StudioGraphia Associates
We're in the business of learning.
Our associates have extensive experience in the classroom (pre-school through university, and all levels of teacher education), and professional writing experience in various fields.
We offer writing, editing, instruction, research and design services to support knowledge acquisition across the entire life-long learning spectrum.
We work to the highest standards in project management, production, and performance.
Heather Severson is an award winning adult educator and gypsy scholar, plying her craft at the National Writing Project, the Southern Arizona Writing Project, the University of Arizona, Pima Community College, University of Phoenix, the American Red Cross, Girl Scouts of America, the Professional Association of Diving Instructors, and other places where adults gather for self-development and education. She specializes in developmental reading and writing, with forays into sustainability, eremology, outdoor education and SCUBA diving. To support her habits in teaching and teacher education, Heather is a freelance writer. She has written supplemental online content, instructor manuals, curriculum, and textbook reviews for higher education publishers for over twelve years. She established StudioGraphia in 2009, but has been a solo freelancer for twenty years.
See more about all of Heather's varied endeavors and opportunities for connection at her website: http://heatherseverson.com
Meet our Writers & Key Support Folks
- Stacey Beauregard Education Writer
- Natalie Catren Writer, Editor, Illustrator
- Caressa Chester The Mercenary Writer's Assistant
- Lisa DaDeppo Education Writer
- Teresa DellaPietra Assessment Aficionado
- Christine Hamel Word Wrangler
- Amethyst Hinton-Sainz Education Writer
- Adam Kullberg Freelance Aficianado
- Sandy LaCava Education Writer
- Kim MacQueen Education Writer
- Gregory McNamee Author
- Laura I. Miller Writer Extraordinaire
- Nora Miller Science Writer and Editor
- Sharon K. Miller Writer, Word Wizard & Graphomaniac
- Sandra Ogle Education Writer
- Heather Ordover Literary Soldier of Fortune & Craft Commando
- Diana Rahm Education Writer
- Rebecca Richards Education Writer
- Bonnie Swanson Science Writer and Editor
- Susan Wenger Editor and Designer
- Chris Zelek Tech Wizard and Literary Alchemist
Stacey Beauregard
Master of Arts and ABD (PhD in progress): University of California, Los Angeles:
Psychological Studies in Education
Master of Arts, University of Exeter: Applied Drama/Drama in Education
Bachelor of Arts, Grinnell College: Theatre
Stacey Beauregard is a university writing instructor and freelance education writer specializing in composition, rhetoric, and English Language Arts content and assessment. She has taught developmental reading and writing at Santa Monica College and composition and rhetoric at UCLA and California State University Channel Islands. Her graduate training included work with the UCLA Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing, as well as work on academic language and instructional strategies for English language learners. She is passionate about creating engaging curricula and effective, meaningful assessments. When she is not attempting to persuade college freshman of the beauty of good academic writing, working on assessment projects for various publishers, or keeping up with the latest education research, you might find her at a writers’ group or in the middle of a good novel.
Natalie Catren
Master of Arts in Art History, University of Georgia
Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting and English Literature, University of Georgia
Licentiate in Music Performance with the Royal Colleges of Music, London, U.K.
A freelance writer, editor and illustrator, Natalie has professional and personal ties to Tucson, New York, Edinburgh and London. Her writing and editing is similarly sweeping in style, subject and scope - from fiction to feature, educational to scholarly, technical to copy. Her feature articles range from humorous vignettes to sociopolitical overviews of such timely or abiding topics as the AHA and staple grains. Since 2011 Natalie has been an entry writer for DeGruyter’s Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception. Her rather diverse qualifications include a BFA in Painting and English Literature, MA in Art History, Licentiate in Music Performance with the Royal Colleges of Music, and a rather insignificant horticultural qualification from the Royal Botanical Gardens of Edinburgh. Prior to her freelance career, Natalie worked in university settings as student advisor, graphic and website designer, art history teacher, and research assistant. Having spent much of her life in the role of itinerant foreigner struggling to be understood, she has an empathetic yet practical understanding of ESL client needs. Whether working alone or as part of a larger collective, Natalie seeks to maintain a high standard of quality and clarity in communication - embracing whatever style is called for... with style!
Caressa Chester
Bachelor of Arts, University of Arizona
Caressa is a very recent graduate of the University of Arizona where she studied international development and art history. She spent the majority of her senior year writing and researching Indian education policy; the culmination of these efforts resulted in her senior Honors thesis. She is a traveler, a writer and an appreciator of the arts with interests scattered and simultaneously related. She has experience working with several literary journals, and hopes someday to combine her love of the literary arts with international development. She is an intern at Chax Press, a small local publishing house in Tucson, and continues to satiate her development passion with frequent involvement in the Tucson refugee community. When she isn’t assisting Heather you may find her baking and/or slanging coffee at Raging Sage Coffee Roasters or with her nose buried in a book!
