Bethany Hegedus
Creative Director
Bethany Hegedus’ picture books include the award-winning Grandfather Gandhi and Be the Change: A Grandfather Gandhi Story, both co-written with Arun Gandhi (grandson of Mahatma Gandhi), as well Alabama Spitfire: The Story of Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird, and the recently released Rise!: From Caged Bird to Poet of the People: Dr. Maya Angelou, and Hard Work But It’s Worth It: The Life of Jimmy Carter. Her books have been included in numerous “best of” lists such as A Mighty Girl’s Best Books of 2018 and Kirkus’ Best Books of the Year. A former educator, Bethany is an in-demand speaker and mentor who speaks and teaches across the country about writing, creativity, resilience, and privilege. She is also the Founder and Creative Director of The Writing Barn in Austin, Texas and host of The Porchlight podcast, which includes the popular Courage to Create series. She graduated from the Vermont College of Fine Arts with an MFA program in Writing for Children & Young Adults.
Jessica Hincapie
Program Director
Jessica Hincapie is a Hispanic poet from South Florida. She received her MFA in Poetry from The University of Texas (2018), where she won the Michael Adams Prize in Poetry. She also served as Bat City Review’s first Online Content and Web Editor.
Currently she is the Programming Director for The Writing Barn, a writing retreat space in South Austin, that offers MFA level classes in multiple creative genres, including young/children’s, fiction, non-fiction, and more. She is an experienced teacher and workshop facilitator to adults and youth from around the world.
Her debut poetry collection Bloomer won the Louise Bogan Award for Artistic Merit and Excellence and is forthcoming from Trio House Press (2022). Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and she was a finalist for Radar Poetry’s 2020 Coniston Prize judged by Ada Limon, as well as a recipient of a 2022 Cuttyhunk Writers’ Residency. She has work out in numerous publications, including Colorado Review, Narrative Magazine, Gulf Coast, Sonora Review, Indiana Review and many others.
Sophia Velasquez Martinez
Digital Marketing & Promotions Specialist
Sophia Velasquez Martinez (Sophie) is a fiction writer, poet, and digital marketing specialist from the Texas Panhandle currently living in Columbia, South Carolina. Apart from a smattering of Texas hometowns, she’s lived in Austin, London, and most recently, the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii. There’s much more travel in her future that she hopes will fuel her stories.
Sophie received her BA in Writing and Rhetoric with a focus in Creative Writing from St. Edward’s University and is the Digital Marketing & Promotions Specialist for The Writing Barn, a retreat center and virtual creative writing platform offering classes for writers of all genres and stages. She is also the Program Director for the Barn’s sister program, the Courage to Create, an online community by and for writers founded by author Bethany Hegedus.
Sophie’s poetry is featured in The Sorin Oak Review and Hawaii Pacific Review. She also has editorial work in Austin Monthly Magazine and HAWAI’I Magazine. Currently, she’s working on her first Young Adult horror/thriller novel which she hopes to publish in the near future.
Katarina Rodriguez
Program Associate
Katarina Rodriguez is a writer and graduate of St. Edward’s University with her BA in Writing and Rhetoric. She’s originally from Galveston, Texas and is a board member for The Ricky Roa Memorial Scholarship fund. Her love for writing began at a young age. She mostly enjoys writing poetry, songs and short fiction. Some of her favorite genres include mystery, romance, thriller and science fiction. Outside of writing, Katarina loves to read, cook, sing, play her ukulele, watch softball and annoy her three cats.
Jessica Pelle
Rentals and Events Manager
Jessica (@breakingwavesyoga) has been a student of yoga for 10+ years, has over 1,000 hours of yoga education, and is currently pursuing Yoga Therapy certification. She is dedicated to serving populations that can benefit from the therapeutic tools of yoga and allows them to experience yoga in an inclusive, low-stress, judgment-free environment.
In addition to her yoga studies, Jessica has over 15 years of experience in customer service, marketing, management, sales, and administration. With a love for socializing and fun, she started organizing events and parties of all kinds as a teenager, which lends itself nicely to her work for The Writing Barn community as the Rental and Events Manager. Jessica also manages events and promotions for The Writing Barn’s sister company, Sangam Retreats.
In her spare time, you can find Jessica curled up with a good book and a cup of coffee, listening to true crime podcasts, antique shopping with her mom, or spending time with her partner.
