara Fox, a native of Atlanta, Georgia, moved to the Bay Area after ten chilly years in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For many years, she's been putting her anthropology degree to use bringing zest to the world's social studies textbooks. Soon, she'll be stepping back into the shoes of a student to study education policy and leadership and start chasing down a dream of building her own educational non-profit. In her free time, she works with young writers and editorial-board-izes at 826, tutors a student at KIPP Bayview Academy, and does a variety of other volunteer activities. She also enjoys reading, writing, cooking, taking photographs, people-watching, and exploring.

Yosh Han is the creator and perfumer of YOSH olfactory sense, an artisanal fragrance company. Artistic commissions include projects for SF Opera, the Bureau of Urban Secrets and 826LA Time Travel Mart. Her work has been featured in Vanity Fair, Vogue and on CBS MarketWatch. Prior to starting her own business, she was the original Purveyor of Pirate Supplies and Events Producer at 826 Valencia. Production & fundraising events included the wildly successful 1st Annual Thumbwrestling Tournament, 1st Annual Icelandic Film Festival and Beard Trimmings. She loves island living: coconuts, snorkeling, reading on the beach & pirates.

June Jackson is from the east coast and first visited San Francisco during the Summer of Love in 1968. She slowly worked her way back to the west, via New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, Montana and Chicago and finally moved to the Inner Sunset in 2002. She was one of the first 826 volunteers and now sits on the Development Committee and actually enjoys fundraising for 826 Valencia. She has four children and four grandchildren and works as a hospice social worker in Marin County and also as a massage therapist. Her favorite jobs at 826 are helping high school seniors with their college essays and being able to express her angry alter ego as Mrs. Blue, the mean editor who lives in the attic. Her secret ambition is to be a roadie for a rock band.

Tom Kealey is the author of the MFA Creative Writing Handbook and the co-editor of the Stanford Graphic Novel Project. He teaches creative writing at Stanford University, Google, and of course 826 Valencia!

Anna Angéle Star Ura is an artist living in San Francisco. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1998. She has exhibited work in galleries in Chicago; Philadelphia; Los Angeles; San Francisco; Telluride, Colorado; Florence, Italy; and Ljubliana, Slovenia. After four years as the Director of Events and Retail at 826 Valencia, she has gone on to pursue her career as an artist and the art of becoming a mommy. Her work can be viewed at: www.annaura.com

Brad Stone joined the New York Times as a Technology Correspondent in December 2006. He covers Internet trends from the newspaper’s San Francisco bureau. From 1998 to November 2006, Stone served as the Silicon Valley Correspondent for Newsweek, writing for the technology and business sections of the magazine and authoring a regular column, “Plain Text,” on our evolving digital lifestyles. He joined the Newsweek writing staff in 1996 as a general assignment reporter and covered a wide range of subjects. He wrote about Mark McGwire's home run chase during the summer of 1998, the jury deliberations in the Timothy McVeigh trial, and profiled authors such as Kurt Vonnegut. He is also a frequent contributor to Wired magazine, and has written for More magazine and the Sunday Telegraph in London. In March of 2003, Simon & Schuster published his book, Gearheads: The Turbulent Rise of Robotic Sports, on the world of robot contests and hobbyists. Brad graduated from Columbia University in 1993 and is originally from Cleveland, Ohio.

Felix Chow met the 826 Valencia gang in 2005 and has been connected to Jory's ethereal hip ever since then. The kids have been wonderful, charming, and make him laugh each time he visits. Some of them have grown taller than him already! Currently, he is finishing up a master's degree in Adult Education, looking to establish an adult learning center in the city very soon, possibly rivaling the 826 pirates. 826 Valencia and its people, who help and work on a daily basis, are great inspirations and have been a spectacular community presence in San Francisco. When not at work, he is an email or telephone call away from volunteering gigs other than drop-in tutoring. Through another non-profit called Refugee Transitions, he also does volunteer ESL lessons for a group of senior citizens in Chinatown. Some of his hobbies include putting on his foodie mask and bib, bicycling, photography, and stop motion animation. Felix admits it has been great to be a part of 826 Valencia, networking and making the acquaintance of many creators of famously mischievous and intra-witty prose and graphic novels based on 826 Valencia monkey business.

Cristina Giner grew up in a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts. After college and law school on the East Coast, she made her way to the Bay Area. She has worked for 14 years as a tax lawyer. She also enjoys working with children and tries to make a positive difference in their lives.