Lisa DaDeppo
Ph.D. University of Maryland: Special Education
Master of Arts, University
of Arizona: Language, Reading & Culture
Lisa DaDeppo has worked as an educator since 1997. She has taught junior high, high school and college students. She earned her Masters degree in Language, Reading, and Culture from the University of Arizona in 1997 and her Ph.D. in Special Education from the University of Maryland in 2007. Her areas of expertise are in Social Studies, Reading, Study Skills, and Special Education. She has worked at the University of Arizona and the University of Maryland teaching, developing curriculum, and directing learning support programs for student-athletes and college students who are academically at-risk. As a writer Lisa has published articles in Teaching Exceptional Children Plus, Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, and Learning Disabilities Research & Practice. She also has also written textbook reviews for Pearson and other publishers. Currently Lisa teaches Reading courses at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona as adjunct faculty.
Teresa DellaPietra
Masters of Science, Education: State University of New York at Brockport
Bachelors of Science, Psychology: State University of New York at Brockport
Certification: New York State Elementary Education (N–6)
Teresa is an educational consultant who has worked in the field of education since 1990.
After 10 years as an active classroom teacher, Teresa took a position as an Educational Analyst with Lightspan, Inc. There, her research and analysis of both state and national educational standards and assessment practices grew into a passion for assessment development.
As Senior ELA Content Specialist with Plato Learning, Inc. and ELA Assessment Writer for Kaplan K12 Learning Services, she developed state-specific blueprints, test passages, items, internal process documents, and product specifications.
Teresa is currently designing, producing, and publishing standards-based fixed benchmark tests, curriculum support materials, and test auxiliary materials for various companies.
Christine Hamel
Master of Arts, University of Arizona: Comparative Cultural & Literary
Studies
Master of Arts, University of Arizona: Rhetoric, Composition & the Teaching
of English
Bachelor of Arts, Wellesley College: American History, American Literature
Chris Hamel began her teaching career in the University of Arizona’s Writing Program in August 1994. While still teaching in the First-Year Composition sequence at the University of Arizona, she has also branched out to the online writing instruction world with her work at the Center for Talented Youth program at Johns Hopkins University. She has two M.A.s, both of which focus on college teaching and writing, and has been coordinating the University of Arizona Writing Center since January 2007. She develops curriculum for first-year college writing courses and for writing tutor training, and has several publications in national journals and poetry collections. In the little free time she has left, Chris works with University of Arizona graduate students and writers in the Tucson community as a freelance editor, and dreams of becoming a nature writer and world-famous blogger.
Amethyst Hinton-Sainz
Master of Arts, Bread Loaf College of English, Middlebury College: English
Literature
Bachelor of Arts, University of Arizona: Creative Writing/ Philosophy
of Science
Amethyst Hinton Sainz has been a high school English teacher in Southern Arizona since 1995, with brief stints teaching and tutoring SAT and SSAT preparation courses for Kaplan and teaching freshman composition and developmental writing for Capital Community College in Hartford, Connecticut. She currently teaches English at Tucson High Magnet School in Tucson, Arizona. She has written an online reader in the rhetorical modes for Thomson Wadsworth, and has written content for McGraw Hill. As an educator, she has worked intensively on curriculum development and integrating technology tools into her classrooms, including using digital storytelling and Ning online communities. She is a technology liaison for the Southern Arizona Writing Project and enjoys contributing to the newsletter on a regular basis. She has written two successful classroom project proposals with Donorschoose, and continues to use her writing to seek resources for her high school classroom. She has also written client restaurant reviews for Coyle Hospitality. She is a licensed realtor and partner with her husband Rich Sainz at Tierra Antigua Realty, applying her skills in contract wording, business writing and marketing.
Adam Kullberg
MFA, Creative Writing (Nonfiction), University of Arizona (exp. December 2013)
MA, Creative Writing (Fiction), University of North Texas.
BA, English (Creative Writing), University of North Texas.