Writing Barn Interns
Cathy Sheafor
WB Intern
Cathy Sheafor has practiced law, coached, and taught many subjects, in many settings, to people of all ages. A graduate of Duke University and Washington University School of Law, she currently coaches college and high school swimming and teaches swim lessons in North Carolina. She enjoys writing both picture books and middle grade novels and looks forward to seeing her stories published. When not writing or at the pool, Cathy enjoys hiking, reading, painting, and traveling to fulfill her dream of visiting every national park in the United States.
Ashley Rummel
WB Intern
Ashley Rummel is a writer and a senior at the University of Texas at Austin studying Nutrition and Creative Writing. Originally from Dripping Springs, Texas, she has worked as a personal trainer, a softball coach, an undergraduate researcher, and a marketing manager for a local fitness startup. In her spare time, she enjoys writing, reading, cooking, and exploring hiking trails around Austin. Ashley is currently working on a YA historical fiction novel which she hopes to publish in the near future.
Writing Barn Fellows
Susan Johnston Taylor
WB Fellow
Susan Johnston Taylor is a Writing Barn fellow, a Courage to Create visionary, and author of Animals in Surprising Shades: Poems about Earth’s Colorful Creatures (Gnome Road Publishing, 2023). Her poetry also appears in 10.10 Poetry Anthology: Celebrating 10 in 10 different ways. As a freelance writer for over a decade, she’s written over a dozen titles for the educational market and published nonfiction articles in children’s magazines including FACES, Highlights for Children and Scout Life. Her writing for grownups has appeared in The Atlantic, The Boston Globe, Entrepreneur and Fast Company. She lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and their two rescue dogs.
Ana Siqueira
WB Fellow
Ana Siqueira is an award-winning author from Brazil who cackles but doesn’t wear hats. When not flying with brujas, she teaches Spanish to adorable little ones, where she casts a learning spell that nobody can resist.
Some of her books are BELLA’S RECIPE FOR DISASTER/SUCCESS (Beaming Books, 2021), IF YOUR BABYSITTER IS A BRUJA/ CUANDO TU NIÑERA ES UNA BRUJA (SimonKids,2022), BOITATA: SNAKE OF FIRE (Capstone 2023), ABUELA’S SUPER CAPA/LA SUPERCAPA DE ABUELA (HarperCollins 2023), OUR WORLD BRAZIL (Barefoot 2023), ROOM IN MAMI’S CORAZON (HarperCollins 2024), and two others TBA.
Ana is also a Global Educator, a PBS Media Innovator, and an Apple teacher.
She lives in Tampa with her Cuban husband. Her favorite hobby is playing with her Cuban-Brazilian-American grandkids.
Ariel Vanece
WB Fellow
Ariel Vanece is a Black-American author who writes picture books, chapter books, and middle grade. Her stories are described as heartwarming and adventurous. She obtained an MFA/MA in Writing for Children and Children’s Literature from Simmons University, and holds a BA in English from The University Of Kansas. When she isn’t writing, Ariel is watching the latest Korean Drama, trying out random art projects, reading romance, and taking a road trip. Ariel’s forthcoming picture book Searching for Mr. Johnson’s Song illustrated by Jade Orlando will be published Summer of 2025.
Maria Marianayagam
WB Fellow
Maria Marianayagam is the author of I AM A FORCE, a STEM-based girl empowerment picture book, releasing in May 2023 with Sourcebooks, along with several other unannounced projects. She is a Sri Lankan-Canadian children’s book author with a background in chemical engineering. She was born in India and grew up in Nigeria and four provinces across Canada. Maria fell in love with children’s books (again!) after becoming an Amma (mom). She enjoys writing lyrical picture books centered on STEM, faith, and South Asian culture, as well as high-concept middle-grade grounded in culture. She became part of the uplifting and nurturing community at the Writing Barn early in her career and it has been instrumental in her success as a writer.