Ellen Goodenow is a writer/editor living in San Francisco. She has authored numerous educational books for children and articles for adults related to science, cultural history, and nutrition. She holds an M.F.A. in nonfiction from Emerson College and begins training this fall as a holistic nutritionist. Ellen's favorite experiences as an 826 volunteer have included participating on the editorial board of Exactly (the anthology of stories by kids for kids), helping to copyedit the 826 Quarterly, and farming faux facial hair as part of 826's first annual Mustache-a-Thon.

Paul Madonna’s strip, “All Over Coffee,” appears weekly in the San Francisco Chronicle and on SFGate.com. Paul’s drawings and prints are shown several times a year in museums, galleries, restaurants, and cafés, and the first collection of “All Over Coffee” was published in 2007 by City Lights Books. Also in 2007, Paul did a fabulously shaky rendition of 826's storefront, including Chris Ware's mural, for a commemorative limited edition print celebrating 826's 5th year anniversary. Paul's other work can be found on his website, paulmadonna.com, and in various publications including The Believer, Zyzzyva, and the recent book, A Writer’s San Francisco, by author Eric Maisel. In 1994, Paul received a B.F.A. from Carnegie Mellon University, and that same year he was the first (ever!) Art Intern at MAD Magazine, for which he proudly received no money. In fall 2008 he will have an illustrated novella published by the Book Club of California and will also be teaching at the University of San Francisco.

Nicole Pfaff grew up in a wee suburb of Portland, Oregon, which she affectionately calls "Vantucky." She wandered down to San Francisco a few years ago to pursue a teaching credential and master's degree from the University of San Francisco, and is terribly excited about becoming a full time high school English teacher in the fall. On the third day of her living in San Francisco, she marched into the Pirate Store and applied to become a volunteer, starting out as a Pirate Store ambassador and eventually working in the store, as well as volunteering in the after school tutoring program. She is currently writing her master's thesis on the efficacy of the tutoring services of 826 Valencia. You will be her best friend forever if you agree to travel to Serbia and/or Croatia to witness a gypsy music festival with her next summer.

Abigail Jacobs is a Bay Area native and has been co-teaching the "College Essay Writing" and "Writing About Art" workshops at 826 Valencia since the center opened in 2002. In addition, she is on the Development Committee and the Grant Writing Committee, and can also be found at 826 on Sundays during the school year when she is the point-person for drop-in tutoring. During the day, Abigail is a Director of Public Relations for Williams-Sonoma, Inc. In her free time she enjoys traveling, reading, and writing with her writing group. She holds a B.A. in Political Science and Art from Colgate University. Her favorite food is the burrito.

Abner Morales is a half-decade Bay Area resident currently living in Oakland. He was born in Antigua, Guatemala and grew up in Los Angeles, California and Portland, Oregon. He graduated from Portland State University with an English B.A., and is an off-and-on semi-part-time Spanish/English interpreter student/volunteer. He likes running in the local hills when the moon is out. On one occasion he almost got run over by a deer whilst jogging—which wasn’t as scary as the time a wild turkey jumped out at almost the same spot. Or when he thought he saw a coyote. But it wasn’t one, because there are no coyotes around here, right? Only mountain lions…When not volunteering or running, he works at Robert Half International, researching, producing financial reports, and supporting offices in Europe and Asia.

Risa Nye is a Bay Area native. She received her degree from UC Berkeley so long ago she forgets what it was in. Risa has a Master's degree in counseling, which she managed to get while raising two small children and producing a third. She is the proud co-editor of Writin' on Empty: Parents Reveal the Upside, Downside, and Everything in Between When Children Leave the Nest, which, for one brief shining week, made the San Francisco Chronicle’s Bay Area Best Sellers list. After fifteen years as a college counselor in both public and private high schools, she is off to chase her dream. Who knew she would find it at Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, where she will begin an MFA program in creative writing in September of 2009. Her granddaughter, Madeleine, is the best grandchild ever.

Todd Pound has directed, animated, written, and designed a variety of storytelling experiments, including collaborations with cartoonist Garry Trudeau and painter Mark Ryden. Right this very second, he is making a superhero video game. Every weekend he tries to write and doodle… but his son prefers that his dad chase him around the park instead.

Jon Wynacht is a web developer for Lucasfilm but secretly hopes to one day teach English and Computer Science to unruly high school students.

Burt Meyer is an over 30 and more volunteer in the after-school and summer programs. A retired attorney, he also spends time volunteering in archeology and researching Adolph Sutro as well as farming in an Inner Sunset backyard.

Erin Geld loves to move. She grew up in Brazil, went to college in Upstate New York and moved out to California last year, making her the very first Geld to ever set foot in the state. She ended up interning at 826 Valencia, to find out whether she liked teaching or editing more. Teaching won out, and now she's going to be a Teaching Associate at San Francisco Day School. 826 Valencia impressed and inspired her to such an extent she now has dreams of developing something similar back home in Sao Paulo one day.