Adam Kullberg is an MFA candidate in Creative Nonfiction at the University of Arizona, where he currently teaches freshman composition, creative writing courses, and is the nonfiction editor for the literary journal Sonora Review. He holds an MA in Fiction from the University of North Texas, where he served as an academic assistant, a writing tutor for UNT's Student Writing Lab, an intern for American Literary Review, and an event organizer for a monthly reading series. Over the past five years, he has worked, among other things, as a camp counselor, a delivery driver, an ACT/SAT tutor for middle and high school students, an assistant lacrosse coach, a private instructor for low-income, first-generation college freshman, and, for the last two years, a freelance writer. His own writing, which focuses on the intersections between politics, place, memory, and the body, has been published or is forthcoming in a handful of blogs and online/print literary magazines--including Hot Metal Bridge, Essay Daily, Terrain, Sonora Review, and Liternational, where he was awarded first place in the 2012 Kristen Iverson & David Anthony Durham Award.
Sandy LaCava
Master of Arts, University of Arizona: Language, Reading & Culture
Sandy LaCava is a long time educator and businesswoman. She has taught elementary school, junior high and community college students, where she specialized in reading, language arts, Spanish, and life skills guidance. LaCava has also educated and supervised young adults for over 20 years in the business world developing and implementing training programs. Writing has played an integral part of her life and has influenced her work with various writing groups from children’s writers to poetry and memoir writing groups. A fellow of the Southern Arizona Writing Project, LaCava continues to explore writing in all its glory as a writer of children’s stories, memoir, non-fiction and educational content. More recently her writing experiences include a restaurant review blog from a vegetarian perspective and a dual blogging experience with a fellow writer as they work their way through the Artist’s Way program.
Kim MacQueen
Master’s-level work in Literature and Public Affairs;
Bachelor’s in English, Creative Writing, Florida State University
Kim is a freelance education writer with specific training and experience developing English/Language Arts assessments and passages aligned with Common Core Standards for K-12 students nationwide. That’s on top of more than 20 years as a writer and editor specializing in higher education as well just enough magazine and newspaper feature-writing and daily, in-depth reporting on state K-12 and higher education policy to be really dangerous.
Kim’s debut novel, Out, Out, was published in 2011; it was a finalist for Best Novel in both the IndieReader.com Discovery Awards and the Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Kim currently works with the Champlain College Publishing Initiative on a side specialty in indie publishing, working with authors to produce and publish book-length projects in fiction and nonfiction.
See: kimmacqueen.com
Gregory McNamee
B.A. with distinction (classics and anthropology), University of Arizona
M.A. with highest distinction (English), University of Arizona
Gregory McNamee is a writer, journalist, editor, photographer, and publisher. He is the author or title-page editor of thirty-five books and more than four thousand periodical publications, including articles, essays, reviews, interviews, editorials, poems, and short stories.
He is a consultant, contributor, and contributing editor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica and its blog. He is also a contributing editor to and regular reviewer for Kirkus Reviews and a contributing editor to The Bloomsbury Review.
McNamee operates Sonora Wordworks, an editorial and publishing service, and has been involved in the publication of more than five hundred books. He is also the publisher of Polytropos Press.
McNamee is a research associate at the Southwest Center of the University of Arizona and a lecturer in the Economics Department of the Eller College of Management there. He is a member of the Speakers Bureau of the Arizona Humanities Council, and he also gives courses and talks on writing, publishing, journalism, media and technology, and cultural and environmental issues.
See http://www.gregorymcnamee.com/
Laura I. Miller
MFA Creative Writing, Fiction, University of Arizona (exp. 2014)
MA Creative Writing, Fiction, University of North Texas
BA Literary Studies, University of Texas at Dallas
Laura I. Miller is a Master of Fine Arts candidate in fiction at the University of Arizona. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of North Texas where she served as the blog coordinator for the American Literary Review. She has five years of experience as a freelance writer and has covered topics ranging from album and book reviews to children’s health to education. Her personal essay “Resurrecting the Music that Still Gets Under Our Skin” appeared in the Oxford American Online and her short story “Locust Street Circus” was recently chosen as a semi-finalist for the Kristen Iversen & David Anthony Durham Award. She is interested in emotional truths, the unconscious mind, metaphysics, and magic.
Nora Miller
Info to come...
Sharon K. Miller
Masters of Education (Secondary English), Towson State University
Bachelor of Science (Secondary English), Frostburg State College, Maryland
Over the last 45 years, Sharon has taught students at many levels, from second grade through graduate school, and she has been involved in the Maryland Writing Project (MWP) and the Southern Arizona Writing Project (SAWP) for 26 years. As an online writer, Sharon maintains three blogs and manages the content and design of four websites. She has published in a variety of printed contexts, including coauthoring a chapter, "Effective Writing for Teacher Researchers," in Teachers Taking Action: A Comprehensive Guide to Teacher Research, (2008) and a book, Doing Academic Writing in Education: Connecting the Personal and the Professional, (2005). She has also published articles in MWP, SAWP, and National Writing Project publications, as well as the international journal, The Thinking Classroom/Paramena, published in both English and Russian languages. Additionally, she served on the Editorial Review Board for The Thinking Classroom for seven years. She is skilled in substantive editing, as well as copyediting for manuscripts written by native English speakers and for writers for whom English is a second language. Being a grammar nerd makes her an effective proofreader and final editor. Whether it is academic, educational, or non-fiction writing, whether it is online or off, Sharon can produce winning content and polished prose.
