Margo Perin is the Sonoma County Area Coordinator for California Poets in the Schools and has taught poetry and creative writing for more than thirty-five years.

A nominee for the Pushcart Prize, Margo’s teaching methodology has been featured internationally, including O, the Oprah Magazine, The Press Democrat, The San Francisco Chronicle Sunday Magazine, Mexico’s El Petit Journal, Holland’s Psycologie. Her book publications include The Opposite of Hollywood; Only the Dead Can Kill: Stories from Jail; and How I Learned to Cook & Other Writings on Complex Mother-Daughter Relationshpips, as well as co-founder of Whoa Nelly Press, whose mission is to publish unheard, marginalized voices.

Margo teaches poetry and creative writing in schools, after-school programs, juvenile hall, alternative schools, children’s homes, through Poetry Out Loud, libraries, community centers, art centers, hospitals, jails and prisons. Since the October 2017 Sonoma County fires, Margo has taught writing workshops to children and adults to help them heal from the trauma of the fires, as featured in The Press Democrat.

Having grown up in five countries and two continents with a father on the run from the law, Margo has a deep understanding of issues faced by at risk children, youth and adults and the exigencies of living as an outsider to mainstream culture. As a writer, her direct, hands-on development of writing techniques to help foster a strong sense of identity, self-empowerment and healing from trauma informs her teaching methodology. Her experience as a cancer survivor has also given her a special understanding of the particular and often invisible needs of students with health issues. She is passionate about providing the opportunity for commonly unheard or marginalized perspectives and stories to be expressed and appreciated.