WriteGirl Teaching Artists
We're excited to introduce our team of Teaching Artists for WriteGirl and Bold Ink Writers. (We use the name Bold Ink Writers for boys and co-ed programs). Our Teaching Artists are all accomplished writers with a passion for inspiring young people to discover their confidence and creativity. They lead workshops both online and in-person at community centers, schools, parks and libraries in partnership with a variety of organizations. Our partner programs allow us to work with young people across the Los Angeles region, throughout the U.S. and even internationally.
To inquire about bringing workshops to your school or community, please reach out to us at office@writegirl.org or 213-253-2655.
Sofía Aguilar is a Chicana writer and editor based on the traditional homelands of the Tongva and Chumash peoples, now known as Los Angeles, California. Her work has appeared in the L.A. Times, Refinery29 Somos, and New Orleans Review, among other publications. As an alum of WriteGirl and a first-generation college graduate, Sofía earned a BA from Sarah Lawrence College, where she received the Andrea Klein Willison Prize for Poetry and the Spencer Barnett Memorial Prize for Excellence in Latin American and Latinx Studies. Currently pursuing an M.S. in Library and Information Science at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies, she is at work on her third poetry chapbook and her first novel.
Meredith Seung Mee Buse is an author, educator and Korean American transracial adoptee. Her writing has appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer and on Diversebookfinder.org. A veteran teacher of 18 years, she has studied race, identity and representation with scholars across the country and hosted a book launch event with award-winning author Andrea Wang. Meredith has been featured in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Magazine for her work as an educator. In addition to reading, writing and teaching, she loves yoga, cuddling with her cats and hanging out with her family.
DeAnna Lynette Carpenter is a singer-songwriter, published author and creator of She Who Builds - a platform and community dedicated to providing women with the resources to go confidently in the direction of their dreams and build the life they imagine. Through individual and group coaching, domestic and international retreat facilitation, sound baths and healings, mindfulness and more, DeAnna is weaving a web that supports soul remembrance and expression. She brings creativity, appreciation for beauty and innocence, her love of people and the land, authenticity, grounding, compassion, perspective, curiosity, enthusiasm, ceremony and wisdom to every space she encounters. DeAnna is the author of two books: Lessons from the Fall and In My Solitude. In 2018, she released her first album, Tsunami. DeAnna is a certified Kundalini Yoga teacher and is currently working on her second musical offering, Come Inside. She has been a WriteGirl volunteer since 2013.
“I love teaching because I get to help others become aware of, step into, and embrace more of their potential. Teaching allows me the honor of witnessing teens discover more of their unique gifts and talents. And I always walk away from a session feeling I've grown and discovered more about myself in the process as well.”
Shandela Contreras is a Los Angeles-based poet, artivist, writer, educator and WriteGirl alum. She’s the author of Cricket in the Slit of a Tummy (Bottlecap Press, 2025), Every Beautiful Pen Bleeds Through (2024) and Mellow Ballads, that move your bones (2021), and served as a California & Los Angeles Youth Poet Laureate Ambassador. Her work has been featured at events with the GRAMMY-winning LA Master Chorale at Walt Disney Concert Hall, the 2022 Brotherhood Crusade Gala honoring the LA Dodgers’ Mookie Betts, Lincoln Center’s Anthem to Us Project, and many more events. Her writing and poems have been featured in PopMatters, NPR Morning Edition, and Taylor & Francis Co. publications. Shandela was selected as one of eight people to represent the City of Los Angeles in Paris for the 2024 Cultural Olympic Games. She is a firm believer that the voices of the past shape those of the future. You can find her on social media @shandelaa and https://shandela-contreras.weebly.com/.
Zeltzin Estrada-Rodriguez has loved writing ever since she first learned how to do it. She began writing stories and poems at the age of six and had big dreams of becoming an author one day. As she got older, though, she began believing less and less in this dream as she did not think that she fit the mold of what a “writer” was. It wasn’t until many years later when she dedicated herself more to her studies in college, found out about the many different kinds of writers there are out there, and built up her self-esteem that she was able to begin believing in her writing dreams again. Zeltzin has now gone on to publish poetry, academic research papers, literary analysis essays, and journalism articles—and she plans to publish much more. She is currently pursuing her Master’s Degree in Chicanx Studies and plans to become a teacher who encourages all of her students to believe that they can do a lot of things that they may not think they can.
Ashley Griggs (she/her) is a screenwriter and higher education professional from Herndon, VA. She earned her BA in Film Studies and French at the College of William & Mary and later received an MFA in Dramatic Writing from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University where she was awarded a Future Screenwriters Fellowship. Ashley co-created and taught Embracing the Multidisciplinary Writer: Lessons Across Genre & Form, a workshop centered on exploring different types of writing to spark inspiration. In addition to teaching, Ashley has planned a wide range of writing and entertainment workshops professionally, moderated creative industry discussions, served as a reader for the Austin Film Festival, and has worked for a variety of production companies in film, television, and theater development and production. Ashley has also written for the narrative podcast The Host, and directed plays in New York City and Los Angeles. She is currently a WriteGirl mentor and lives in Los Angeles.
