Spartan Writing Camp Staff
Our camp instructors are experienced teachers and Red Cedar Writing Project (RCWP) Teacher Consultants (TCs).

Trixie Smith
Trixie G. Smith is a Professor or Rhetoric and Writing at Michigan State University where she is the founding director of GALE: Global Alliances in Literacy and Engagement, which builds on the global engagement work begun over her past 20+ years as a writing center director. She also directs the Red Cedar Writing Project MSU’s site of the National Writing Project which focuses on K- university teachers and the teaching of writing. She is also faculty with the Center for Gender in Global Context. Her teaching, research, and publications are infused with issues of gender, queerness, and activism even as they revolve around writing centers, writing across the disciplines, global partnerships, and teacher training. These often intersect with her commitments to community engagement, embodiment, supporting graduate writers, and the idea that we’re just humans learning with/from other humans (you know, with bodies, feelings, lives outside the academy). Her work can be seen in College Composition and Communication, Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, Writing Center Journal, The Peer Review, Feminist Pedagogies, and numerous edited collections. Her book-length works include Graduate Writing Across the Disciplines: Identifying, Teaching, and Supporting, Building Bridges through Writing, The Pop Culture Zone, and the forthcoming Queer Praxis in the Writing Center: Expanding Intersectional Paradigms. Smith was co-editor of the Fountainhead Press X Series in Professional Development from 2007-2017.

Grace Pregent-Halford
Grace Pregent-Halford teaches at Michigan State University as the Associate Director of the Writing Center and co-directs the Community Writing Center at the East Lansing Public Library. She enjoys writing, researching, and talking about minor characters in stories, movies, shows, and music and she shares about this work in her forthcoming book In Praise of the Minor Character. Grace lives near Grand Rapids, MI, with her family, and they enjoy hiking, horseback riding, and traveling together. Her favorite color is black, and her favorite place on campus is the MSU Dairy Store.

Amy Huntley
Amy Huntley has been a teacher for 35 years. She’s taught every grade from 7th through community college, and most recently retired from teaching high school English at Okemos High School. Since then she’s been working with the Education Department at Michigan State University helping English Education interns refine their teaching practices. She joined the Red Cedar Writing Project at Michigan State during its first year in 1993.
Amy has had a life long love of story. She’s published one young adult novel through Harper Collins, titled The Everafter. More importantly, she dates her beginnings as an author to her experience as a four year old—before she could write. That’s when she began been composing stories by going on wonderful fantasy adventures in her own imagination—often with iconic characters like Babar and Snoopy. These became the basis for her love of writing and reading.

Annette Kelly
Annette Kelly is an eighth grade English/Spanish teacher at Beagle Middle School in Grand Ledge, Michigan. She began teaching 32 years ago, and has taught several different grade levels ranging from third grade to high school. Fourth graders are her favorite! In 2012 she became a Red Cedar Writing Consultant. Writing is her passion, and she enjoys working in the summer at Spartan Writing Camp. Seeing young writers take a idea and create a piece of writing that is uniquely theirs is such a rewarding experience for her. In her spare time she enjoys spending time with her family, reading, traveling, and of course, writing. She lives in Grand Ledge with her husband and 4 children.

Maureen Chagnon
Maureen Chagnon is an MSU graduate with a passion for teaching and writing. She completed her undergraduate education in 2007, with a major in Language Arts and a concentration in Elementary Education, as well as her Masters in Teaching and Curriculum in 2012, both from MSU. She has 3 kids, who have all been sufficiently brainwashed to be Spartan fans, ages 8, 6, and 2. Most of her classroom experience has been with 4th grade and writing has always been her favorite subject to teach. Seeing young writers get excited about writing and inspired by what is around them is one of the highlights of teaching. Maureen is currently running a business from home, while teaching her little learners, before they are all in school full-time and she can return to her own classroom. She loves reading, skiing, coffee, Pilates, and going on adventures with her husband and children.

