Kate Foran

My big Irish Catholic family marked birthdays and milestones by writing to the person we were celebrating and reading what we wrote out loud. My mother left Shel Silverstein-inspired verses for my brothers and me when we forgot to clean up after ourselves. I spent summer evenings as a teen interning at a local poetry festival. All of these influences did as much to forge my identity as a writer as anything I did in school. 

Homeschooling was part of my own education from ages 15-17.  I remember the rush of possibility that filled me when I discovered the work of John Holt and Growing Without Schooling. The nights I spent reading till all hours are my fondest memories of this stage.

After college, I applied the same spirit of self-directed learning to an alternative unaccredited master’s program, studying under veteran civil rights leaders and other mentors committed to working for justice. 

Through these different experiments, my constant was writing, a practice that has always been about connection as well as expression. Whenever I share a poem with my monthly writing group, I think of a saying from one of my mentors who helped integrate the Woolworth lunch counters: “Our work is building community; everything else is an occasion for it.”

I am excited to forge connections with Brave Writer families, encourage the development of original voices, and help parents and young writers explore their writing lives. I’m thrilled to include reading and responding to student writing in my daily rhythms of getting my teenager to school and activities, accompanying my elementary-aged daughter to her project group, and leaving notes back and forth to each other and to the fairies at the fairy door.

Kate Foran's Classes: