updated 12/21/2018
Photo by Fid Thompson
I’m a writer, artist, and editor with a passion for education and social change. I am based in Washington, DC, where I work as the managing editor for Bellwether Education Partners and volunteer with adult learners at Academy of Hope.
You can get my monthly email updates by signing up here.
My work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Washington City Paper, Pacific Standard, Harper’s Magazine, VICE, PANK, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, The Literary Review, and elsewhere. Here’s a full list of my published writing.
I am at work on a collection about violence, trauma, and resilience, with support from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities.
I received my M.F.A. from Columbia University, where I completed concentrations in nonfiction writing and literary translation.
I have taught composition and journalism at American University, University of Maryland, Corcoran College of Art + Design (R.I.P.), Trinity Washington University, and Columbia University. I’ve also taught high school creative writing through various community programs.
In 2013, I received the Zoland Poetry/Vermont Studio Center Translation Fellowship, and in 2012, I was awarded a fellowship to attend the inaugural Translation Lab at Ledig House. My chapbook “Short Shorts” was named a semi-finalist for the Gazing Grain 2014 Poetry Chapbook Contest.
In a previous life, I served as an organizer, activist, board member, writer, and consultant with social change organizations. Some groups I supported include: Campus Progress (now “Generation Progress”), the National Youth Advocacy Coalition, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, the Institute of Modern Russia, the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, and Feministing.
To contact me, email tpaperny [at] gmail [dot] com.
February 22, 2013 at 2:37 PM
I really enjoyed your article about Pat Singer. What a woman!
March 11, 2013 at 7:11 PM
Thank you, Steve! She is quite a character, isn’t she? I’m glad that came through in the piece.
March 6, 2014 at 9:40 PM
[…] morning, after reading my post on Ukrainian literature, the translator/writer/editor Tanya Paperny passed along the following letter, which is signed by twenty-one Russian-language writers living in […]