| About Alan Lawrence Sitmor |
Alan
Lawrence Sitomer was named California’s 2007 Teacher of the
Year. He is also the critically acclaimed author of numerous
books which engage young adult readers.
In
2004, Mr. Sitomer received the prestigious award for Classroom
Excellence from the Southern California Teachers of English and
in 2003 he was honored as Teacher of the Year by California
Literacy. As an educator, Mr. Alan (as his students like to call
him) works as an inner-city high school English teacher in Los
Angeles as well as a professor in the Graduate School of
Education at Loyola Marymount University. His young adult novels
include The Hoopster, Hip-Hop High School and
Homeboyz, an urban trilogy published by Disney. Mr. Sitomer
is also the author of Hip-Hop Poetry and The Classics, a
text used in classrooms across the United States to engage
disengaged students.
Alan
is also a nationally renowned speaker specializing in engaging
reluctant readers and writers who appears frequently across the
country. Currently, Mr. Sitomer lives in Los Angeles with his
wife, Tracey, his daughter, Sienna, and his dog, Paris.
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| About Michael Cirelli |
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Michael Cirelli is a poet and
educator from Providence, Rhode Island. He has been an Individual
Finalist at The National Poetry Slam and was the only person to make
all three Bay Area slam teams in the same year, winning the finals in
both San Francisco and Berkeley. He was a two-time member of both the
Oakland Slam Team and the Long Beach Slam Team, as well as the
Individual Grand Slam Champion of NYC Union Square. He has performed
his work all over the United States and Canada and has taught writing
workshops up and down the West Coast and in NYC. While in Los Angeles,
he was the director of PEN Center West's Poet In The Classroom
program. He is currently the Associate Programs Coordinator for Urban
Word NYC through the Teachers and Writers Collaborative and has an MFA
from The New School University. He has been published in numerous
journals and anthologies and has self-published seven chapbooks. He
currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.
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About Taaron
Siverstein, Our Off the Hook Cover Artist |
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Taaron
Silverstein is delighted to have gotten the opportunity to design the
cover for this book! She was born in Cincinnati, Ohio where, at age
four, her love of hip-hop was born when her dad brought home the 12”
of Rapper’s Delight. Many years - and rap tapes later - she
received a BFA with a degree in Graphic Design from Miami University.
She now works at Midway Games in Chicago as video game artist. She is
also an accomplished painter. As you can see, Taaron has mad skillz.
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