Ellen Tichenor came of age during the U.S. civil rights movement and has never stopped working for justice. While in college  she participated in sit-ins and reported on movement-related events for several community newspapers in Philadelphia.  Her writing includes articles, speeches, poems, stories, and numerous grant proposals.  In the late 1978, she founded a school for low-income women based on the teachings of Paulo Freire, placing the lives and stories of the students at the center of the curriculum. She taught English Composition and Writing Across the Curriculum.  Then as a program officer for the U.S. Department of Education, Ellen supported applicants and recommended grants for innovators in colleges and universities throughout the U.S.  In 1992, she returned to school to study organizational and group dynamics (M.A.B.S.). She helped build, and then lead, a citywide youth empowerment collaboration of 40 Philadelphia organizations.  For the American Friends Service Committee, she developed a union/management listening project, and a race relations initiative for the nationwide American Friends Service Committee.  In 2000, Ellen started her own consulting group focused on improving communication, developing leaders and addressing conflict within the nonprofit sector.  She also taught a seminar at Haverford College entitled “Race, Sex, Money and Power.”

Ellen loves music, movies, the sea, growing food and flowers, and the written word.  Her determination to end the Occupation only deepened during a human rights trip to Palestine and Israel in 2008, at the start of the Gaza War, where she witnessed first-hand the day-to-day injustices endured by Palestinian people.  She hopes to contribute her skills to add clarity and amplify the voices of young writers, so they can share the truth of their experience with a wider audience.