S.K. Wenger
WB Fellow
S.K. Wenger, writing as S.K. Wenger, is the author of the humorous STEM picture book, Chicken Frank, Dinosaur! (Albert Whitman 2021), five leveled-readers in the educational market (Benchmark Education / Richard C. Owen, Publisher), and poems that have appeared in Babybug, Cricket, and Miracles of Motherhood (a June Cotner anthology/Center Street). With both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in science and numerous adventures in the outdoors Shaunda loves weaving tidbits of the natural world into her middle grade and picture book stories and feels extra sparkly when they pivot on humor. When she’s not teaching in the classroom or putting words on the page, she enjoys spending time with her family, doing anything outside, and connecting with other writers. Joining the Courage to Create program at The Writing Barn and learning from Bethany Hegedus and so many of the Barn’s speakers was one of the best things she’d done in moving the needle on her career. Visit www.skwenger.com to discover more.
Shanah Salter
WB Fellow
Shanah Salter is a family physician turned children’s writer and poet. She was awarded an Illinois Arts Council grant for novel development in 2020 and was named a Write Mentor Summer Mentee in 2022.
Her children’s poetry can be found in several anthologies and magazines including Caterpillar and The Cricket Magazine group’s publication, Spider.
Shanah is Australian but now calls Chicago home. She lives near a local library she adores with her husband, bookworm children, and a dog who loves to eat socks. Connect with her at www.shanahsalter.com or on Twitter: @shanahsalter
WB DEI Committee
Nicole Chen
DEI Committee Member
Nicole Chenwrites stories for kids that celebrate the diversity and multiculturalism that lives proudly in her family and in families all over the world. She lives in sunny California with her Andorran husband and young daughter.
Jyoti Gopal
DEI Committee Member
Jyoti Rajan Gopal is a Kindergarten teacher and a writer. She was born in India but grew up all over the world, from Thailand and Indonesia to Myanmar and China. 25 years ago, she moved to New York with her husband, and raised her two daughters in Yonkers in a very old house with an amazing porch where she still lives.
Evan Griffith
DEI Committee Member
Evan Griffith is the author of the middle-grade novel Manatee Summer and the picture book biography Secrets of the Sea: The Story of Jeanne Power, Revolutionary Marine Scientist. He studied creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received his MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults at the Vermont College of Fine Arts.
He worked for several years as an editor at Workman Publishing, where he specialized in non-fiction for children and adults, and he continues to edit books on a freelance basis.
He lives in Austin, Texas with a mischievous tuxedo cat and several overflowing bookshelves.
Aileen Johnson
DEI Committee Member
Aileen Johnson is a kidlit writer, lawyer, dog fanatic, and history buff. She’s passionate about bringing readers the universal narratives of BIPOC and queer youth experiences. Aileen and her wife call the nation’s capital home, where they live in a 100+ year-old Victorian with their uproarious middle schooler and a spoiled pit bull mix named Wink, who snores very loudly. When Aileen’s not working, writing, or cheering on fellow writers, she enjoys hiking in the woods and leafing through fashion magazines. SCBWI. KWELI. EFA. 12×12. MFA from VCFA. JD from GW Law. Go Terps! You can connect with her on Twitter @aileenajohnson
Alia Khaled
DEI Committee Member
Alia Khaled is an engineer, a researcher, an educator, and a lifelong learner. Her objective is to create entertaining and informational books for kids. She believes that learning needs to be fun and go beyond reading the book. Children should be allowed to explore, ask many questions, research, and look for answers.
She is a native Arabic speaker and has published many books to make learning Arabic fun, enjoyable, and accessible to non-Arabic-speakers who wish for their kids to learn the beautiful language of Arabic.
Alia holds a PhD degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Johns Hopkins University, USA and a master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from Cairo University, Egypt.
Cheryl McCosh
DEI Committee Member
Cheryl Hom McCosh has always preferred her imaginary worlds to reality, so writing them down was a natural next step. She has been a member of The Writing Barn’s Courage to Create since its inception and is grateful for the community, guidance, and support she’s received through this and other Writing Barn programming. She has a PhD in Computer Science from Rice University and a BS in Mathematics from UNC-Chapel Hill (Go Heels!). When she’s not writing, she loves reading, singing, dancing, and advocating for public Montessori education. She currently resides in Houston with her husband, three kids, and two dogs.
