Congratulations, Meghan Adler, our 826 Valencia Tutor of the Month for March.
Meghan is one of our regular workshop teachers. Designing her first class in response to the materialistic "Clique" books, Meghan challenged her students to probe deeper into ideas to create autobiographical stories that burst with wit and individuality. Her most recent class, Create Your Own Daring Book for Girls, also originated from a desire to let girls speak for themselves. She works to build a strongly supportive environment for young writers.
Meghan told us that she considers 826 Valencia the ultimate anti-Clique book, where all are accepted and encouraged to revel in the pure enjoyment of writing. Along with regular volunteering here, she has returned to the classroom as a learning specialist, and she continues to write poetry. Just recently, one of her poems was nominated for the 2007 Pushcart Prize.
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In Meghan's first memory of writing, she's sitting beneath a tree. There's room for only one. Because she is a twin, this seems important. It makes the tree (and the writing) hers. For the first time, she feels like an individual. Her second memory is at home; she asks her mother for tracing paper and goes over and over the inked lines from Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree. She found her love of poetry in the concentrated emotion and finite words of a children’s story.
Later, after earning degrees in Elementary Education and in Reading -- and diving into a teaching career -- Meghan decided to focus on poetry. She enrolled at the Writer’s Studio in New York, and it was there where she wrote her first poem, a poem that many drafts later went on to win an Editor’s Choice Award in the 2006 Arthur Ginsberg Poetry Award. A move to San Francisco two years ago and some time off from teaching to concentrate on finishing her poetry manuscript prompted the discovery that she did not, however, like the solitary lifestyle. She missed teaching, and found herself yearning for the sense of community it offered. That's when she came to 826 and began volunteering. She has been a familiar face, ever since.
Congratulations again to Meghan Adler!