“Working with teens as they express their thoughts, feelings, memories, and creative ideas has brought so much joy and inspiration to my own life. I love helping them explore and embrace their unique voices.”
Kynnedi Hoyer is a writer and WriteGirl mentor born and raised in Los Angeles, California. Though she had always enjoyed writing, it wasn’t until her senior year of high school–when she enrolled in a creative writing class–that her passion was reignited. Inspired by a teacher who truly believed in her, she realized she wanted to pursue writing as a career. She attended California State University East Bay as a first-generation student and graduated with the distinction of Summa Cum Laude. She now holds a B.A. in English, Creative Writing, and is passionate about creating stories that reflect the diversity present in the spaces she occupies. Her work has been published in the literary magazine Occam’s Razor, and she has performed her poetry across various stages in Hayward, CA; Seattle, WA; Las Vegas, NV; and more. When she is not writing, she is teaching. She currently works as a substitute teacher and thoroughly enjoys the opportunity to use her skills to support the development of the next generation. It has been her experience that one good teacher can change the trajectory of your life.
Christina Igaraividez is a writer, performer, producer and storytelling coach. Whether it’s through an ensemble production or a digital short, she is constantly working on how to get people to laugh (and sometimes cry). She has trained in comedy across Chicago, New York and Los Angeles at places like Second City, iO and UCB. Her YouTube channel has received notoriety from outlets such as HuffPo, Perez Hilton, LA Weekly and Upworthy, and was a finalist for the Sundance YouTube New Voices Lab. Christina has a strong passion for storytelling and has performed across various stages in L.A., has taught storytelling at The Ruby, Second City, corporate seminars, conferences and has won multiple StorySlam competitions at the Moth as well as being a Moth Mainstage performer. She is also an ensemble member of Teatro Luna (the country’s first Pan-Latina theater company). With Teatro Luna West (LA chapter), she co-produced an Audible Original audiobook of short stories titled “Talking While Female & Other Dangerous Acts” that features 25 stories from Latinas across the U.S. on the themes of risk and resilience. She is also the co-creator for the social media comedy channel Latinaish TV.
“I love sharing everything I've learned so that other girls can get the head start I never got, and so they can understand how many choices they really have in pursuing writing as a career.”
Vanessa Mancos is a TV and short story writer living in Los Angeles. She has written for television shows such as Good Girls, Schooled and the upcoming Villains of Valley View among others. Her short stories, “Masks Required,” and “Depletion'' were nominated for the 2022 Best of Net, Best American Short Stories and Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Anthologies, respectively. In 2021, she served on the screening committee for NewFilmmakers Los Angeles, scouting for new, diverse voices and stories in independent film. When she is not writing, she enjoys being in nature or hanging out with her fluffy calico cat and gremlin-like pug.
“I love encouraging the workshop participants to express themselves creatively and to see their confidence, with their writing and with themselves, grow with each session.”
Rhonda Nicole (Rhonda Tankerson) is an LA-based singer / songwriter who moonlights as the Director of Social Media for the Atlanta-based Authentique Agency. Originally from Dallas, Texas, Rhonda's first entertainment industry gig after graduating from Southern Methodist University (SMU) was as a Walt Disney Studios Touchstone screenwriting fellow. She began writing original song lyrics at the age of 12, launched her professional singing career as a performer at Universal Studios Japan in 2001, and released her debut EP, Nuda Veritas, in 2010. In March 2020, Rhonda released Radical Ecstasy, a self-produced, soul / dance-centric EP that features two new tunes and two remixes of songs from Nuda Veritas; and at the end of 2020, Home, a collection of love songs inspired by the year's events. For the two years, Rhonda has led social media strategy and engagement for the National Museum of African American Music, which opened in Nashville, Tennessee in 2021, and works on a variety of social and digital marketing projects with her agency partners. Rhonda is a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., the Recording Academy (LA Chapter) and ASCAP.
“I love connecting with these talented, bright, expressive teens as they share their humor and insights through their writing. It’s always a great way to remember being their age and to understand how they move through their world.”
Zoe Ornelas, a Mexican Jewish woman from Los Angeles, has always been a writer. She grew up writing poetry and has since expanded her love of writing in every direction. While studying archeology, Zoe realized her true love was the stories these artifacts tell. She has now found her passion teaching high school English for the last five years. Zoe believes in every person's right to self expression, and is honored to help her students and mentees alike tell their stories.