Kim Rogers
DEI Committee Member
Kim Rogers writes books, short stories, and poems for young readers. Her debut picture book, Just Like Grandma, illustrated by Julie Flett, is slated for winter 2023; A Letter for Bob, illustrated by Jonathan Nelson, is planned for summer 2023; and I Am Osage: How Clarence Tinker became the First Native American General, illustrated by Bobby Von Martin, comes out in winter of 2024, all with HarperCollins/Heartdrum. She is a contributor to Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids (HarperCollins/Heartdrum, 2021). The cover, illustrated by Nicole Neidhardt, was inspired by Jessie, the protagonist in her short story, “Flying Together.” Her poem “What is a Powwow” is also included. Kim is an enrolled member of Wichita and Affiliated Tribes and the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition. Much of her current writing highlights her Wichita heritage. She lives with her family on her tribe’s ancestral homelands in Oklahoma.
Nick Solis
DEI Committee Member
Nicholas Solis is an award-winning elementary teacher with a Master in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Texas and a Master in Educational Administration from Concordia University. He was born to teach but has an unmitigated passion for writing.
Thank goodness he found the Writing Barn to help him improve his writing skills, a passion that began at the age of 8. Nick writes middle-grade novels, picture books, and poetry about farts.
Sara Andrea Fajardo
DEI Committee Member + WB Fellow
Sara Fajardo is a Peruvian-American writer who grew up in the migrant field worker community of Salinas, California. A photojournalist by training, she’s worked as a multimedia storyteller for humanitarian aid organizations for more than a decade. Her words and camera have taken her across Latin America and Africa. While covering emergency responses, refugees, and farming communities she realized that the only thing that separates us is our circumstances. Sara strives to tell multicultural stories that help underrepresented children see themselves and that enable children to connect with other cultures. She lives in Lima, Peru.
Past Writing Barn Fellows
Kim Tidwell
WB Fellow
After masquerading as a marketer and brand strategist for 20+years, Kim Tidwell is circling back to her original passion for writing. Kim has a B.S. in Advertising from the University of Kansas and an M.A. in Art History from the University of Essex in the U.K. Her career has traveled through advertising, design, retail brand management, and marketing. In 2014, Kim ventured out on her own. Being able to design a career that leaves space for her writing practice has been a happy accident. Kim is currently writing a novel, and she is grateful for Carrie Jones and the Write. Submit. Support program, and other craft workshops and the people she’s met at The Writing Barn. Kim is thrilled to be able to give back to Austin’s writer community as a WB fellow. You can find Kim’s personal essays on Medium and at kimtidwell.com. When she’s not working or writing, you can find her volunteering as a lead organizer for CreativeMornings/Austin.
Sarah Yasutake
WB Fellow
Sarah Yasutake wrote her first book, “The Cat and the Twins,” when she was seven. Little did she know that when she grew up she’d have cats and twins of her own, and she’d still be writing stories. She has a BA in English from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa and a JD from Lewis and Clark Law School. After a few years practicing in the field of energy law, she started taking creative writing classes and writing fiction for children and young adults. The Writing Barn has played a huge role in her development as a writer, both from a craft and a community perspective. Sarah lives in central Maryland with her husband, twin daughters, and a pair of rascally cats.
Brenda Panella
Past WB Fellow
Brenda Panella holds a master’s degree in Spanish and several teaching credentials. She is a member of SCBWI, 12×12, Writer’s League of Texas, and a frequent student of the Writing Barn. Going into her seventeenth year of teaching elementary, Brenda has now taken on writing for children and teens. She currently teaches fifth grade dual language students at an arts integration academy in Round Rock and soaks in the personalities of kids she meets for future stories. She is a fan of Star Wars, Sailor Moon, and The Big Bang Theory. Besides playing the ukulele and guitar, Brenda enjoys going on ghost tours to learn about hidden history. Brenda’s nonfiction biography manuscript IZ THE UKULELE WIZ was runner-up in the picture book category for the 2019 Austin SCBWI Scholarship for Creator’s of Diverse Worlds. Her graphic novel manuscript THE SISTERS CERDAS won a 2020 Austin SCBWI RA Scholarship, and she owes it all to the outstanding teachers she’s had at the Writing Barn. Born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley, Brenda now lives with her husband Robert in Round Rock.
Taunya English – Past WB Fellow
Taunya honed her storytelling craft as a radio reporter, a career that teaches you to write for the ear and that every word counts. She’s the daughter of a reading specialist, so for Taunya, becoming a picture book creator is like joining the family business: making reading cozy and fun for the entire family. Taunya is from Maryland, where she’s training to be a volunteer naturalist. Gathering sights and sounds from her outdoor adventures is Taunya’s favorite kind of “writing research.” Her mission: More green stories from Black writers.