Michelle Ryan grew up in New Jersey and currently lives in San Francisco. Michelle received her MFA in poetry from Emerson College in Boston and has published poems in Busenhalter, Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, Mad Poets Review, Spillway, Angelflesh Press, Phoenix Press, and two volumes of the Beacon Street Review. Michelle is an avid supporter of the literary arts in San Francisco; she volunteers at Intersection for the Arts and loves teaching poetry workshops at 826 Valencia.

Mark Follman grew up in St. Louis and has lived in San Francisco since 1994. He has an MFA in writing from the University of San Francisco and is a writer and editor for the online magazine Salon. His writing has also appeared in other publications including Rolling Stone, Arrive, Der Spiegel and the Toronto Star. In 2005, Mark helped launch the Bay-farer, 826 Valencia's student newspaper, and has enjoyed participating in that workshop ever since.

Katherine Kugay interned at 826 Valencia in the summer of 2007 and thus discovered the wonders of grant writing and winning battles of wit with File Maker Pro. She is a major of psychology at Mills College and likes research concerning language, perception, and health. In her spare time she enjoys pretending she's an expert on film, writes music, embarks on daring baking projects, and helps old ladies cross the street. From time to time she pops into the pirate store for a copy of the latest Believer and to help a high school student write his or her magnum opus. One day after Katherine has earned her four PhDs, she hopes to teach adolescents in whatever life has taught her. She would also like to write the next next great American novel.

Kathryn Olney's favorite job, besides writing, teaching, and raising her kids, was the year she taught Alex, the famous African Grey parrot, to "talk". Trained as an anthropologist, Kathryn considers journalism “drive-by anthropology." She has worked for Mother Jones, Health, Wired and San Francisco Magazine and a number of web sites. Her work has also appeared in More, Newsweek, Salon, Fodor’s, Image, Book, The San Francisco Chronicle and elsewhere. In addition to running workshops and tutoring at 826 Valencia, she has taught journalism at San Francisco State, UC Berkeley extension, and The Urban School of San Francisco. Other than wishing she had continued to educate Alex, her only other regret is that she never wrote for Spy during its early funny years. While she is still surrounded by birds, plants and children, when she misses Alex she likes to watch him, late at night, while eating coffee ice cream, on YouTube. Someday, perhaps, she’ll be watching her beloved hominid students on YouTube as well.

Isaac Fitzgerald has volunteered at 826 Valencia since stumbling in its doors by mistake in 2006. He loves playing Mr. Blue, but admits, without regret, that Dan Weiss does the crabby editor much more justice. Isaac has also been a firefighter, worked on a boat, and been given a sword by a king; thereby accomplishing three out of five of his childhood goals by the age of 25. He has written for Mother Jones Magazine, McSweeneys, and AlterNet. He lives in San Francisco.

Leslie Outhier has been privileged to volunteer with 826 in various ways. She is most proud of organizing the bookshelves and trading in bulky donated romance novels and text books for volumes of Harry Potter and for establishing the compost worm farm on the back patio. She wishes she could come more often but last year she moved to Oakland to be an urban farmer.

Susie Kramer writes fiction. Her stories have appeared in The Greensboro Review, New American Writing, and Inkwell. The novel she’s working on takes place in Buenos Aires, Vienna, Chicago, and California, which are all places where her grandmother lived (hint hint). In the past she has won fellowships to go off and write in the Berkshires, in Russia, and in Oysterville, Washington. She’s been a creative writing teacher, a copy editor, a tester of recipes, a picker-upper of dry cleaning, and a food writer for the Oakland Tribune. These days, when Susie is not writing, she’s usually baking. She is a native San Franciscan, now living in Twin Peaks with her husband and their whippet. She has lost count of how many times she’s been fired by Mr. Blue.

Charlotte Petersen taught herself to knit when she was seven and picked up a North Carolina drawl at twenty-three. As an Army brat she’s lived in three countries, ten states, twenty boroughs, and in 1999 finally settled in the Mission. A generalist at heart, she has worked as a racquetball instructor, Washington lobbyist, magazine Editor-in-Chief, and long-haul truck driver. Charlotte wandered into 826’s Pirate Store in 2003, then helped construct the Writer’s Room and the Straight-Up News at Everett Middle School. She relishes filling new volunteers’ heads with way too much information and toiling over third grade math homework.

