Our Team
We are extremely grateful for our team of volunteer editors. Without them, none of this would be possible.
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Jacinta V. White
Founding Publisher/
Editor-in-Chief
2015-2024
Carolyn Roy-Bornstein
Creative Nonfiction Editor
2021-2024
Lynette Davis
Poetry Editor
2024
Emily Price
Intern
2024
Chey Davis
Poetry Editor
2024
As a lover of all things healing and beautiful, I started The Word Project (TWP) in 2001, while living in Atlanta, to provide a safe space for urban youth to express themselves creatively. Since then, and upon moving to NC, TWP has grown to include those of all ages. In addition to working with others, using poetry as a catalyst for self-discovery and healing, my own poetry has been published in Typoetic.us, The New Verse News, Prime Number Magazine, and more. My chapbook, broken ritual, poems by Jacinta Victoria, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2012, and my full-length collection, Resurrecting the Bones: Born from a Journey through African American Churches & Cemeteries in the Rural South, was published in 2019, by Press 53. Snapdragon Journal is a dream that began in 2015. I'm blessed to see it come to fruition and to watch it grow. JacintaWhite.com
I am a retired physician, a writer, and a mother. My art limns the places where those worlds intersect. My work has been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, JAMA, Poets & Writers, and many other venues. I am the author of two memoirs and an essay anthology. I have led writing workshops at the University of Iowa and Harvard University, as well as at Grub Street and the Muse & the Marketplace in Boston. I believe in the transformative power of narrative. As the inaugural Writer-in-Residence of the Lawrence Family Medicine Residency program, I engage physicians in close readings of literary works and reflective writing exercises as a means of deepening understanding of ourselves, our patients, and each other. I have brought that experience and expertise to bear with my new book Writing Through Burnout: How to Thrive While Working in Healthcare.
Stories create meaning and change the world. As a poet and spiritual director, I strive to cultivate encounters that encourage truth to power, beauty in vulnerability, compassion in shared humanity, and integrity for a spirit-led creative life. I am the author of Success To Die For: Breaking Down Assumptions About Anxiety, Depression, & Suicide and Their Impact on Business Women and a contributing writer to Illuminate, a Quaker Bible Study series by Barclay Press. I received my MA in Theopoetics and Writing from Earlham School of Religion, where I was awarded the Tom Mullen Ministry of Writing Fellowship. I’m currently writing at the intersection of mental health, spirituality, and the creative life on Substack:
I am a second careerist moving from work as a Full Professor of English to full time psychotherapy. This has allowed me to throw off the tyranny of “the semester,” and get out into the world! I come to mental health therapy after 23 years of college English teaching. I recently graduated with my Master of Social Work (MSW) from Michigan State University. I hold a Master’s degree in English Language and Literature, and a Bachelor’s degree in English with concentrations in Creative Writing and Critical Theory. I work as an advocate for equity and anti-oppression through radical self-awareness and experiential learning; specialized in teaching social justice through the power of language, radical self-awareness, ethics, equity, the history of American racism, and cognition. I worked as a research participant with the Kettering Institute, and my poetic work has appeared in After Ferguson (Mourning Glory Press) and Really System, and Collection, with BiteMarks Press.
I am a senior English major at The University of Akron where I serve as the editor-in-chief of UA's literary journal AshBelt. I also volunteer with Consequence Forum Literary Journal and freelance with AloNovus for newswriting. Currently, I am working on my senior honor's project about voice in poetry -- meshing together my experiences with mental health and childhood into original poetry. I take my inspiration from Emily Corwin's collection of poetry, Marble Orchard.
Previous Editors
Petra Salazar
Poetry Editor/Managing Editor
2019-2022
Aimee Mepham
Creative Nonfiction Editor
2019-2022
Tina Firesheets
Blog Editor
2019-2022
Having been raised under the big skies of New Mexico, I have an eye for the sublime, whether arising in cerebral or raw emerging content. As a teacher & poet, I see both education & poetry as healing & liberatory practices that occur not only in traditional spaces, but everywhere in human society. I teach workshops through Snapdragon Journal & Philopoetics. My work can be found in Indiana Review, Sonora Review, The Southampton Review, Latin American Literature Today, The Journal of Latina Critical Feminism, The Acentos Review, Open Minds Quarterly, among others. I hold an MFA in Poetry from UNC-Greensboro. Additionally, I hold a Master of Education degree & a grad certificate in nonprofit mgmt from GWU.