Tracy Grennell
Tracy Grennell is currently a K-5 STEM teacher at Bath Elementary School. This is her third year teaching with the Red Cedar Writing Project Summer Camp. One of her favorite things about teaching writing is seeing students take risks and try new things. She loves using the summer to enhance students’ writing and STEM skills. In her free time she enjoys coaching Girls on the Run and a LEGO FIRST Robotics club called Bee-Botics. Her hobbies include traveling, spending time with family and reading.

Ben Woodcock
Ben Woodcock is a teacher, writer, reader, and researcher.
Ben is an English teacher at Okemos High School. As a lifelong learner, he is always looking into new ideas and ways to bring English to life in his classroom.
He has been a teacher consultant for the Red Cedar Writing Project since 2015. Ben is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Michigan Council of Teachers of English.
Ben is an avid sports fan! He enjoys watching the MSU Spartans on the football field and basketball court! He also enjoys running and hiking.

Savannah Harris

Jill Hoort
Jill Hoort currently works an instructional coach with East Lansing Public Schools. She has over 20 years of teaching experience at the elementary level in Grand Ledge, Okemos, and East Lansing Public Schools. In 2015, she became the elementary co-director of the Red Cedar Writing Project. In 2017, Jill took over leadership of Spartan Writing Camp after a decade of teaching camp. Bringing exciting and engaging writing opportunities led by passionate teachers to our local community is her mission as camp leader. In her free time, Jill enjoys spending time with her three kids and two dogs, reading, running, and exploring the great state of Michigan.

Bethany Meadows
Bethany Meadows loves the open-ended ways that writing can look for dreaming of new potentials for perceiving the world. They love video, board, card, and role-playing games. Bethany loves to hang out with loved ones and her three pets: Griffey, a chihuahua-terrier mix; Lucy, a black lab mix; and Jada, a black and white cat.
In their professional life, Bethany earned her PhD in Writing and Rhetoric from Michigan State in 2024 and currently works as an Educator Developer in MSU’s Center for Teaching and Learning Innovation. Prior to this role, Bethany has taught in a wide variety of contexts for middle and high school students up to college students and faculty.

Amanda Hawks
Amanda is really interested in thinking about the ways writing can be collaborative, social, and fun! She’s also interested in the ways that writing, and writing in community, can be used to create the worlds we want to see. She writes in her job, when playing d&d with her friends, and in other spaces. In her free time, she enjoys playing games, watching movies, and spending time with her friends.
In her professional life, Amanda is the Associate Director of Outreach at the Michigan State University Writing Center. She’s been working in writing centers for 12 years total, and in that time has really learned to love talking with people about writing.

Dawn Reed
Dawn Reed believes that our stories and words matter. She celebrates the joy of imagination and creativity through writing. Dawn is a fan of wizarding worlds and fantasy, including Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings.
Dawn is an English teacher at Okemos High School and co-director of the Red Cedar Writing Project at Michigan State University. Dawn enjoys working with writers of all ages.
Dawn is looking forward to spending time being creative with witches and wizards in Spartan Writing Camp’s Wizarding World of Writing.

Nicholas Meadows
Nicholas Meadows is an avid game enthusiast. He is compassionate about competitive gaming and board game design. Nicholas is a former Twitch streamer and YouTuber who has competed twice in the Pro Tour for Magic the Gathering and has achieved high ranks in games such as Hearthstone, Risk: Global Domination, and Marvel Snap. In his free time, he always loves playing board games, card games, and tabletop games (like Dungeons and Dragons) with friends.
In his professional life, Nicholas received his PhD in Mathematics from Ohio State University. He spent many years teaching mathematics at the high school and college level during graduate school. He currently works as an Actuarial Associate in the homeowners department and is also the head of the Interdepartmental Efficiency and Automation committee at Auto-Owners Insurance in Lansing.

