Rae participated in NeWP in the summer of 2022. She says "It was through this program that I found my voice again. Through many years of writing within the confines of academia, I had sterilized my voice and deteriorated my love for writing. NeWP gave me a space to fertilize and regrow the parts of me that I had so dearly missed." Her favorite part of NeWP was continuously sharing with her peers in a space made safe by the mutual agreement of all participants. She cites that as making a difference, allowing her to enter a more vulnerable state with her own writing.  

Writing for some, especially for young writers, can feel daunting and exasperating. Rae has worked with a group of seniors who truly struggle with writing because (similar to so many other students across the world) COVID really threw a wrench into their skills box. She has helped curate structures that can be leveraged as interventions to provide the necessary support to allow students to regain their footing with writing and feel some sense of confidence when approaching complex tasks.  

As a collaborator, she loves to work with people to cultivate solutions that are mutually beneficial for the teachers and the students. Coming up with out-of-the-box ideas and finding ways to bring them to fruition is one of the beauties of programs such as this. Rae writes "I know we all wish to foster life-long writers with program participants, and that is a mission I aim to be a part of!"