I am the Assistant Director of the Humanities Institute at Wake Forest University and co-chair of the institute’s "Story, Health, & Healing" initiative, which develops programming in narrative medicine. My MFA in Creative Writing is from Washington University in St. Louis, and I have taught creative writing workshops at Indiana University, Washington University in St. Louis, Salem College, and Wake Forest University. You can find my work in Hobart, Meridian, and River Styx, among other journals, and I have performed twice by Liars’ League NYC, a live literary journal featuring professionally trained actors reading original short stories by writers.
I got my start in journalism with my high school newspaper, then served as editors for the campus newspapers of both colleges I attended. I was a journalist at the Greensboro News & Record for nearly 15 years, covering education, local government, community news and business. I most enjoyed my years as a feature writer for a national award-winning features section. I was also the founding editor of 1808: Greensboro’s Magazine, published by the Greensboro News & Record. While I was its editor, the magazine received NC Press Association and Society of Professional Journalists awards in the Best Niche publications categories. Currently, I am an associate creative director at Pace Communications.
Aginetta Mulima
Assistant Editor
2020-2023
As a former Inclusion Advocate, I see myself as a storyteller and lifelong student of social justice. I hold a B.A. in Writing and Global Studies from Cedar Crest College. Additionally, I hold an MFA in Creative Non-Fiction from Bay Path University. In my own writing, I explore the following themes; community, identity, nature, and racial awareness. My work has been featured in the Reads & Eats online literary journal.
Melina Casados
Poetry Assistant/Poetry Editor
2020-2022
Regina YC Garcia
Assistant Poetry Editor
2021-2022
Rachel Williams
Editorial Assistant
2020-2022
Cyndi Briggs
Creative Nonfiction Editor
2015-2019
Raised in North Carolina, I’m a daughter of Central American immigrants with a passion for dissecting the layers in overlooked, mundane occurrences; I believe in the power of perspective and its ability to challenge norms and inequitable structures. Now living in New York, I'm an MFA candidate at Brooklyn College. My poetry focuses on identity, culture, and relationships and has been featured in Ice Colony’s What They Leave Behind Latinx Anthology, Remington Review, and FreezeRay among others. .
I am a poet, writer, voice artist, narrator, presenter and English professor from Greenville, NC. In 2021, I was the semifinalist for the James Applewhite Poetry Competition sponsored by the North Carolina Literary Review and DAR National Poetry Award Winner. As a documentary poet whose poetry and poetic voiceovers featured in a 2019 Emmy Award winning mini-documentary on the PBS show entitled Muse (Episode 217, "The Black Light Project"), directed by Jonathan Arreola, I am excited to be poetry video contributor for South Florida Poetry Journal. Most recently, I've been published in Up the Staircase Quarterly, The Book of Black (anthology), and Black And.... I have upcoming poetry that will be published in The Main Street Rag Magazine and others.
An organizer at heart, mother to four and mimi to one. Founder of The EMMA Foundation for Healing, working with adolescent sexual abuse survivors and their families for over 5 years. I continue to serve survivors of abuse serving on the board of Annie’s Hope Center, and work as the program coordinator in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at Wake Forest School of Medicine. I love to watch healing come about through the Arts!
I was born and raised in the mountains of Southwest Virginia and currently lives in Winston-Salem, NC. I have worked as an addiction and mental health counselor and higher education administrator in student life and admissions. Professionally, I have maintained a private counseling/coaching practice, consulted with businesses and non-profits, taught at Walden, UNCC, Wake Forest, and Guilford College, and worked as a writer and blogger. In 2014, I accepted a core faculty position at Walden in the Clinical Mental Health Counseling program, where I continue to work full time. I also served as the principal researcher in a community oral history project with veterans which resulted in a staged reading of veterans' stories and written products.
Want to work with us?
We have year-round opportunities for volunteers and interns to help with social media.
The right fit will help us broaden our reach to share the importance of art as a catalyst for healing and wellbeing.
Send us an email with a cover letter and resume, and we will respond ASAP.