Elana Waugh
Elana Waugh currently teaches Young Fives-1 STEAM and Art at Wilkshire Early Childhood Center in Haslett. During her 28 year teaching career, she has taught students at all grade levels K-5. She has been involved with the Red Cedar Writing Project since 2016 and has been teaching Spartan Writing Camp since 2017. Elana loves all things art and tries to incorporate as much as she can into her sessions. She enjoys reading, exploring nature, and being creative with her husband and three children.

Mary Wilkinson
Mary Wilkinson lives with her husband and her cat Abbott in East Lansing, Michigan, She received her undergraduate and graduate degrees from Michigan State University. Mary is a retired teacher and has taught children from preschool to 6th grade. She’s been a National Writing Project Consultant since 2012 and loves writing each summer with Spartan Writing Campers. In her spare time she enjoys traveling, reading, photography, making pottery, painting, riding her bike and especially writing about her sassy cat.

Jen Garmon
Jen Garmon has loved to write for pleasure ever since third grade, when she won a school story writing contest. Since then, her favorite outlets for creative expression have been through journaling and poetry. As an adult, she enjoys writing alongside her teacher-writer friends and her students, and she loves being a part of Spartan Writing Camp.
Jen is an MSU graduate who taught English and Creative Writing at Okemos High School for more than a decade. She is currently a librarian at Ralya Elementary School in Haslett, where she also leads an after-school Writing Club. Jen is married with two children, and she spends much of her free time discovering new stories–especially picture book biographies and nonfiction–at local bookstores and the Capital Area District Library.

Lindsey Ryan
Lindsey Ryan has sixteen years of teaching experience. She loves teaching students in the middle grades, and has taught grades 5th-8th throughout her career. She currently teaches English Language Arts in DeWitt, where she lives with her husband and two elementary-aged daughters. With an English major and a Master’s Degree in Educational Technology, she loves to be creative and share her love of creativity with her students. She is excited for her second summer teaching Spartan Writing Camp.

Monica DeGarmo
Monica is a Portland, Oregon native who has called the Midwest home for over 10 years. She and her husband live in northwest Detroit where she is a high school ELA Teacher at The School at Marygrove, a K – 12 campus on the grounds of the former Marygrove College that specializes in community and project-based learning. Her passion is cultivating spaces where students feel engaged, empowered, connected, and brave enough to take risks in their writing, thinking, and critical lens of how they see the world.
She received a Bachelor’s in English and Community Leadership from Aquinas College, a Masters in Community Development and Social Justice from Loyola University Chicago, and a Doctorate in Education Leadership from MSU. If the temperature is above 50 degrees, she likely has dirt in her fingernails from gardening. She’s training for the Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, MN at the end of June. If you are in her session, she’ll be seeking song recommendations for her training runs.

Lori Van Hoesen
Lori Van Hoesen’s first memories are of stories she told herself when she was supposed to be taking naps. She grew up writing plays and stories before eventually deciding to make a career of building writing communities in classrooms. She has worked as a literacy advocate in Michigan schools where she wrote with students, performing her original works and stories from the oral tradition. The Red Cedar Writing Project at Michigan State connected her with other teachers who share her belief that everyone’s story has value. She has spent the last thirteen years working in Grand Ledge Public Schools. Helping students discover the power in mastering their own language continues to be one of her greatest joys.

Tania de Sostoa-McCue
Tania de Sostoa-McCue was born in Brazil and has lived in three different countries, but currently lives in Farmington, Michigan. Experiencing many different cultures really opened her eyes and heart, and as a result, her approaches to creativity. Tania loves how playful writing can be. She loves exploring how words can be transformed into so many types of composition. Writing opens so many doors, and she loves working with students to see what is on the other side of each of their own doors. From creating zines and videos to fanfiction, poetry and memoir, Tania loves finding ways to recreate what has been created.
In her professional life, Tania is an assistant professor who teaches first year writing at Michigan State University. Tania is a lifelong Spartan: she earned her Bachelors, Masters and PhD at MIchigan State University. She became a Red Cedar Writing Consultant in 2017. Tania has worked with students from middle school through college and loves teaching students of all ages.