Sandra Ogle
Master of Arts, New York University: Journalism
Bachelor of Arts, The University of Texas at Austin: English (Italian minor)
Sandra is a full-time freelance writer, editor, copyeditor, and fact-checker. Previously, she was an English Assessment Editor at Kaplan K12 Learning Services in New York City where she developed and wrote state-specific passages and items and helped manage off-site editors and writers. During her time at Kaplan, she also worked on coordinating the production of supplemental math, science, and English-language arts textbooks. Since starting to freelance full-time in 2008, she has worked on educational projects for Kaplan, Carson-Dellosa, McGraw-Hill, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and the Bill Smith Group. She also works on fiction and nonfiction projects for a variety of trade publishers, including Penguin, Kensington Books, Beacon Press, Thomas Nelson, and Sourcebooks.
Heather Ordover
Master of Arts, New York University: Individual Studies
Bachelor of Arts, University of California Los Angeles: Theater Arts
Heather Ordover, an award winning New York high school teacher, transitioned into writing full time after ten years in the classroom. Ordover started as project manager/writer on several large, urban core curriculum initiatives for Kaplan K-12. Eventually she moved back to writing part time for these projects while her children were small and has stayed writing ever since. Since leaving the high school classroom she has written online content for Pearson's CD-ROM Elements of Grammar, Teacher's Notes for Scholastic's Literary Cavalcade, and several online masters-level courses in education for Kaplan Online University. Along with writing for education, Ordover has written and recorded essays for Cast-On: A Podcast for Knitters and currently hosts her own long-running online podcast, CraftLit: A Podcast for Crafters Who Love Books (think "books on tape with benefits"). Her crafty writing has appeared in Spin-Off, WeaveZine, and The Arizona Daily Star.
See: Crafting a Life: A Hub for a Multi-Node Life http://crafting-a-life.com/
Diana Rahm
Masters of Science, Secondary English/Language Arts: University
of Missouri – Columbia
Bachelor of Science, Secondary English/Language Arts: University
of Missouri – Columbia
Diana Rahm has taught every level of English/Language Arts class from sixth to twelfth grades in both public and private settings. Her teaching specialties are working with honors and Advanced Placement level students in high school, and in developing curriculum that coordinates English with history and the arts. She has a great passion for learning of any kind, often coordinating her studies with domestic and international travel. Writing has been part of her life since she first put crayon to wall as a toddler.
Rebecca Richards
Master of Arts and Ph.D, University of Arizona: Rhetoric, Composition, & the Teaching of English
Rebecca Richards works as technical and professional freelance writer, while educating high school and college students about business writing and composition. She began her career as a textbook editor for SRA/McGraw-Hill in Columbus, Ohio. Soon after, she transitioned into high school teaching where she won the Teacher of the Year award for Heath City Schools. Currently, she is finishing her PhD in Rhetoric, Composition, and the Teaching of English at the University of Arizona. She has won several teaching awards for her courses at the University of Arizona. Richards' writing can be read in the book, Writing Public Lives: From Personal Interests to Public Rhetoric, published by Hayden McNeil in 2010. Also, Richards has a forthcoming scholarly article, "Cyborgs on the World Stage: Hillary Clinton and the Rhetorical Performances of Iron Ladies," in the Spring 2011 edition of Feminist Formations (formerly the National Women's Studies Association Journal).
Bonnie Swanson
Info to come.
Susan Wenger
Info to come.
Find out more about her work at Cover to Cover, LLC.
Chris Zelek
Bachelor of Arts, Rutgers University: Creative Writing
Chris has spent over 20 years working in the field of Information Technology, following it from the early days of local area networks and desktop computers to the present-day omnipresence of the Internet.
He has worked for companies and organizations of very diverse backgrounds, ranging from reinsurance, aerospace and early childhood educational assessment to the U.S. government and Internet start-ups.
He is currently leveraging his technical skills and other professional experience as a business owner to step out from behind the computer server and become more involved in the world of the written word.
StudioGraphia also has a dedicated cadre of subcontractors with various skills and specialties. If you are interested in being considered for future project work, send your CV to the project managers at StudioGraphia.
Infrastructure & Community Support
Read more about StudioGraphia's SUSTAINABILITY efforts
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