Michele Kotler founded Community-Word Project in 1997. She is a graduate of the NYC public school system. She received her BA from Sarah Lawrence College and her MFA from the University of Michigan (1994), where she also taught creative writing. She has served on the boards of The Catalog for Giving and the New York City Arts-in-Education. She is a member of the Writers In the Schools Alliance (WITSA). Her poetry has appeared in Days I Moved Through Ordinary Sounds, The Teachers of WritersCorps in Poetry and Prose, Washington Square Review, and Painted Bride Quarterly. Michele founded CWP to ensure that NYC public school students have structured time during their school day to develop their creative and critical thinking skills through art. She also wanted to provide artists the opportunity to give back to the community by transforming their creative process into teaching tools. Community-Word Project's Teaching Artists Training Program (TAP) continues to strengthen the field of professional teaching artists. She is proud to be a part of the national Writers in the Schools movement.