Karen Wagstaffe is a big fan of 826 Valencia and of all the amazing people who work and volunteer there. Karen is a stay-at-home mom of Michael, Emily, Matthew, and Megan and has a faint recollection of having been a lawyer a couple of decades ago. Karen comes in Mondays to help Leigh and Lauren and other folks in the back office with just about anything. She is probably most famous around 826 for being the mother of Megan Wagstaffe, a Monday after-school tutor extraordinaire. Megan, the youngest, leaves for college this fall. It's going to be quite a change, but Karen is pretty sure that she will be in agreement with Nora Ephron that "the empty nest is underrated."

Mark de la Viña was a part of the tutoring corps that helped create the award-winning Straight-Up News at Everett Middle School in 2003. Mark is an arts, entertainment and style reporter for the San Jose Mercury News. His articles, which have appeared in such publications as the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and Latina, have inspired the names of at least two punk rock groups. Mark graduated from the University of Arizona and attended the University of Madrid. He firmly believes that rice in burritos is a sin against nature.

Chad Lent is a 5-year veteran at 826 Valencia, who was hooked the very first day by Mr Blue and his storytelling ways, during a visit to the Pirate Store. When Chad's not wrangling words with the elementary students each week at the writing center, he's acting as a client champion at In Ticketing, supporting various events like Burning Man, Harmony Festival, High Sierra Music Fest, and any other great music and art happening in the Bay Area and beyond. Chad has absolutely no formal teacher training, classroom instruction, or even parenting experience, yet manages to get by with his engineering degree and dot-com ingenuity amongst the highly-qualified literary and educational disciples at 826 Valencia.

Stan Heller has been many things in his life. He was a theatrical director, a photographer, a journalist, a fry cook, a movie usher, a systems administrator and a technical consultant. He is fascinated with the way language is changing in the 21st century, especially the effect the internet is having on how we communicate and tell stories. Digital literacy is his passion, and teaching the Webtales workshops at 826 Valencia is one of the great joys in his life. His long term goal is to enable a generation of digital storytellers whose work becomes progressively more complex and compelling as the workshops mature. He also teaches workshops at the San Francisco Center for the Book and believes that in a digital age, the kinesthetic pleasure of a physical book cannot be replaced. If this is a paradox, so is life.

Dan Brownstein teaches visual and critical studies at the California College of Art as a day job, but started to tutor and coach the writers of Bay-farer in 2007. He's proud of all the articles that he worked on over four or five issues, and the workshops he's given on oral history. He received a PhD in European History at UC Berkeley sometime in the
last millenium, and has taught history down South at UCLA.

Meghan Adler loves teaching writing, especially poetry, to the young and talented writers at 826 Valencia. To quote one of her previous students, poetry is a kind of "mental weather" — allowing one to describe life's ups and downs and trials and triumphs. When not teaching workshops at 826 Valencia, Meghan spends some of her free time practicing (beginner) piano, with the hope of mastering Star Wars and playing it by heart in the near future. Other free moments are spent writing poetry. You may read her published poems at meghanadler.com. While a supporter of the organic food movement, Meghan also strongly believes that Sunkist soda on the rocks should be imbibed at least once a month.

Nancy Webster Ware was a middle school English teacher for thirty years before retiring in 2007. When asked if she missed teaching she replied, "No — not at all, but I miss my students." So volunteering at 826 has been the perfect antidote to having it all. She is loving retirement, and needs the flexibility to keep up with her sons and grandsons who are spread around the world from Connecticut to Brasil to Germany. She has a passion for music, poetry, writing and all things technological — especially iMovies and web pages! Nancy considers every day to be a new adventure and looks forward to seeing what unfolds.

Scott Lambridis was born and raised in New York, and earned a degree in neurobiology from the University of Virginia – which he promptly abandoned for a creative career. Before moving to San Francisco he spent his evenings crafting stories into music, artwork, and macabre multimedia books as founder of Omnibucket.com. Now, he designs digital media by day while focusing on fiction at night (and hosting creative writing workshops at 826 Valencia).

Lucas M. Peters has been one of the many tutors at 826 since some of the children he tutors weren't even old enough to be tutored because they were still spitting up Cheerios. Not to say that the occasional Cheerio-spitting-upping never occurs, just that it's a rarity. Was that enough information? No? Should I keep going? He has some degrees in English, is originally from Seattle and his favorite bug is that stick-looking bug. How cool would it be to go around looking like a tree branch, he asks? Cool. Really cool. Like these kids over here at 826. Just ask them.

Erin Archuleta is a classroom teacher turned 826 volunteer who co-owns ICHI Catering, a sushi company in San Francisco. Erin also writes a little column called “The Hardhat” about restaurant construction for Tablehopper.com. She spent some of the most fun years of her classroom career as the Educational Programs Director at 826 and is proud to say that she has done everything from swabbing the deck, to fixing the pencil sharpener, to honing writing skills in the Everett Writers’ Room.