Janel Pineda (she/her) is a poet and scholar of U.S. Central American literature. Born and raised in Los Angeles within a family of Salvadoran migrants, her writing explores intergenerational narratives, liberated futurities, systemic critique, and the legacies of the U.S.-funded Salvadoran Civil War. Pineda is the author of Lineage of Rain (Haymarket Books, 2021) and her work has appeared in various anthologies including Here to Stay: Poetry and Prose from the Undocumented Diaspora, The Breakbeat Poets Vol.4 LatiNext, and The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the US. Pineda’s work has been recognized with a California Arts Council Emerging Artist Award, a NALAC NFA Artist Grant, a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship, and a Writing Freedom Fellowship. Pineda is currently pursuing a PhD at UCLA, where her research focuses on global Salvadoran diasporas and the liberatory capacities of poetry for Central Americans.
Before devoting her time to writing, Crystal Powell was the VP of Production & Development at Electric City Entertainment and Silverwood Films for producer Lynette Howell (A Star Is Born, Blue Valentine). Crystal developed, co-produced and associate produced several feature films, including Matt Ross’s Captain Fantastic, starring Viggo Mortensen, and Derek Cianfrance’s The Place Beyond The Pines, starring Bradley Cooper, Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes. She was also a production executive on Tim Burton’s Big Eyes, and many of her projects premiered at the Sundance, Cannes and Toronto Film Festivals. Crystal went on to study creative writing as a Lillian Vernon MFA Fellow at New York University. She was a Center for Fiction NYC Emerging Writers Fellow, a Jack Jones Literary Arts Fellow and a fiction finalist for the 2022 Disquiet Prize. She is currently working on her first novel.
“I love sharing what I've learned and learning from others. The teens challenge me, inspire me, move me, make me laugh and it's a privilege to support their growth.”
Darby Price is a Southern writer who lives in Long Beach, CA. Her poems have previously appeared in No Contact, Zócalo Public Square, Beloit Poetry Journal, and PANK, among others, and her nonfiction most recently appeared in Far Villages: Welcome Essays for New & Beginner Poets (Black Lawrence Press, 2020). Darby is a Continuing Lecturer at UC Irvine and has been a WriteGirl volunteer and guest artist since 2008.
“My hope for young people is that they will find a productive, visionary, and consensus-building path forward through all the chaos of our current world. For this, we need poets, screenwriters, essayists, journalists – we need stories now more than ever, and we need writers who can tell them in such a way that they change hearts as well as minds.”
Eva Recinos is an arts and culture journalist and non-fiction writer based in Los Angeles. Her reviews, features, and profiles have been featured in Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, KCET Artbound, Hyperallergic, Refinery29, Art21 and more. Her essays have appeared in ELLE, Gulf Coast, Air/Light, Electric Literature, PANK and more.
“I love teaching because I nerd out on writing and I love connecting with others who do the same. I'm also a fierce advocate for telling your own story.”
Madeleine (Maddie) Silva is a poet and arts educator who lives and works in Los Angeles. Her work has been featured in Lullwater Review, Azahares Literary Magazine, and Altadena Poetry Review. In her spare time, Maddie cooks, wanders cemeteries, and leads writing workshops for system-impacted youth in the greater Los Angeles area.
“I am inspired when I hear the teens share their writing. They possess a guilelessness that I am always working toward as a writer. It is a delight to feel that I had a small part in their writing journey.”
Sophie Webb is a filmmaker, performer and podcaster born in Sydney, Australia. She has directed, written, and produced many short films, music videos and web videos. Her original pilot Same Sex, was selected for the 2017 Independent Filmmaker Projects' Screen Forward Labs in Brooklyn, New York where she was mentored by filmmakers Barry Jenkins, Dee Rees, and The Safdie Brothers. Sophie was a 2019 Slamdance Screenwriting Contest finalist for the feature screenplay, Jungle, and her horror short Ingénue recently won a slew of awards on the festival circuit. She also recently completed a directing attachment on the CBS All Access series No Activity, shadowing director Trent O'Donnell. Her advice podcast Unprofessional Help is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. As a freelance producer, Sophie has created video content for high-profile companies such as Instagram (Meta), Mattel and Double Eye Studios.
“I love teaching because I love empowering the next generation to use their voice.”
Danyella Wilder is a creative writing enthusiast with a formal background in digital news reporting. After studying journalism as an undergraduate student, Danyella furthered her education, earning an M.S. in Magazine and Newspaper Reporting at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. In Chicago, she reported on various issues including religion, sustainability and the impact the 2020 Cares Act had on higher education. In addition, Danyella briefly travelled to Puerto Rico to report on the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Following her move back to California, she freelanced for national news groups including Blavity Inc., and Static Media. Danyella then later worked as a reporter and editor for The Raincross Gazette, before joining WriteGirl in the fall of 2022. Some of her other work is published in Higher Ed and South Side Weekly. Danyella prides herself as a forever mentor, conversationalist and storyteller.