Samuel Miranda

Washington, DC

As a teacher, if you're really paying attention, you're learning more about yourself.  But they also taught me to be a writer. They forced me to be a writer actually because I didn’t know what I was doing, so I was like, let me teach something I like.  So I started teaching poetry and I started teaching literature because I was teaching English.  I just didn't, I had no idea how to do a curriculum for like 14, 15 year olds.  So I figured I'd teach them something that I enjoyed.  The first time I read out in front of people was actually because I took a group of students and we went to Mangoes, a restaurant that had an open mic run by Toni Asante Lightfoot.  I was like, “Is anybody reading?” And all the kids looked at me and were like, “So what you gonna do?”  And I'm like, “Okay, but if I sign up every single one of you signing up to read as well.”  After the kids read, the writers that were in that space, “So why don’t you, why did you do that?” asked them questions about their writing.  That night for me was scary as all get out because I'd never read in front of anybody.  But that was the first night.  And that was night I knew this is the community I want to be a part of.