Eamon Doyle is a writer and amateur musician born, raised, and currently residing in San Francisco. He works at Book Passage in the Ferry Building, and in his spare time tutors at 826 Valencia, performs in the eclectic pop duo Free Soda, and toils away on his masterpiece. His favorite things include fog, potatoes, and verbal dexterity.

Brian Stannard works at Project Open Hand when not helping out with 826 Valencia's after-school tutoring program. He's also a freelance artist who has paintings up on permanent display at the Mission District watering hole, Bender's, located on the corner of 19th St. and South Van Ness. His paintings have also been seen at Back to the Picture art gallery and frame shop.

Ryan Moore was raised by wolves without monogrammed silver in a small suburb east of Los Angeles. After a seven-year journey spent “finding himself”, Ryan realized that he wanted to spend his life writing existential plays about fascist unicorns. With said goal in sight, he will apparently graduate with a degree in creative writing very soon. As a Pirate Store Ambassador, Ryan enjoys bartering with children and being around things made of teak. He also enjoys hockey, shirking and not being late. Ryan met his wife Nicki at 826 Valencia and hopes to one day trade her in for a yacht. Ryan has been published in and edited several highly esoteric independent magazines that no one has ever read.

Lee Henderson was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, and studied English at the University of Georgia in Athens. He moved to San Francisco in January 2007 for the people, the politics, and the weather, but most importantly, for love. He is a singer/ songwriter who has just finished his first album, Woolgathering..., with his project, The Meadow Party. He and his wife, Sarah, are expecting their first child in mid- November 2009, and he’s sure it’s going to be a girl. 826 Valencia is very, very important to him.

Beth Wilson was born and raised in Massachusetts, south of Boston. She grew up loving the beach and thunderstorms. Encouraged by her mother and father who were both teachers, her love for art and writing blossomed and grew. In 2001, Beth moved to attend The Art Institute of Boston, where she earned a BFA with a focus on illustration techniques, using watercolor as her main medium. After journeying to San Francisco in 2006, she found 826 Valencia and began working in the Pirate Supply store part-time. She currently volunteers for field trips and teaches A Gorey Story workshop at 826. Beth also freelance illustrates and is working on a series of environmental books for children. You can see her website, Bethjwilson.com, for her art.

Kate Bueler is an urban educator with a broad background in education, ranging from the classroom to policy. She loves chocolate and social mobility, and welcomes all Ferris jokes. Bueler holds a BA in Politics from University of San Francisco, and a MA in Sociology and Education, Policy Emphasis from Columbia University, Teachers College. A chapter based on her master thesis will be published in Our Promise, Achieving Educational Equality for America's Children. After a seven-year tour of the east coast, she is glad to be back home in the Bay Area. Most importantly, after working in policy and research she is happy to reconnect with her passion of working with students. By assisting students in their writing, she helps support their self-esteem and well being, ultimately encouraging them to pursue their dreams. Plus, she loves the crazy things kids say and their unedited perspective on the world.

Joel Brown is a freelance writer, food blogger, and haphazard home cook. When he is not trying out new recipes in his tiny kitchen, Joel is either shopping for fresh, delicious veggies, or discovering wonderful new places to dine. Joel also just grew his own rooftop garden, and even occasionally finds time to write about it all on his blog, Six by 10 Tiny Kitchen. (Joel writes about other things, too. It just happens that food is his favorite subject.) Sometimes, he actually makes it to work where he writes web and marketing copy. Joel loves having the chance to work with the students at 826 Valencia and helping them put together their brilliant and imaginative writing projects.

Van Nguyen While Van might not like writing about himself so much, he loves writing and talking about 826. No wait! It’s much more simple then that: he simply loves 826! He loves the fantastic staff, the wonderful students, and even loves how hot it gets in the summer because it brings back such fantastic memories. Thus upon finding out about S.A.V.E. and 826’s plight, Van took to the streets (streets meaning: Facebook , email, and the Internet) and tried his best to support the cause!

Miranda TsangMiranda Tsang, Programs Assistant, is a BAYAC AmeriCorps member and a San Francisco native, who earned her BA in English and Sociology/Anthropology with a focus in creative writing at Middlebury College. While there, Miranda involved herself in the literary magazine, organized a battle of the bands, attended the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, interned at a marketing company in Madrid, and archived oral histories for the Vermont Folklife Center. In 2008, Miranda interned at 826 Valencia with the ELL Summer Series, and she loved it so much, she came back.