Bestselling Author Maggie Smith Discusses New Writing Book with NCTE
NCTE has recruited New York Times–bestselling author Maggie Smith to discuss her new book Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life. Smith will speak with NCTE about creativity and the craft of writing mere days after the book is published by Washington Square Press.
Smith is an award-winning author whose teaching career spans more than two decades. Her Substack newsletter For Dear Life, “about writing and other things that make this life dear,” has more than 38,000 subscribers. In Dear Writer, Smith provides a practical guide with tools that teachers and writers can apply to their own creative practices, in all genres and all areas of life. Smith breaks down creativity into ten essential elements: attention, wonder, vision, play, surprise, vulnerability, restlessness, tenacity, connection, and hope. Each element is explored through short, inspiring, and craft-focused essays, followed by generative writing prompts.
Members who attend this webinar will learn more about Smith’s ten essential elements of creativity and the craft of writing. Please join us to learn together at this special event! NCTE President Tonya B. Perry will host the interview.
Tuesday, April 8, 7:00 – 8:00 p.m. ET
REGISTER HERE
This event is free for all NCTE members. Not yet a member? Join today!
Please contact profdev@ncte.org with any questions.
FEATURED GUESTS
Maggie Smith is the award-winning, New York Times–bestselling author of eight books of poetry and prose, including You Could Make This Place Beautiful, Good Bones, Goldenrod, Keep Moving, and My Thoughts Have Wings. A 2011 recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, Smith has also received a Pushcart Prize and numerous grants and awards from the Academy of American Poets, the Sustainable Arts Foundation, the Ohio Arts Council, the Greater Columbus Arts Council, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has been widely published, appearing in the New Yorker, the Paris Review, the Nation, the New York Times, the Atlantic, The Best American Poetry, and more.
Tonya B. Perry, provost and senior vice president at Miles College in Fairfield, Alabama, is a tireless advocate for students and educators who are often denied a voice. She works with and for educators, students, and communities to develop programs and initiatives that uplift historically marginalized peoples. In addition, she has advocated for others on numerous committees, including as a member of the NCTE Executive Committee, NCTE Research Foundation trustee, member of the , NCTEAR chairperson, NCTE member, and director for NCTE’s Cultivating New Voices among Scholars of Color program.
She currently is NCTE president and serves on the National Writing Project’s board of directors. Perry has also served the nation as a 2000 National Teacher of the Year finalist and a two-time National Board Certified Teacher. She has worked as a middle school teacher, teacher educator, full professor, executive director, principal investigator for a large GEAR UP grant, director of the Red Mountain Writing Project, and both interim department chair and executive director for outreach and engagement for a school of education.
Her coauthored book Teaching for Racial Equity: Becoming Interrupters (2022) is a collaborative work with two teacher educators, Steven Zemelman and Katy Smith, and other brilliant teacher-writers.