Leaf and Pen

10/23/2025

Need some time and space to write in good company?

As of this semester, I am finally fully retired. It took me dragging, kicking, screaming, burning out and making all kinds of mistakes to get here. But I’m learning to slow TF down—new skill!!—and starting to enjoy it. (Weekday hike = beautiful thing ❤️)

Where does this leave Leaf and Pen? While I’m not running any official Leaf and Pen retreats this fall or winter, our creative spaces feel more important than ever, at this rough time on the planet. At recent retreats, folks have heard me wondering how we might take eleven years of formal Leaf and Pen retreats and writing events and morph the project into a kind of collective.

First up, an informal retreat over the long Prez Day week. Kinda sorta like the official ones, but not exactly. If you want more details, please email me directly or ping my phone. Leaf and Pen regulars—I sent something out to the list, but those bulk messages have a way of going into your spam folder.

01/16/2025

We-e-e-ell, I thought I was retiring Leaf and Pen, but I'm running at least one more writing retreat for educators, very 11th hour, over Presidents Day weekend. Please, please share this link with anyone in the education community who might want some protected time and space to write and talk shop and practice self-care in the company of other educators. https://www.leafandpen.org/writing-retreats-for-educators.html

11/12/2021

Leaf and Pen's February retreat at the Highlights Foundation is full. Little plane back in the air! Click through to be put on the wait list. www.leafandpen.org

10/14/2021

Glad to see a writing studies luminary getting a little attention outside the tower. RIP, Mike Rose.

Mike Rose popularized a new model of writing instruction that saw students as struggling to do a very difficult thing.

08/08/2021

Nach Waxman ran a food bookstore in NYC. What, you may ask, does this have to do with teaching English? Reading his obit in the NYT, I was struck by this quote and its relevance to teaching writing.

“…coddled by the printed recipes that encourage obedience and conformity at the expense of knowledge and understanding, we have become a generation of cooks that does not know how to cook… We are cheerfully accepting mediocrity of performance. To be sure, we do not encourage bad results; we rarely rouse ourselves, though, to achieve superior ones. Ends rather than means are our guideline — dependable outcomes rather than ventures that might take us astray.”

h/t worthington

A “kitchen anthropologist,” he created a mecca in Manhattan for chefs, writers, scholars, everyday cooks and anyone else who is, well, hungry for culinary knowledge.

06/04/2021

Reread some of the old YA novels I wrote back in another lifetime. Was horrifying, but good self-reflection. Read about it on Chalkbeat (shorter, tighter, more informational) or on my blog (more off-the-cuff, ragged and includes red wine, trademark acerbic parenthetical asides, personality and open-ended questions with a discussion forum--I mean, I'm a teacher--that didn't make it into the final cut). Grateful to take a good look backward and also to see some ink--thank you, Chalkbeat! Choose yer link:

Blog: https://www.leafandpen.com/blog/what-do-we-do-with-the-normalized-whiteness-of-books-of-yore

Chalkbeat: https://ny.chalkbeat.org/2021/6/4/22465914/my-ya-books-normalized-whiteness

Rereading my old novels, I realized I was part of the problem.

07/19/2020

+in Central Park and online+
+July 15-17, 2020+
+Extraordinary times, extraordinary stories+
+There’s no such thing as a neutral education. Education either functions as an instrument to bring about conformity or freedom. –Paolo Freire+

07/11/2020

Coming right up! Radical Educators' Summer Writing Retreat. Next week, in Central Park and online--this is how we do "blended learning."

05/04/2020

Thanks, NYSAIS, for hosting Leaf and Pen's recent presentation, Reading and Writing in the Virtual Classroom. Slides and chat available; PM me.

04/22/2020

Must read, must watch, from teacher-writer Rasha Hamid:

Rasha Hamid and Kelsey Sorum present three videos to guide families with writing anywhere, anytime, with anything they have.

03/28/2020

Join us to talk about about virtual learning in the reading and writing classroom. April 9th, 4-5PM.

Professional Learning Calendar - New York State Association of Independent Schools (NYSAIS)

03/20/2020

Educators, initial thoughts on our virtual schooling experiment? Click below and don't miss the comments

Fellow educators, what are your initial thoughts?