In addition to being an accomplished author, Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow is an experienced ELA professional development provider and antiracist educator who loves to speak on these topics. She has an M.Ed in Educational Leadership from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.S.Ed in Secondary English from Temple University and is certified to teach secondary English and secondary social studies. As an educator, she taught middle and high school English for over ten years and then directed programs at a nonprofit writing center for children ages 2-17. Through her work as a nonprofit program director, she trained staff and volunteers in teaching writing to youth and developed a wide variety of writing units and workshops. She also worked as a lead instructional designer and fellow for Muslim Anti-Racist Collaborative, writing antiracist curricula for all age groups in Muslim-centered spaces and creating foundational learning frameworks for use for future curricular design. Some representative adult programs she has done includes:

• Discussing the social justice implications and uses of children’s books (with a focus on anti-racism)
• Presenting principles for making writing workshop spaces inclusive for all children
• Read aloud of her books as if the adults were young children and then answering questions about them (this has been requested a number of times!)
• Teaching the craft and process of becoming a children’s book author
• Discussing writing identity and representation as a children’s book author