Lena Ashooh, a founding youth member of BLTN NextGen and a What’s the Story? filmmaker, has been named a Rhodes Scholar. After graduation from Harvard University, Lena will pursue a concentration in animal studies at Oxford University next year. 

Mary Baillie’s school, Grangemouth High School, was one of four schools selected by the National Theatre of Scotland (NTS) to host an original play featuring her students alongside professional designers, directors, and actors. 

Professor Angela Brazil will serve as BLTN’s Faculty Fellow in residence at the Vermont campus this summer.

Katie Cheng will be featured in a book called Raising America by Chantel Jiroch and Careshia Moore, a book that artistically features and celebrates educators across the country.

Mackensi Crenshaw published “Teaching Students About the Richness of Black Language Traditions” in Edutopia and “Motown Records: Detroit’s Sound of Success” in Teach Rock, an open educational resource “bringing the sound, stories, and science of music to all classrooms.”

Hailey Elles gave a workshop at The Sharon Academy’s Chain Reaction Day for students and teachers to engage with “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and connections to the Capitol Hill riots of Jan. 6. She also created a short film to document the work of Vermont’s volunteer firefighters, especially in climate disaster relief, and to recruit new members. 

Zia Grossman-Vendrillo and her 9th grade team at Berkeley High School received a $12,000 grant from Walking Softer to support their annual Climate Conference, engaging approximately 650 ninth graders as well as education students at the University of California Berkeley.

Allison Holsten (MA ‘04) attended “Educating for Peace: A Teachers’ Conference for Nuclear Disarmament Education” teachers conference at Harvard University, May 9-11, organized by the Ikeda Center for Peace, Learning, and Dialogue, the Soka Institute for Global Solutions at Soka University of America, the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, and EdEthics at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. 

Dr. Kayla Hostetler (MA ’24) published “Once We Organized Ourselves, We Began Leveraging Our Talent” in NCTE’s English Leadership Quarterly and “Mother Nature’s Call: Hurricane Helene” in the Troublesome Rising anthology via Hindman School and University Press of Kentucky. Hostetler also presented at the South Carolina Teachers of English 2025 annual conference. Hostetler will present “Dream Boards as Anchors for Literacy: Inspiring Students to Dream Boldly and Write Purposefully” at NCTE ’25 in Denver.

Angela Jones presented “The People Can Fly: Exploring Black American Mythology and Folk Literature in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon“ at the NCTE Annual Convention in Boston, November, 2024.

Professor Alice Joubin co-edited the Broadview Shakespeare edition of King Lear (2023) and edited The Arden Shakespeare’s Contemporary Readings in Global Performances of Shakespeare (2024).

Lee Krishnan (MA ‘07, center back row) and Brendan McGrath (MA ‘08, third from left, back row) traveled to four towns over the span of two weeks in the northeastern state of India called Nagaland. Lee has been a consultant and Subject Matter Expert for English and Social Studies for the past two years there to develop teacher leaders in the region who will go back to their schools to build professional learning communities. Brendan was invited to participate as he and Lee have done similar work over the years after meeting at Bread Loaf’s Vermont campus and collaborating on work with Andover Bread Loaf’s Peace Network.

Alfredo Celédon Luján (MA ’87, MLitt ’18) gave a reading and presented a creative writing session as part of the Santa Fe Community College Writing Generation Series. He was interviewed in May by Lynn Cline (MA ’97) in her KSFR radio show “Cline’s Corner.”

Nick Miller was runner up in the 2024 Mayday Magazine Fiction Prize for his short story “Mile High Chicago.”

Dyllan Moran achieved Japanese Language Proficiency Level N3 and became Chair of the Departments of Reading and Spanish at Brooklyn Urban Garden School.

Tim O’Leary (MA ‘07) was named principal of Charlotte Central School, a K-8 school in Charlotte, Vermont.

Dr. Marianela Rivera was featured in the documentary “Free LPS” (Lawrence Public Schools) and participated in a panel discussion at the premiere, moderated by Wangeci Gitau-Damaskos (MA ’24).

Corey Wozniak received the Equipo Academy (Las Vegas) “Most Passionate Teacher Award” for 2025. He also published “’Tentacles of Divine Providence’: Orson F. Whitney, Graham Greene, and Flannery O’Connor,” (Wayfare Spring Issue, Volume #5).

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The Bread Loaf School of English held its second Winter Institute February 21-23, 2025. From the BLTN newsletter: